dos based imaging software

Hello,

I'm looking for dos based imaging software (can be DVD, flash drive, floppy bootable) that is more improved than Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003. The main problem I have with Ghost is when I try and image a usb device it crawls. Normally when I image something, the HDD is failing and I don't like having to load windows to image to conserve time.

I connect EIDE hdds using a product from Iogear called ION 2.5" USB2.0. The model number for the device isghe425u.

The image will crawl at 30-35 mb/sec on a known good HDD and tried various USB ports. In windows, moving data isn't this slow.

 

The usb HDD is actually an EIDE drive from a notebook. Forgot to put that in first post, going to update that.

The problem is symantec doesn't support imaging from a USB drive to a regular HDD. Though they do support imaging from a regular HDD to a USB drive. When I was told that threw their support, it gave me a good laugh actually since there is no way to image the data back.

It is someone else's laptop that I'd be fixing and I'd like to have new improved software before I get another one in with a failing hdd. Fortunately the newer ones have a sata drive.

 

I'd think that all imaging software would have to run from DOS from a bootable CD or with some proprietary OS or such - hard to get a clean image from running inside of Windwoes. I think the consensus best imaging software is Acronis TrueImage (trial downloadable here I think) and if you have at least one Seagate drive (maybe Maxtor too) on board, you can get it as a free DL (may not specify that it is TrueImage, but if part of the functionality is making a drive image, then that's TI) from the Seagate web site. Yup, Seagate's Disk Wizard is "powered by Acronis" - I'm about to check the new MaxBlast too as I do have a Maxtor drive in my external enclosure... Yup, MaxBlast is too - man these are BIG at over 100MB each...

.bh.

 

Yes, I've heard of their software but the problem is that it sounds like it only runs using Window$. With a bootable cd/dvd I can do an image onsite instead of driving out there, bringing the system to the shop, image and replace the hard drive, and have to return the system.

$50 for good imaging software is well worth it. It will pay for itself next time a major software upgrade fails or when I save data.

Unless I've missed something, it doesn't sound like Acronus has a bootable cd version.

 

I started to read the TI users manual, but it seems that there are several versions. One is the ver. we're familiar with and DL here (pretty much the same as what is in the Seagate software). But there are also a number of versions for small to large businesses which may meet your needs better. It won't cost you anything to write to them outlining your needs to find out if a version is there for you. And the only imaging software I've actually used was Power Quest's Drive Image (since PQ souled out [sic] to Symantec, IDK if it is still in production) and it booted from its own disk to do an image or to restore from an image. I really don't see how it could effectively be done any other way. Windwoes is always writing stuff to disk, so it's always changing if you try to do it from inside Win - difficult if not impossible.. I generally use a file by file backup program like NovaBack or Retrospect as I like that better, but now that TrueImage can do that as well, I may have to give it another look. The one user/one machine versions we are familiar with are very different from the versions for networks and corporate settings. Of course, they want really big bucks for them too - very little is a free download for businesses.

.bh.

 

I own Acronis True Image V6 and since I do not use Sata drives as my main C drive I don't need to update to a newer version, but Acronis does have a boot cd. It asks when you install it if you want to create the boot recovery cd.
Version 11.5 is in the stores now, its probably the home version, if you want a server version get it from their site and you should be able to fix drives over the network. But all Acronis Imaging software comes with a boot cd creation program.

 

Ok, thanks for all the information.

Sometime next week I hope to try it out. I'd assume the trial has the recovery cd option disabled, but will see what other features the software has as well.

 

Just a heads up - lots of imaging software these days actually runs from inside of of windows and will image the drive while the computer is running. I still prefer to reboot into a PE shell or what have you, but re: imaging live disks from inside windows - it can be done.

Acronis TI is buggy as all hell and I wouldnt recomend it. I experimented with all different versions and releases and my conclusions were always that you just cant trust it. It will let you down when you most need it. Which is too bad, because it has some really awesome features. Love that you can mount an image to a drive letter.

If you want to not spend any money, Drive Image XML (google it) is an open source solution that works farily well.

Of course the old favorite is Ghost. From a pure reliability standpoint it cant be beat.

 

Personally, I use PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost)

It is completely free, and I have found it to be very fast, efficient and easy to use.

Link here: http://ping.windowsdream.com/

 

TI has worked extremely well for me on several computers.
I never image running from within windows.
TI allows you to create a boot CD.
I run that, then either create a new image (I always do a full image) or a restore an image. I've had to restore previous images to at least three different computers.

 

So can you make a type 11 boot disk with this program?

I got interested in this string because I wanted to find something on the Windows side that works like the mac .dmg or reads .dmg files.

Dan