How do I create a bootable rescue Disk?

I purchased a Seagate Pro External Drive and have the free Acronis V8 version. I don't have a DVD burner - just a CD burner.

I plan to clone/image my C drive, but understand that I will need a bootable rescue disk if my C drive fails? I would like to be able to save all the other software and settings I have installed after the factory installed programs.

Do I need a (additional) software program for it and which one? Is there any free software for creating a bootable rescue disk?

I'm still a newbie and therefore need something easy to work with. Thank you.

BTW: Windows XP Home edition - free Zonealarm - AVG 8 - Skype - Firefox - anti-spyware etc.

 

Thank you for your quick reply Halo!

So, in actuality there are 2 steps to take?
1) create a separate CD rescue disk on Acronis True Image, Version 8. Is a CD
disk spacious enough to capture the info?
2) create a clone/image to be assigned to my external Hard Drive, also by the
same software?

The above to be sure that I'm fully protected from any failure of my C drive?

Have to read up about the BIOS thing - don't understand anything about it.

 

Thank you once again Halo!! Now I understand it clearly. You've been of GREAT help to me and therefore really appreciate it!

When my Seagate External HD arrives, I will image the C Drive immediately.

BTW: I already created a bootable CD disk and it was really easy!!

 

I just created an image, using Acronis TI 8, from the C drive to the F Drive (Seagate) and now I'm a little confused.

It took me a few tries to finally "get" it.

On my auslogics software it says that I currently use 5.58 GB, however the F Drive shows only 3.28GB.

Does this means that it did not create a full image of the C Drive? Or does it skip certain files on my Windows XP Home?

Thank you.

 

OMA, I have been using Acronis for a long time but I recently ran accross a post where the guy mentioned cleaning up the C drive before imaging to keep the image file as small as it can be. So now I go thru a little process prior to making my backup.
1. Run CCleaner to remove excess temp files
2. Uninstall any programs I don't use or need from the add/remove programs
3. Run a registry cleaner to remove unneeded registry entries
4. Stop and restart System Restore if I'm sure the OS is running great (and at this time you can also turn off restore for your other drives, I only use it for C anyway). This can really make some room check C's properties before and after to see the difference.
5. Defragment C
6. Run "nullfile-1.02.exe" from the root (directly under the C drive, not in any folder) of C. This is probably the most important part especially if your OS is a few months old. What it does is writes 0's to all the free space on the drive, making it really easy for your backup program to compress the free space. When you uninstall stuff and delete to the recycle bin those things are recoverable because they're not really gone and when you make a backup of the drive that hidden stuff gets backed up too. Running nullfile clears the free space on your drive to give you the smallest possible image you can get. If you have a large drive it can take an entire day to run, it creates a dummy file under the C drive and keeps filling it until all the free space is zeroed, then deletes the dummy file.


I once ran without doing all this and got a 6gig image, found the post about cleaning up and re-did it and got a 3gig afterwords. This also allows me to get a complete image of a new install on one dvd (6gig to about 4 gig after compression).

 

Thank you once again Halo!! You're precious!!

Yes, I left the compression at the default. (normal)

 

Thanks Appzalien! I "cleaned" my C Disk (your first 5 points) and additionally scanned with Ad-aware, Spybot Search and Destroy and AVG as well, prior to making an image. Thought it would be the right thing to do.

#6 I didn't do because I didn't and don't know HOW to access run "nullfile-1.02.exe".:confused

 

"Nullfile-1.02.exe" is what to google to find it, then you just put it under your C drive. That is directly under C, not in a folder under C but directly under C where the Boot.ini and Config.sys files are. Thats the root of the drive. The root of any drive means that the files there are not in any folder but exposed directly under the drive letter.

As a matter of fact you can put nullfile in the root of D or E and it will do the same thing. It opens a command window when you double click it and then when you start it it will write zero's to the free space on the drive.

If you have already made your image this is a good time to see what a difference it can make by compairison. If your drive has a lot of stuff in the free space it will make a big difference.

Its a pretty straight forward program aand needs no installation, and it will not harm your PC. If you were to put it in the wrong place it would just overwrite the free space of where ever you put it.

 

Thank you for your reply Appzalien!

If I understand you correctly, I would have to google for a software to download and then proceed as per your instructions?

 

Here is a direct link for you to download:

Code:

http://theatomicmoose.ca/g4u/nullfile-1.02.exe

I got the link from this page, if you read Section "5.10 Reducing the image size" you will get an idea of what it does:

Code:

http://theatomicmoose.ca/g4u/

The page is for linux but the link I gave you is Windows (under the Pascal Solution), there is also a 64bit one if you think you might need it in the future.

This is the same one I use, I actually read thru most of that page when I had googled it last, to get to the download, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to since it deals with linux its like Greek to me.

 

Once again many thanks Appzalien. I will read about it first and then download the software!

 

Remember, It takes along time so start it in the evening and let it go overnight. I can't remember the exact time but the 250gig drive I ran it on (200gig was free space) took about 10 hours I think, But the image size savings was really good since the free space was full of junk.

 

Thanks Appzalien. I have some questions about this software. I'm using the free Acronis TI version 8 and it created an image of the C drive. Is the "null" software an image creator as well? Or does it just create zero's in the empty space? Do both softwares conflict with each other?

Thanks

 

Nullfile is not really much of a software its more like a batch file and therefore closer to a spyremover than acronis. You run it from the root of any drive you want to clear the free space on, to write zero's in all the free data area. This large data area of nothing but zero's then, is then very easy for an image program to compress because its all the same. The free space of a well used drive is usually full of stuff, deleted files, uninstalled programs, you know, stuff. All that stuff will be imaged by acronis which means that if you brought that image back the stuff would come with it and be recoverable just as it is now with recovery software. The problem is it takes up alot of room and if your system is fine without it you might as well overwrite it and make your image that much smaller.

I think the 10hour time I gave you was way off, but its been awhile since I ran it, lets say more like 4 hours for 200gig, I think thats closer to reality.

 

Thanks Appzalien for your explanation. Is it safe to download from that website - it's a bit too funky there!

 

Yes, I have that file myself and have used it many times on several different drives and systems. If you want, you could google and find another source, but I can vouche only for that link. The funkiness probably comes from it being a site for Linux users, all the vernacular is in linuxese.

 

Appzalien, thank you very much for your recommendation!