Back up your Hard Drive

Hi
Does anyone know of any free downloadable programs that will copy and burn the whole of your hard drive. I have just finished downloading all the updates for XP on to a new fresh clean computer and would like to make a back up copy of the whole drive just in case there is ever a problem in the future. As this is to be used just by the children im sure there will be problem, and i would like to be able to get the comp back quickly and painlessly to the state is in now before thay have had time to touch it
Any ideas
I curently have nero 5 which doesn't suport the XP file system or somthing like that.
Thanks
Stitch

 

Hi Steve
Thanks for the reply. I dont mind buying software programs but in this case i only need to use it once so realy dont want to spend money if i dont need to. this computer is for the children and i would like to get it back to the state it is in now if the inevitable happens (it will) im not gonna be backing it up every day or week or anything. I have just spent the last three days building this machine and downloading updates and dont want to do it again.
Thanks anyway
Stitch

 

Hi Stitch,

I don't know of any freeware that will do what you want, but PowerQuest makes an excellent product V2i Protecter, Desktop Edition, Version 2. This program does everything that PQ's Drive Image does but it also takes incremental backups.

If the computer for the children has only 1 hard disk, you may want to save the image to a USB removable hard disk. This would protect you if there were a hard disk failure or if the children decided to tweak the registry or the OS, making it mandatory to do a clean restore after an reformatting the hard disk.

You could install v2i on the children's computer, produce an image of the computer and then uninstall v2i. Then you would be free to use V2i on your computer.

See the link below, for more information about V2i.

http://webstore.powerquest.com/dr/v...0023&xid=48185&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=0


Cheers,

Linda

 

Thanks Linda
I will check it out
Stitch

 

V2i plus the MS free net software(20 odd mega) is about 70 USD
- I would wait a while on that one. The installed app is about
40 mega.
Another drawback is that PowerQuest unfortunately now belongs to Symantec, so the the product will be "worked over" and thereby become 3 times bigger and 3 times less useful.
regards

 

Hi Merlin,

"V2i plus the MS free net software(20 odd mega) is about 70 USD
- I would wait a while on that one. The installed app is about
40 mega. "

"Another drawback is that PowerQuest unfortunately now belongs to Symantec, so the the product will be "worked over" and thereby become 3 times bigger and 3 times less useful."

Merlin, I have no idea what you are referring to in terms of "MS free net software ". Please explain.

Symantec paid $150 million for PowerQuest because it didn't have any competing products with the exception of Ghost with PQ's Drive Image and V2i. I am told that Symantec execs even admitted that Drive Image is superior to their Ghost product. And V2i is superior to Drive Image.

So far they are keeping the PowerQuest team in tack and the PQ developers are definitely light years ahead of Symantec's developers.

If you are concerned about what Symantec might do to PQ's products, then that I would think that you would want to purchase it now.

Linda

 

Hi Linda - this is a quote from the PowerQuest website :
" V2i Protector requires the Microsoft .NET Framework Service Pack. .NET requires an additional 40 MB of disk space. Click here to download the Microsoft .NET Framework free of charge from Microsoft. "
I assume this requirement is still valid.
I do not agree buying V2i now is a good move, as there will be unsure updates, incompatibilities and, of course, zero support from Symantec.
regards

 

PowerQuest product development was done in a very systematic way adhereing to development standards. There documentation was also excellent because it had questions and it was comprehensive and detailed including a troubleshooting section, error code section.

I judge the quality of software by the quality of the documentation. If all of the i's are dotted and all of the t's are crossed as they have been in PQ software, this gives me confidence that the product is well designed and thoroughly tested. PQ was also very prompt to alert its customers to any problems, which were discovered and with the workarounds. Sometimes the post was that their team was working on the problem.

As a result PowerQuest has a lot of loyal customers both at the corporat level and on the individual level. If Symantec messes with the PQ area and brings it down to the Symantec's low standard, then they will have wasted $150 million because PQ's customers will flee.

I believe that Symantec will leave PQ alone because it is in their best interest to leave it alone. I think that Symantec bought PowerQuest for the following reasons:

1. It expands their marketing base and in most cases Symantec did not have any competing products. They admitted that PQ's Drive was superior to Ghost, which was the only competing product.

2. PQ's loyal customer base

3. To learn from PQ's internal standards and procedures and to improve some of Symantec's existing products.

Remember, there was another Utah company (WordPerfect), which was sold for over $900 million to Novell and a couple of years later Novell was sold again for $90 million. This illustrates what happens when you mess with a winning formula.

I am monitoring the PQ situation very closely, and so far I am still recommending PQ products.

With regards to V2i being developed in the .NET environment, I view this as a plus because it will be more efficient to upgrade the code. In addition, some parts of the code can also be used in their other products.

Linda

 

Ghost comes with Norton System Works. Get it for $15.

http://www.softwarenevada.com/Merch...Code=5205&AFFIL=google++"norton+system+works%

I wouldn't mess around without some sort of disk imaging program. I use Drive Image 2002.