Imaging options

Please forgive me if this has been covered. I'm running xp pro on fat 32, and I want to do a major clean-up and reorganize things onto multiple partitions, keeping my windows system files isolated on their own partition. I'm already getting beyond my comfort zone just doing that. I would like to use something like Ghost or Acronis to save my files and applications to CDs to avoid reinstalling everything from the original discs. I have the licences for everything, but I have lost some product codes, and would also like to avoid redownloading a number of small aps that i find useful. I have used boot magic in the past for such things, and found it a great dissapointment. I guess I need something that will let me save everything I need and let me put it on multiple partitions the way I want without knowing what I'm doing. Any ideas?


Operating System System Model
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 (build 2600)

Processor a Main Circuit Board b
667 megahertz Intel Pentium III
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Asus CUW-AM/MEW-AM 2.06
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD 2.06 11/17/00
Drives Memory Modules c,d
60.01 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
33.79 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

LITE-ON LTR-52327S [CD-ROM drive]
LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163 [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 [Hard drive] (40.02 GB) -- drive 1, s/n WD-WCAD12543414, rev 05.03E05, SMART Status: Healthy
WDC WD600JB-00CRA1 [Hard drive] (60.02 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WMA8F2730735, rev 17.07W17, SMART Status: Healthy 384 Megabytes Installed Memory
Local Drive Volumes

c: (on drive 0) 60.01 GB 33.79 GB free

 

Since you asked for ideas, I'll volunteer mine.

I don't recommend doing what you mentioned since it's a lot of bother for little reward. The best time to implement that strategy is when the system is new and uncluttered. Besides, your hard drive is small enough that one partition will work just fine.

Consider this, if you think keeping all the programs on a separate partition will allow you to reload a hosed system and not have to reinstall any software, think again. Many programs have Registry dependancy and will require a reload when the system is changed.

That being offered, if you still want to do this deed for whatever reason, I recommend Partition Magic for the job. First do a Defrag of the drive, whether or not Windows says you need it, then use Partition magic to create the partitions you desire. PM will do this with no loss of present data but it is always advisable to make a good full backup image just in case. Power failures and other unforseen things provided by Murphy's Law, can leave your data at risk.

For an excellent imaging software for the backup job, I recommend Acronis True Image. I've used all the others and this one is the hands down winner. Any version from 6 forward will do nicely so shop around for a bargain. The current version is 8 I think and other than incremental backups, it has little more to offer the casual user.

Good luck and post back if you need further help. I don't mean to discourage you but just gave my opinion on kicking sleeping dogs.

ps. I recommend that you install a second hard drive to keep your backup images on. It's the safest and fastest way to get good protection. Burning them to cd's is time consuming and tends to lead to neglect.

pps. Always check the backup images to ensure their integrity. ATI ver. 7 & 8 have the built in ability to do that. Version 6 can do it if you download the free stand-alone checker from the site.

 

Thank you for your response. I'm not adamant about separate partitions. I wanted to try a separate logical for windows based on the experiences of freinds who insist it's the best way to go. I have a second hard drive I could use to temporarily store files if I need to. I'm using it in my latest attempt to learn linux, and there is nothing on it I would miss if I started over. My main objective In this endeavor is to save what I want from my current xp install, and put it back in a new install without a year's worth of clutter. My original install was slightly corrupted to begin with, and I have accumulated all sorts of trash since. My thinking is that it would be better to restore what I want on a clean install of xp than to try to clean out the clutter file by file. I'll look into a copy of Acronis.