HD Imaging Software
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Joined: Nov 2002
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From: 39N 77W
HD Imaging Software
I know about Ghost and True Image for Windows XP, etc.
I find a number of free purported alternatives. Are any of them thought to be reliable enough to trust?
Thanks,
bob
I find a number of free purported alternatives. Are any of them thought to be reliable enough to trust?
Thanks,
bob
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Joined: Mar 2001
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From: Twickenham, home of rugby
If you have at least one Seagate or Maxtor disk in your system you can download and use Seagate's DiscWizard - it's actually a free version of Acronis True Image. Not the latest, but quite usable.
I've used it a few times, and on other brands of disks as well - basically I installed an old Maxtor disk to qualify.
Might be worth checking if other HD makers offer anything similar.
SD
I've used it a few times, and on other brands of disks as well - basically I installed an old Maxtor disk to qualify.
Might be worth checking if other HD makers offer anything similar.
SD
Joined: Sep 2007
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From: Paris, France
I'm suspicious of anything that's free. It's really, really rare to find quality freeware. Writing good software is hard work, and even people who enjoy it usually don't do it for free for very long.
Anyway, TrueImage isn't free, but it's very good value for the money. I've saved and restored entire machines with it on many occasions, and it works very well. These days I just take complete TrueImage backups of my machines, and if a disk fails, I replace it, restore it with TrueImage, and I'm back in business in 20 minutes. For machines that are used by many people, it's also a good way to fight malware—instead of running some intrusive, bloated antivirus package, I just wipe the machine clean with a restore of a virus-free system from time to time (obviously, this is practical only for machines that aren't going to be holding any new files, since the restore puts everything back they way it was before).
I haven't tried Ghost, but since it comes from bloatware specialist Norton, I'm not keen on trying it.
Anyway, TrueImage isn't free, but it's very good value for the money. I've saved and restored entire machines with it on many occasions, and it works very well. These days I just take complete TrueImage backups of my machines, and if a disk fails, I replace it, restore it with TrueImage, and I'm back in business in 20 minutes. For machines that are used by many people, it's also a good way to fight malware—instead of running some intrusive, bloated antivirus package, I just wipe the machine clean with a restore of a virus-free system from time to time (obviously, this is practical only for machines that aren't going to be holding any new files, since the restore puts everything back they way it was before).
I haven't tried Ghost, but since it comes from bloatware specialist Norton, I'm not keen on trying it.
Upto The Buffers
Joined: Apr 2006
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From: Leeds/Bradford
I'm suspicious of anything that's free
I take it you're not familiar with this thing called open source?
Clonezilla - end of discussion. I'll never go back to tat like Ghost.
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From: Twickenham, home of rugby
I'm all for Open Source, and Clonezilla is impressive - however it wouldn't have helped me where DiscWizard did, as one of its limitations is
TrueImage does allow you to reduce partitions (providing the data size fits), which really was a godsend.
SD
The destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one.
SD
Joined: Apr 2002
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From: Forest of Dean
Partimage does not require the destination partition to be as big or bigger than the partition or drive to be copied. It can be added to any Linux installation if required, although the simplest way to use it is from System Rescue CD.
