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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: daffodil who wrote (16371)	2/16/2001 12:23:28 AM
From: Cheeky Kid	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110631

Imaging basically takes an exact copy of all the data on your computer. (quickly and easily) Drive Image copies the partition, and not data like other back-up programs. You can store this image on another partition, another hard drive, or on removable media like Zip, Jazz, CDR/CDRW. You can not store an image on tape. Drive Image will let you split up the image so it's small enough to fit on removable media. When I create an image (exact copy of all my data on my hard drive) it takes about 20 minutes, but I am taking an image of 5.5 gigabytes of data. Restoring is about the same time. If I was using traditional back-up methods, backup and restore would be MUCH LONGER. The best method I found for storing these images, is on another hard drive installed on my computer. That hard drives sole purpose is for BACK-UP; holding images from C: and critical data. At times I can have 6 or more images of C: taken at different intervals. I usually keep images back about 2 months. The reason for another hard drive, is it's unlikely that two hard drives will fail. In the past I have had drives as new as 3 weeks old die. Any time I install a new piece of software I take an image of the hard drive, in case I have to restore it back if I don't like the software. I sometimes have to delete an older image to make room for the new one. My bullet proof backup system: Message 15266328 Everyone has their own way of backing up, this one works the best for me. And it was because of this thread that I found out about Drive Image, and dumped my tape backup drive. When backing up critical data, (data that changes in-between imaging, ie: Word Docs, Bookmarks, Address Book, etc, etc) always backup to removable media as well, in case the computer is stolen, your data is still safe. You can always buy new software and hard ware, but you can't replace years of data.

To: daffodil who wrote (16371)	2/16/2001 1:00:57 AM
From: mr.mark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110631

daffodil i too used to use iomega back up media, not zip, but jaz. i still use it, but not for full system backups. i use drive image3.0 also, and it takes me about 3 minutes tops to image a 2 gig partition. like cheeky, i now have about a half dozen images of one operating system stored on a separate physical hard drive. in addition, i have about 3 images of a lesser used operating system. and, like cheeky, i sometimes have to delete one older image to make room for a new one. so far i have only had to use the restore feature one time, after installing and uninstalling SYMANTEC (!) software that just trashed my system. it was a virtual delight to be able to roll back to the pre-install os like nothing had ever happened. it's also possible to restore files individually from the saved image, though i have never done so. good luck :) mark

To: daffodil who wrote (16371)	2/16/2001 10:51:10 AM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110631

Imageing vs. Backup ... Imaging, to me, means making a copy of the entire contents of a disk or partition. Everything! Programs, data, and BOOT stuff. Backup, to me, can mean making a copy of everything, or maybe not. A backup can be incremental, or just what changed since last backup. A backup can contain only data, or data and programs, or any combination of stuff selected. Still, a backup is better than no backup. The real difference, for me, is when it comes time to restore. Restoring from a backup in most cases involves copying backed-up data to the disk, overwriting the current files with the data in the backed-up copies of those same files. Also, missing files are re-created. The problem with this is that if you have a troublesome file on your disk that isn't in the backup, this file won't be overwritten, because there's not backed-up file to overwrite it with. You've still got this file on your system after the RESTORE. Imagine restoring to get rid of a virus, only to discover it's still there. Restoring your disk from an image removes all data from your disk first. It is the equivalent of performing a FORMAT before a RESTORE. Packages such as DriveImage do this conveniently, because the image is written to disk in one operation. You can achieve similar results using a back-up by performing a FORMAT, making your disk bootable (SYS), and restoring your disk. You must take steps to insure that once your disk is empty with FORMAT, you have the software available to do the RESTORE. Windows98 comes with a back-up utility. If you wish to do a complete, image style restore using it, you must FORMAT your disk, Install Windows (don't forget to include the backup utility), run Backup to restore the disk, and re-boot. This process takes me over an hour, and introduces several opportunities for errors. Imagine finding the last backup was only incremental and not full: I once did! I can restore my disk to a satisfactory condition in less time than to make and drink a coffee. And with no head-aches or stress either, since I know this process works flawlessly every time. Cheers, PW. P.S. I have no connection with the providers of image software beyond being a happy customer.