Best solution for ghosting ?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 9:38 am

I do a lot of work on the web - collecting data, distributing data, visiting lots of sites etc. I have a "frontline" machine which does all the online work (P3 866 XP) but I find it's constantly being corrupted.

I have Norton and Spybot but every few months things just starts to degrade.

At the moment IE6 is driving me nuts. For no reason I can find it will simply stop loading a page and give the error message "not responding". Certain sites seem more liable to cause this than others, and certain streaming video files *always" cause an error.

I've tried sfc/scannow to check system files, loaded all the latest patches in the hope of overwriting any bugs, done a thorough system clean etc, but all to no effect.

So the real question is: "What's the easiest way to back up and restore?"

Here's what I'm looking at:

- A USB-2 card with an external drive. I'll ghost the image to a 40Gb external hard drive and reload every month or two (anyone have experience with that?). If it is plug n' play then perhaps I could use it to burn ghosts of each of my machines ?

- DVD burner. Ghost to DVD and reload that way (expensive...)

or...something else ? Any more options ?

I'd really appreciate any ideas or experience you might have since this issue is driving me nuts and I don't like having to do a complete reinstall from scratch every couple of months...

thanks

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2003-06-26 10:44 ]</font>

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Thu Jun 26, 2003 11:48 am

For this we use a second drive with a folder called images. Then we use Powerquest DriveImage 5 and copy the Partition to a file. We use the 2 diskettes, that you can create from the program cd. Norton Ghost also can do this.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 11:47 am

How heavy are all the images toguether? I don't think they are very heavy cos you are talking about all the programs installed but no data with them... Am I right?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:42 pm

Good question... Maybe it could fit on a CD ? Anyone know how big a simple image using Ghost is ?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 11:37 pm

Many people talk about CDs as their recipient for images, but I have never done it myself, so I can't tell. What is logical is that only programs, well... it depends on what you have. For me, a CD would be perfectly enough...

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:13 pm

I use a cd to ghost the image to. I don't use compression and I can make a bootable CD ghost image of my win2k plus music apps partition on a single CDR. But I had to do things like delete the swap file (it's on the same partition) before I burnt the image. This is not a big deal because windows just creates a new one when it restarts.

It's great because a full system restore is completed in about 15mins!

You can spread the image over serveral cd's if required.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:28 pm

Well now this is great... I think this will be my own solution as well... But which of all the programs available to do it would you recomend?

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 4:14 am

I use Drive Image, too. And had no problems with it. Knock Knock Knock.
Every 3month I make a new image and merge it to several CD´s. My C partition with CD Burner Software fits to one cd and can be recovered at once.
Then I can recover all other partitions but I needn´t it ,yet.

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 7:01 am

I can add a big "Yes" vote for Drive Image.
Been using it for years with no probs...
And the new version 7 can create the image from within XP !

Kim.

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 7:14 am

Well I use Norton Ghost. The only Norton software I like! Mind you it was originally Symantec I believe.
But isn't there a free piece of software that will let you do a similiar thing?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:18 am

Well, but which is the best of them all?

Astral Fridge Magnet · Mon Jul 21, 2003 10:04 pm

Hi Nestor,

If it is not too late to suggest, I use Ghost by Symantec/Norton and it works brilliantly for me.

Regards

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:02 pm

I don't think there is a "best of them all". Just pick one! Ghost has never failed for me. Toshiba are using it for the recovery disk that comes with their laptops.

Stubbe · Post by **Stubbe** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 2:42 pm

Here's my setup for all it's worth

Been using Ghost for 3 years now, in a setup where I backup to a internal HD which I turn on (it's in a removable drivebay, activated and locked by key - you'll get the same effect with an USB2-drive).

The Ghost floppy disc goes in to the machine, which is turned on, and then I've written a small script that'll ghost all my partitions to the backup-HD.

This is done appr. 4 times a year, in between I backup important stuff to CD.

Have had to restore a couple of times, which have worked OK. Partition Magic does not like it, but it's easily cured, and the machine runs perfect afterwards.

BTW Spirit, have U tried programs that'll clean up your registration database ? I had problems similar to the ones U describe, and are now using Regcleaner with good result. Other programs will probably do the same.

Well, hope U get it fixed, that's all for my dime

Stubbe