How do you "ghost" or "image" XP or C drive

How do you "ghost" or "image" XP or C drive (someone wrote XP and someone else said image of the C drive)? How and where do you store it?

Thanks.

 

Hi Zannetti,

To do a "ghost" image or to "image your drive you will need a program like Ghost (from Symantec, the same mob that created Norton) or Drive Image. Also, if you do not have a large disk and cannot spare around 5 Gb, the ideal would be to use a second disk (slave) to keep the image.

When using the same physical disk, one should partition it in at least 2 partitions. The first would be Drive C:, where your OS lives and the second for data and where you would keep your image. So, after the image was created, it would be kept in the second partition. If the OS crashes (Drive C the whole thing can be restored (including all the programs installed until the image was created) from the image and you would be back alive pretty quick. Because I have lots of junk on my drive C:, when I restore my image it takes me around 30 minutes to get back on line.

This is good if the crash was the OS only. If the hard disk really crashes, then everything is gone of course. That's why it is better to keep the image in a separate hard disk. I do that. I have an extra 6.4 Gb only for image. When I need it I connect it as slave and restore the image. Then I remove it and reconnect the good slave.

An image is a big file, usually around 2 to 3 Gb, compressed, that contains all the stuff that lives in the partition or disk you are imaging.

I use Ghost from Symantec and Partition Magic V 7 from Power Quest to partition my drives. Visit the sites and download the demos.

Believe me: if you like to muck around with your system, installing junk and funny programs to learn or just to be adventurous, the image is the better insurance you have... Speciall with the "sensitive" junk from Microsoft...

Cheers!

 

Thank you for the explanation. I'll check it out, but doubt I'll have the nerve to try it right now.

 

Zanetti,

It is worth a try. If you get Ghost and install it, you can create a boot disk with the main program, boot from it and then create the image. Partitioning will need a bit of learning but it is not hard. Let me know if I can help.

Cheers,

 

This site has freeware progs for cloning and imaging XP...

http://home.carolina.rr.com/lexunfreeware/

Worth a try...

 

Looks good...

Hey Rich,

I visited the site and it looks good. I might try it sometime. I wonder if the size of the resulting image is smaller than with Ghost... Do you have any experience with those freeware?

Cheers,

 

I use Instant Recovery and have had no problem booting anything it restores.

It's user friendly and costs about half ($35.95) what the others do.

I've looked at the free stuff, and if you feel up to it, you can save some dough but you gotta be alert.....one little slip...you're gone.

 

I too am intimidated by the process of using Norton Ghost, and haven't jumped in yet...but a friend of mine who works for Symantec suggested this site:

http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1.htm

From what I've seen of it so far, it's a good starting place

 

Creating the Ghost is harmless. Just a backup, so to speak. Won't harm your system even if you goof badly.

And if the time comes you need to restore from the Ghost image, it will probably (the first time anyway) be because your system is totally trashed and you can't make it any worse.

 

just make sure you go to the RIGHT drives/slave/master combination

In other words, don't copy your slave onto your master. This was one of the first rules I learned while dealing with ghosting software, take your time and just look at what your doing carefuly, or you can copy the wrong partion/image and you're completely messed up.

 

I agree with Ningaming above...

I specifically label my partitions with names that help me to identify them (WinXP for the 1st, Drive D for the 2nd, Images, where I keep the images, etc...). It is easy to messy the whole thing up specially when you are very upset with Microsoft and in a hurry to get the system back on-line...

Cheers,

 

I do now...

v1.3 of DrvImager is buggy...My 1,120MB XP partition (which PQDI images to 810MB @ 40%) got to 3GB before I killed it...

However, the site states that v 2.0 will be released this week...I'm going to try it again then...

 

Hey,

That is cary... I'll stick with Ghost for now... Keep us posted!

Cheers,