khat17
08-22-2006, 08:34 AM
You know, as a tech it's something I see done, it's something I do for clients, and it's something I preach for people who don't want to lose or diminish their productivity. No not backup. Well yes.
Being the person I am, I do a lot of reinstallations of Windows. In order to not have to beg MS for activation each time, I use the ANTIWPA to get by. I mean, before this current installation I did two in one night before settling in. Here's the scoop, and here's what I did now to make life easier.
POWERQUEST DRIVE IMAGE
--------------------------
Nice little app, kinda like NORTON GHOST but I think it's kooler. Ghost is decent, but when you take into consideration the space usage by Windows (http://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=23472&st=25&#entry656994), it get's out of hand sometimes, especially when you start adding stuff to the partition.
Here's the trick. Do what you need to do to the drive or partition you need for your O/S. Delete partition / recreate partition / format / install Windows. After that, install the necessities, stuff like drivers, burning software, maybe Office, maybe a few others. Install DRIVE IMAGE and use it to make an image of the current drive. You can choose to split the volumes and such. After you're done, you can burn the files to CD/DVD and[or] save it to another partition for faster access when needed. Then all you need to do after that is boot the machine with the install disk (the installation disk for DRIVE IMAGE) and then swap it to the backup disks (or point it to the location of the image. Across network supported), then wait for the image to be restored. Did this on a machine before, and it took like 5 minutes for the image to reload. In total (minus the time to copy the image files from the CDs[2 disks] to the other partition from the O/S before rebooting) it took around 10 minutes. Boot with the disk. Point to image location. 5 minutes later you reboot and you're into Windows with everything installed.
My current backup has:
Windows
Drivers
Alcohol120%
Azureus
Antivirus
Antispyware
At that point I can now install everything else as I please. That is kinda my basic config, NERO and OFFICE get installed after, but depending on what software I may be testing, those are what I need right away. Windows is needed (duh) as the OS. Drivers to ensure proper functionality. Alcohol to mount any images I may have. Azureus to keep my downloads running regardless of whatever else. Antivirus and antispyware for obvious reasons.
Your config may be different, but just imagine needing to do an install. Just copying the backup files to another partition, then restoring your Windows from a good backup. I find it a lot less stressful. Now the only thing I need to worry about is remembering what to copy off before a restore.......
And BTW, from the looks of it - it doesn't backup stuff that can be recreated by Windows, so your SWAP FILE and RECYCLE BIN ALLOCATED STORAGE and such will not be included in the backup. Saves space. That is one advantage over using GHOST.
For the Linux man, GHOST may be all you need to make sure your OS partition is archived after a successful setup. The SWAP partition and other extended partitions are not needed immediately, and you can specify the sizes of those and recreate. But it's nice to not have to sit and wait for the whole process to go through again. Not sure if the DRIVE IMAGE will work on a Linux system. May have to test it out on mine. It's WINDOWS driven, so I don't think it will recognize the Linux partition..........or will it? If anyone has done this before let me know. Thanx.
Hope it was helpful. Lataz.
PeAcE.
Being the person I am, I do a lot of reinstallations of Windows. In order to not have to beg MS for activation each time, I use the ANTIWPA to get by. I mean, before this current installation I did two in one night before settling in. Here's the scoop, and here's what I did now to make life easier.
POWERQUEST DRIVE IMAGE
--------------------------
Nice little app, kinda like NORTON GHOST but I think it's kooler. Ghost is decent, but when you take into consideration the space usage by Windows (http://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=23472&st=25&#entry656994), it get's out of hand sometimes, especially when you start adding stuff to the partition.
Here's the trick. Do what you need to do to the drive or partition you need for your O/S. Delete partition / recreate partition / format / install Windows. After that, install the necessities, stuff like drivers, burning software, maybe Office, maybe a few others. Install DRIVE IMAGE and use it to make an image of the current drive. You can choose to split the volumes and such. After you're done, you can burn the files to CD/DVD and[or] save it to another partition for faster access when needed. Then all you need to do after that is boot the machine with the install disk (the installation disk for DRIVE IMAGE) and then swap it to the backup disks (or point it to the location of the image. Across network supported), then wait for the image to be restored. Did this on a machine before, and it took like 5 minutes for the image to reload. In total (minus the time to copy the image files from the CDs[2 disks] to the other partition from the O/S before rebooting) it took around 10 minutes. Boot with the disk. Point to image location. 5 minutes later you reboot and you're into Windows with everything installed.
My current backup has:
Windows
Drivers
Alcohol120%
Azureus
Antivirus
Antispyware
At that point I can now install everything else as I please. That is kinda my basic config, NERO and OFFICE get installed after, but depending on what software I may be testing, those are what I need right away. Windows is needed (duh) as the OS. Drivers to ensure proper functionality. Alcohol to mount any images I may have. Azureus to keep my downloads running regardless of whatever else. Antivirus and antispyware for obvious reasons.
Your config may be different, but just imagine needing to do an install. Just copying the backup files to another partition, then restoring your Windows from a good backup. I find it a lot less stressful. Now the only thing I need to worry about is remembering what to copy off before a restore.......
And BTW, from the looks of it - it doesn't backup stuff that can be recreated by Windows, so your SWAP FILE and RECYCLE BIN ALLOCATED STORAGE and such will not be included in the backup. Saves space. That is one advantage over using GHOST.
For the Linux man, GHOST may be all you need to make sure your OS partition is archived after a successful setup. The SWAP partition and other extended partitions are not needed immediately, and you can specify the sizes of those and recreate. But it's nice to not have to sit and wait for the whole process to go through again. Not sure if the DRIVE IMAGE will work on a Linux system. May have to test it out on mine. It's WINDOWS driven, so I don't think it will recognize the Linux partition..........or will it? If anyone has done this before let me know. Thanx.
Hope it was helpful. Lataz.
PeAcE.