G'day all! Recently had a bit of a catrospphe with Xp, Got a nasty virus, had to do a clean install. So now I am back up and runnin, I need to have a more robust back up system. So can you recommend a peice of software that will allow me to take an image of my OS disk that I can shove out to an external as a file (like an .iso). Thing is my external is only 250gb, so im going to be pushed for space, but I will need something that will backup my data (videos, music, pic, documents etc) aswell and compress them down. So there anything you can recommend? Thanks in advance!
Drive Snapshot is a small (<250KB) utility that will backup and restore full partitions. It will allow you to view past backups (handly for retrieving individual files) and compresses as it copies (though savings will be marginal with already compressed data like *cough* videos, music and already-compressed downloads) - it will use multiple CPU cores for that compression. It can do differential backups (covering only the changes made since the last full backup) to save time and space. Best of all, the backup can run in the background while you're doing other things on your PC (it will intercept accesses to files not yet backed up to copy them first). The free download has time-limited (1 month) backup and unlimited restore capability so is ideal for once-off backups. Another option to consider (probably a more user friendly one) is Acronis TrueImage - I'd suggest reviewing the support forum (soon to be closed) though, to check on reported problems (there have been rather too many threads on corrupted backups there for my taste).
yeah clonezilla will do it.. I really like acronis true image home 2009- you can go into the backup and take out files you need if you want- or restore the whole image.. or create incremental backups so you have snapshots of your system over time has some other features too like file shedder.. they did have some issues with earlier versions but the latest version is pretty stable
Norton Ghost 14, it was recommend to me buy pookyhead. Ghost really works well, allows for automated backups and drive imaging. It is not like there crap anti-virus software. I have only had to use it once so far, cant remember what bricked windows, but i threw the Norton disc in, which live boots and with in 30min i was back online and working. It all depends on the size of your HDD on how long it takes of course.
don't take images of all your data. that's a waste of space and time and might save some screw-ups. here's how to not screw up your system: you need three hard drives (or partitions). one for system, one for data, and one for backup. install a fresh copy of windows onto the system partition, set everything up the way you want it, and redirect any folders in which you save your data to point to the data partition. if you don't store any of your data on the system partition, you can wipe/reimage your system without losing any data. take an image of that fresh clean copy, save it to your backup drive. before you make any big changes to your system, restore the image of the fresh install. make your changes, then take another image. this way you always have an image of a clean system configured the way you want it. after two weeks, when you know the new image is good and you won't have to use the old image you can delete it from your backup drive. rsync your data partition to your backup drive so you're protected from HDD failure.
yeah that's how I do it.. have a systembackup that's known to be perfect with all apps installed, twekas, ect.. then if the machine boinks for whatever reason- just take a incremental of what's on (or whats left XD) of that drive and then restore to the original systembackup.. any data you need to recover will be in the incremental and you can get rid of it after it's recovered on your own time- or even quicker, just copy the folders you want saved and then do the systembackup restore, skip the incremental altogether toad knows what's up.. if you've ever had to do it- that's always the best way.. you can update the systembackup every so often to get updates in there, but not really neccessary
