Best Backup Software

Hello everyone ,

I recently began getting nervouse about my xp machine and would like to back it up. The problem is I don't know which software is worth getting. Here is the situation I am in and what I want to do. I currently have 4 drives that I want to backup. I'm planning on getting a 120 gb hard drive and moving all my data to that and making it my os system drive as well as my data drive (taken from my four drives.) I then plan on backing up the 120gb drive to the 4 drives which used to previously have my data. The reason I am doing this is because the other drives I currenlty have are mostly older and slower drive than the new ones out there. I was thinking of getting norton ghost since it supports network backup, since one of the drives I want to backup is on a diffrent system. So my quesiton is what do you think of this plan and what software should I get. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

I like and have used Acronis True Image

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2236

with it, I can image while in windows whereas Ghost (AFAIK) you can't image an NT box while in the GUI. It does network drives too and can span on CD's.

 

thanks it looks good but have you had any problem with restores or migration of bootdisks? I think I read somewhere that there was a undocumented and difficult procedure you had to do in order to migrat an xp os drive or to restore an image from an old drive? Have you run into any problems?

 

recent experience

Hi there!

I've recently tried Acronis and when everything was backed-up (2 separate re-writable CD's) it told the job was finished and well done.

When I went to test to see if everything indeed went well, it told me the files were corrupt...

Think I'll consider Norton Ghost or PowerQuest (this one has just been bought out by Symantec).

 

Re: recent experience

WHAT told you the files were corrupt? Do you have the Image Verifier from Acronis? I'm sure you know that you can't just examine the files of an image in Explorer: you have to use the TrueImage program to mount a virtual drive and THEN you can check the files in Explorer.

And I don't think you can do a restore operation with the trialware version of TI. Not sure about that, though.

The Acronis Image Verifier will be part of the next version. It's available now at http://www.acronis.com/files/support/CheckImage.exe and runs as a standalone when you already HAVE an Acronis TrueImage image to verify. It needs no installation, and doesn't write to the registry.

(Standard Disclaimers: I have nothing to do with Acronis: I just like their software.)

 

Drive Image is the absolute best IMHO. I have used it many times and never had a problem.

 

Re: Re: recent experience

Appreciate your comment Wisewiz and I guess the trialware probably does not allow a restore operation (for now).

And Robo,
well I'd like to be able to re-install from scratch when I have to, but when I get to all those drives to install, I just get lost.
I'm not a computer wiz and just want an easy way to back-up and restore everything so I don't have to call on any techicians and lose a whole day at it.

 

Been using Norton Ghost for a couple years with no problems until yesterday

corrupt hard drive needed repair (overclocked a little TOO far! )

had an image from a few days ago....

used the Norton Ghost boot disk all seemed OK....
until I tried to restore...
image was on a standard IDE drive... was trying to restore to a Serial ATA drive on a separate controller (Asus A7N8X) requireing RAID drivers....

Hmm

Ended up having to format and install an OS on my SATA drive..Then install Norton Ghost... then use the Restore function to restore from the image... Go Figure...

Other than that never had an issue... and it did restore great..just took longer than expected.

 

yes but!

O.K. I may not have 5 drives to worry about but about that many drivers for my one and only PC. And then again, I'm really no good at re-installing Win98SE without some coaching and I'm still at the abc's of html... so I guess I'm not a geek yet, but I'm geekin' at it!

 

I've been using xcopy for a few months now. Quite easy once you get the hang of it. No more installing drivers etc. Once the system is setup that's it.