Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

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ScottLovesDogs

Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

I need to make a disk image of a factory new hard drive from a Fujitsu laptop. It has a recovery partition on it, and self-installing Win XP. I want to upgrade the hard drive, but Fujitsu does not offer recovery CDs, just the built in recovery partition.

So, what I need to do is to make an image of the virgin HD and then write that image on to the new, larger HD that I will install in the laptop.

What software should I use to make the disk image? Acronis, Ghost?
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bubba
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by bubba »

I have had success with ghost 12 here at work. first back up the super critical info, because you just never know, Install Ghost, make the PC specific boot CD with the drivers needed for your machine. Then create the full system image to an external hard drive. Remove the old drive set aside for now, install the new drive and boot to the CD you made after installing Ghost. Restore the image to the new drive, reboot to test. Don't do anything to the old drive until you are sure the new one is working properly. Once your happy, destroy the old drive or pick up an external cage and use it as storage.
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DMB2000uk
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by DMB2000uk »

Second for ghost.

Dan
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ScottLovesDogs

Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

bubba wrote:I have had success with ghost 12 here at work. first back up the super critical info, because you just never know, Install Ghost, make the PC specific boot CD with the drivers needed for your machine. Then create the full system image to an external hard drive. Remove the old drive set aside for now, install the new drive and boot to the CD you made after installing Ghost. Restore the image to the new drive, reboot to test. Don't do anything to the old drive until you are sure the new one is working properly. Once your happy, destroy the old drive or pick up an external cage and use it as storage.
Glad that you both recommend Ghost, as that is what the restore CDs for my Omnibook, in my sig, uses. The Fujitsu, btw is my wife's. I'd like to make restore disks for her fujitsu that work like my HP's, though. All I have to do is put the HP restore disks in, start it up, tell it to boot from the CD drive, and ZAP, it runs Ghost (from the CD) automatically and writes the drive image from the CDs to the hard drive. Works with a completely blank, brand new aftermarket hard drive too. Will Ghost allow me to make a CD like that for the Fujitsu too?

Thanks
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bubba
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by bubba »

Not sure if you can do that or not, I can look at it in the morning and see if its an option. I just use an external drive to save the image to and when you boot to the Ghost disk it access the external drive for the restore image.
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ScottLovesDogs

Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

Thanks, Bubba, that would be helpful.
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Major_A
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by Major_A »

I hate Ghost, I've used Acronis True Image when I want to make a backup or tranfer hard drive contents to another hard drive. Hell you can try them both and move your data for free with the trial editions.
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

Bubba, I've been poking around and looking at the user manuals (there are a bunch of them, too) for Ghost Solution Suite, and found that it can do exactly what I want it too. I think, maybe. It is certainly what HP used to make my Omnibook recovery disks that will run only on an HP laptop. Ghost Solution Suite can make master CDs that are locked to a particular hardware configuration by requiring a specific bios string or cpu id. That is fine with me.

The only thing left to figure out is this: The Fujitsu has a hidden recovery/initial install partition made by/recovered by Drive Image Special Edition. It may be locked to Fujitsu hardware only. If I make an image of the whole drive for restoration-to-factory-new purposes, will it bugger things up if Ghost has to lock the CD image to the hardware too? Or maybe I can turn the lock off in Ghost. Too clarify, I don't mean turning off the original Drive Image lock, as I intend to use this only to restore the Fujitsu image to the Fujitsu (but with new, bigger HD), but to turn Ghost's lock off so that there are not two layers of locking involved.

Thanks for your help, it is greatly appreciated. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking at Ghost manuals.

BTW, do I really need to make a "distributable" restore CD, like HP did for my notebook, or can I use a simpler version of Ghost, like the home edition, to just make a full restore CD (including the hidden restore partition)?
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by bubba »

Looked at the Ghost 12 I use here at work. You can see the Hidden drives and allows you to make backup images for them.
ghost_screen_1.JPG
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on the backing up to disks

For CDR or DVD
When you save backup data to removable media, it is automatically split into the correct sizes if the backup spans more than one media.

If more than one drive is being backed up, the recovery points for each drive are stored independently on the media, even if there is space to store recovery points from multiple drives on the same media.

The scheduling of backups is not available when this option is used.

Note:
Using CD-RWs or DVD-RWs as your recovery point storage location is not the best option because you will be required to swap disks during the process.
For External Drives
The benefits of this option are as follows:

-Fast backup and recovery
-Can schedule unattended backups
-Inexpensive because drive space can be overwritten repeatedly
-Off-site storage is possible
-Reserves hard drive space for other uses

Although you can save the recovery point to the same drive that you are backing up, it is not recommended for the following reasons:

-As the number or size of recovery points grows, you will have less disk space available for regular use.
-The recovery point is included in subsequent recovery points of the drive, which increases the size of those recovery points.
-If the computer suffers a catastrophic failure, you may not be able to recover the recovery point you need, even if you save it to a different drive on the same hard disk.
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by alister »

I am a long time Ghost user, but after trying out Acronis True Image, I ditched Ghost and never looked back :) True Image is much better than Ghost. I like that you can create a clean install image in a hidden partition and then setup the True Image boot option. If something that you install hoses your system, you can just reboot, press F11 and then restore from the hidden partition.
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ScottLovesDogs

Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

Many thanks for your thoughts and help, especially Bubba.

Although I may not post here for a week or so, I am not going to forget this thread, and will report back my experiences trying to make a restore CD for the virgin hard drive with the hidden recovery partition on it. Heck, even if it is a recovery after the virgin disk runs the OS install, but before anything is done on it, that might be acceptable.

Meanwhile, gotta rest the eyes. Long story, which I will spare you, about an optician that kept screwing up my glasses for two weeks. I finally gave up and am going somewhere else tomorrow, but they send the 'script out to have the glasses made. So it is going to be another week before I can see without eyestrain again. Gotta take it easy on the eyes until then, especially after the last two days of all-day heavy legal paperwork (and, before anyone insults me: NO, I am not a lawyer). But, I will post my findings about making backups for virgin hard drives with hidden install and recovery partitions on them.
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Re: Disk Imaging Software Recommendations, please

Post by ScottLovesDogs »

Well, as much as I wanted to use Ghost, specifically Ghost Solution Suite 2.0, it was just way too complicated. Not only that, but the documentation was absolutely horrible. It probably can do what I would like, but I'm not going to spend weeks pouring over some of the worst documentation that I've ever seen to figure out how.

Wound up using a trial version of Acronis TrueImage Workstation 9.1. Connected the little, still virgin, drive to my big C2D machine with a USB housing and ran a full backup of it. Including the boot track and all partitions, and with a full version of ATI Workstation on the backup CDs, which allows for booting from the backup media. Produced 3 CDs. On the first attempt at restoring to a different hard drive (remember, the purpose was to clone the factory Fujitsu image to a bigger, better hard drive), ATI Workstation had a problem reading one of the three CDs, but on a subsuqent attempt, it went flawlessly. It even resized the partitions automatically because the destination disk was a different size than the original source.

Really wanted Ghost to work, it is what HP used for my Omnibook, and that is a very simple process. Boot from the Restore CD, and everything else is automatic. A bit more work with Acronis, but still very easy. Of course, that is because I chose for it to include a full version of ATI Workstation on the recovery media. There is the option for a "one-click" install and recovery too. And it's documentation beats Symantec's absolutely awful documentation.

And, after a very good eye exam, now waiting on arrival of new glasses.
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