Disk Image

[BOAC]

Simple explanation if someone could, please.

Suppose I have a 500gb drive partitioned C, D and E, and D contains a winXP installation while E has win7 (NB Not my setup....) - a few Q's:

Can I create a disk image that I can restore to the drive IF I cannot boot either into Xp or Win7?

If I write this image to an external USB drive, can that be accessed for the restore by either the XP or Win7 install disk? (I also have a Hiren's MiniXP USB boot available.)

Would I reformat the 500gb drive before restoring the image?

Any other ways of doing it?

[Milo Minderbinder]

what disk imaging software do you propose to use?
the native software within Win7 won't handle the non-Windows partitions you earlier said you had. XP won't be able to directly address any images.
Most imaging software will have problems with the multiboot system. You'll have to use TrueImage or Ghost, and for recovery boot with their recovery boot media

And yes its best to reformat the drive before trying the recovery, but theres a gotcha. Sometimes the multiple partitions won't recover correctly to a single partition drive, so you have to recreate the original partitions during the formatting process of the same size

[BOAC]

Thanks for that:

what disk imaging software do you propose to use? - no idea, hence my foray into the topic. What would you suggest?

the native software within Win7 won't handle the non-Windows partitions you earlier said you had. XP won't be able to directly address any images.
Most imaging software will have problems with the multiboot system. You'll have to use TrueImage or Ghost, and for recovery boot with their recovery boot media - in my ignorance I thought a disk image just recorded all the sectors 'verabatim' so I cannot see why actual disk content/non-Windows partitions would be a problem? By the way, the only 'non-Win' I have is a Linux partition and a MAC VM partition (not on the drive in question).

How do these progs run if I cannot boot into Windows (assuming loss of C/boot drive)? Will they run in DOS or Linux?

[jamesdevice]

they all have their own bootable disks, exactly what depends on the program version Some versions of Ghost use WindowsPE with plugins to allow non-MS file systems Others use 32-bit DOS variants based on OpenDOS or DR-DOS, or even Linux But the point is you boot from an optimised CD or Pen drive to access the recovery image. You don't access the image from within windows You can create the image from within windows in most cases, but not recover

[BOAC]

I see that Western Digital are offering me True Image ('WD Edition'???) as a WD drive user - is that a good one to start with?

[Milo Minderbinder]

good software
slightly cut down from the full version, but should do what you want

there is an override which enables you to use it with ANY drive. I forget the details, but it has been posted here on pprune before

[exeng]

BOAC

I use WD disk image to make a complete image of my disk to another of the same size (I don't have a dual boot on either of the drives.) Both drives are mounted and run in the machine all the time so I suppose I run the risk of both drives becoming corrupted.

I do this in case the main (C drive becomes very corrupted (happened in the past due to offspring messing and downloading inappropriate software)

Having got fed up with re-formatting etc I can now re-boot from the image of the copied drive (copied when it was working normally). I then ensure I have collected any important files from the corrupted drive and run a disk image back the other way. This has saved me many hours of tedious re-formatting etc over the last 3 or 4 years.

I also back up all important files to 3 separate external drives every couple of months.

Hope you are well.


Kind regards
Exeng

[BOAC]

Indeed I am, ee, and I hope you and yours are too.

What you are doing is pretty much what I want. I am in the process of gingerly 'playing' with it (WD....that is!!) at the moment starting with an image of a data drive only and then plucking up courage to try an OS drive.