PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

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>

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.

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?

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

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...

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

Well, but which is the best of them all?

Hi Nestor,

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

Regards

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.

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