What should I use for creating & restoring from a disk image?

[little_scrapper]

I am tired of having to re-install everything every time I reformat my HD. I am going to get everything installed and updated then just make an image onto my backup HD or a DVD if it will fit, or both.

Does it make any difference weather I use Acronis or Norton for imaging with my basic needs. I would prefer to just pop in a DVD and have it boot and restore.

[Darrelj]

Acronis has been somewhat kind to me when restoring.

[Soulburner]

I really doubt you'll fit everything onto a DVD, but you can try.

I use Acronis True Image.

[lowbid]

Acronis is what i use and a backup hardrive.

[little_scrapper]

I have heard some saying that acronis is buggy. But that could just be all the people using the hacked/cracked versions.

[Logos]

if you're on Vista try the built in backup utility, works well too

[RADCOM]

Acronis is very good and a tad faster than Norton Ghost? are they still calling it that. Both are fairly straight forward and will stop you having bad dreams. problem is is you have large disks that means mucho DVD's. It may be advisable to have a boot partition and data partition. The system partition ( gets ready to be flamed by MSCE's lol) can be backed up to disk and keep the data on a seperate external disk or PC on your network. Don't forget to clear temp files and defrag before backing up. How big is your OS install + all the wonderful bits you need at your finger tips?

[Nosfer@tu]

Acronis can have a few problems finding your harddrive in "dos" but that is the ONLY problem it has !

and it has to do with enabling and disabling controllers!
Somtimes I cant get it to work so just backup on the same disk I do backup of and move in OS

[little_scrapper]

My basic install of XP pro is about 10GB give or take oneGB. My other two drives are basically for pagefile and redundant backups of all data. But in all honesty, I really should get some online storage space. If my computer gets ripped off or probably more likely (not likely, just more likely) is a blown psu or something fries ALL my hard drives. ALL DATA LOST!!! And I'm in the the dog house for about 6 month unless I can pull ALL of my kids pictures oout of my arse and present them to my wife. The "My Pictures" folder alone is about 20GB of pics and low res videos of my kids.

How much reliable compression can these ghosting programs deliver when it comes to JPEG's? I mean these are already highly compressed are they not?

[ipeefreely]

My basic install of XP pro is about 10GB give or take oneGB. My other two drives are basically for pagefile and redundant backups of all data. But in all honesty, I really should get some online storage space. If my computer gets ripped off or probably more likely (not likely, just more likely) is a blown psu or something fries ALL my hard drives. ALL DATA LOST!!! And I'm in the the dog house for about 6 month unless I can pull ALL of my kids pictures oout of my arse and present them to my wife. The "My Pictures" folder alone is about 20GB of pics and low res videos of my kids.

Back all your kids pictures to DVDs (5 DVDs) and then don't worry about getting your arse kicked by your wife.

[little_scrapper]

Back all your kids pictures to DVDs (5 DVDs) and then don't worry about getting your arse kicked by your wife.

Thats a given. And already done. What I want is to be able to reboot fresh in an hour or so. Not a three hour night of basic install then two or more nights of two or more hours each of updating and installing all my periferal programs. I want to drop in a cd and let the computer just re-image for 45 minutes and be done again.

It take me a solid 6-8 hours to do a reboot. I want it done in an hour.

[RADCOM]

With heavy compression you may get the 10GB partition onto a single layer DVD if not a dual layer would suffice.