Drive Image 2002 Help?

After a whole bunch of trouble with XP Home, I decided to use Drive Image 2002 to backup my system.

Problem is, I want to use the scheduling feature to do backups (images) to the same location as the existing image, made when I set up Drive Image. All I can get the scheduler to do is tell me the drive dosen't have enough space.

The reason is that there is already one image there. I'd like to set it to overwrite the existing image with a new one and have it done on a schedule, 'cause I'm sure I'd forget to do it myself.

So, I guess the question is: How do I get Drive Image 2002 to run unattended on a schedule and overwrite the existing image?

 

(Watching thread)

 

You don't (easily) with Drive Image.

Could be done with some fancy scripting but not worth it to me.

Since Drive Image does all its real work in DOS this requires the computer to be rebooted to complete, then boot back to windows.

Your best solution is to get an Image every so often. I usually do it every 6-8 weeks. In the meantime depend on updated restore points and a proceedure to backup the important stuff, your documents, email etc.

There are many programs to do this. Some have their own scheduler or you could use the windows scheduler.

The way I do it. I wrote a bat that zips Documents and settings (this gets many important things such as Favorites and My Documents), the OE folder and a couple of other important to me folders. This proceedure does not run in memory all day but executes only on startup if it is Monday or Friday. Since the files are freshend and only changed or new files are added I hardly see it when I boot.

An image restore is normally the last resort if you have problems. So before you image make sure to clean all temps, mru's, scan for and clean Viri and Spy/Adware etc. And for sure don't backup a problem fix them before imaging. Additionally this will reduce the size of the image and will image quicker.

Mike

 

What version have you ?
With 5.0 the old image will be automatically deleted before
a new one with the same name is created.
regards

 

Hi to all who chimed in on this. I have Drive Image 2002, no facility to scheldule & overwrite, I just can't spare the space to save two images.

Today I got an email from Powerequest, upgrade to 7.0, claims to do exactly what I want, so I ordered it.

Hopefully, it will do the job.

 

DI 7 is certainly an improvement over 6. It can make "hot" backups while Windows (no DOS but requires .NET to be installed) is running and by booting from the DI CD, you get support for external USB hard drives or CD-ROM's.

FYI: Acronis True Image had all that functionality already (and allows you to make multiple copies of bootable CD's or floppies):

http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/

 

Amen, Abraxas, I think Drive Image is just trying to play catch-up with Acronis
Paul

 

Jeez, and Acronis cost less than what I just paid for an upgrade to Drive Image.

I'm reasonably satisfied with Drive Image 7.0, One of the problem I have experienced so far is that when I try to store the image on backup partition created by Drive Image as partition 2 on the drive I get a Windows warning that "Delayed write failed" says data lost and it is probably a hardware failure. and "try saving the file to a different location "

If I store the image on the first partition, same drive, no problem. I suspect it is not a "hardware problem "

I can't get Drive Image to set up it's backup partition to be the first on the drive except maybe by clearing drive and setting up on drive with all unallocated space, then maybe it would be first, but I'd have to move everything off of the drive, I've already done that twice (see next paragraph) to solve some other partitioning problems, and I'm not going to do that again if I can help it.

so, I used Partition Magic to get partitions resized to accomodate this "delayed write failure" Problem with Partition Magic, it keeps setting aside unassigned space of 7.+ mb which drives me crazy, I hate giving up any space. So, I deleted all the partitions on the drive and partitioned unallocated space to two partitions which got rid of that 7+ MB set aside.

The next problem with Drive Image 7.0 is to recover files after a failure to boot, you must boot from the CD. Which wouldn't be a problem if I had one, but since I downloaded the program, I don't. They are supposed to ship it but not yet received. I can boot from 2002's rescue disks, I just hope that will work, no provision for creating boot disk in 7.0 that I can find. But hopefully CD will arrive before the next crash.

One heck of a lot of work to accomplish very little.

 

That was one thing I didn't like about the DI7---that there was no provision within the program for making the boot media. That's the main reason I went with Acronis.

Not sure if the DI6 boot disks will work with 7, but 6 didn't have the support for USB drives, anyway, and I like being able to use external hard drives for backup.

I also haven't tried to make a backup of the bootable DI7 CD, but if it is copy-protected, you will need to take very good care of it

 

Thanks for the tip on copying CD of DI 7, when I get it I will give it a go.

DI 2002 boot disks give the screen buttons for recovery, I just don't know if they'll work with 7.0, I don't want to try except in emergency. All drives here internal, so not concerned with usb. Have DVD burner, still trying to figure how to get DI 7.0 to write to dvd, tells me I need 26 to 51 CDs for complete back up. Not much compression I guess. Don't know if boot disk included, not mentioned, probably not. I guess I could copy the images to dvd, but how to restore if using Original CD to boot?? Need 2 CD drives. This is just a ******* up mess.

This is third version of DI and I have third version of PM. Powerquest has been milking my bank account, so, I'm determined to make it work.

Their support is non-existant except to explain error messages, if you happen to get one of the hundred or so listed on their site. The Windows error I got was not. No email support I could find, I think telephone support is $30- $35 per incident. They are really looking to alienate their customers. How sad.

 

This from their site about DI7:

"Save your backup to virtually any internal or external drive (CD or DVD burners, USB or FireWire devices, network locations). "

Since I have replaced it with Acronis, I can't try it, but there must be a way to burn the image to DVD

 

From DI 7's help file:
___________________________________________________
"CD-RW/DVD-RW
To store the backup images on disk media, click CD-RW/DVD-RW, then specify the CD or DVD drive where the backup images will be sent.

If you do not have a writable CD or DVD drive, this option will not appear. "
____________________________________________________

The option to back up to DVD does not appear, and, as I said, their online support is non existant, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give Power Quest another $1.00.

P.S. I have a dvd burner that works just fine outside of this program.

 

I found the way to implement burning to DVD. It is buried deep inside the tools, options. So, to back up to local again, got to go back to tools, options and enable burning to local drive. What a pain.

 

Thanks for the information. At least we know it's in there somewhere!

 

Greetings, All ~

Coupla questions....

I recently purchased DI7 and have been following this thread each day before I actually install. Let me get this straight...I have 2 data partitions - if I am to copy them w/ DI7, I won't be able to do it unless I have yet another drive that is at least as big if not bigger than either or both of them?

At his point in the game, I am not concerned with speed - just recovery. I have used DI only once a long time ago, had a bad experience, dumped it and tossed the CD. I got the new version and wish to try it.

What is the difference between Drive Image, Backup & Drive Copy? I thought it all was backup? (still working on the 90MB user's guide download which will take a week d/l off and on)

'Copy' simply duplicates the files/folders while 'Image' creates a picture so to speak from which I can replace an exact duplicate OS/settings/data to a hosed system - correct?

All I want to do is have my OS, config & data available for, as I understand it, a simple putting everything back the way it was nice and tidy in the event of a crash by simply sticking a CD in and clicking. I have one 18GB partition w/ OS, one 10GB w/ data & one >1GB w/ page/swap.

So...if I hose my system, I stick in a CD I made w/ DI7, boot, and everything jumps back to the way it was, fresh OS/settings/data like nothing ever happened.....right? Or no??

Can I do this w/ DI7 or should I fuggettabouddit?

 

Yes Bruce copy is just that. You need the actual size or larger to copy to.

Same for image, WITH 1 BIG DIFFERENCE. When you image select the compress and it could be 60-85% smaller.

I personally always image to another partition with compression and tell DI to make chunks to fit any media I plan to use. Example to burn to CDR I tell it to size parts to 690m.

When I boot to windows I just use normal CDR copying to get them to the media.

Tips for all imaging Ghost, etc, if possible deeply clean and delete page/swap file to make image as small as possible. It is not supposed to back up swap anyway, but i delete it to be sure.

Mike

 

You're welcome!!

 

Hi Martin???:

I found that with Drive Image I had to delete the existing Image File to make space for the New one. The system would then Re-Boot, and the New Image would be written. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that the most likely time a Drive will fail, would be at Boot-Up, and under these conditions, if the Back-Up had already been deleted, everything would be lost, which is not a very good result.

Over the years I have found that the best Back-Up scenario is to have 2 Drives. I still use Drive Image, but I use the Drive Copy facility, as opposed to Drive Image.

With this, the system Re-Boots before the data on the destination drive is deleted, and then the Back-Up is performed.

An additional benefit is that I then end up with 2 Bootable Drives.

 

Hi again: How do you set up the two bootables? The question is, do you copy drive to drive set up as slave? Then switch physically for second bootable? Some other way?