marcos9999 Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Yes, I need to back up my drive before it crashes. I heard that the best is to create an image on another hard drive. What is the best software for that? I heard of Norton but I'm kind of disappointed with them after I bought Norton Internet Suite. Any other suggestions on how to back it up?Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specmon Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 I never get tired of using it, or promoting it.Best way to image the drive is with Bootit NG from Terabyte.terabyteunlimitedDownload the Bootit NG, look at the tutorial for creating a disk (either floppy or CD) with the partition and imaging part of Bootit NG on it.BootitNG's bread and butter is as a boot manager, and it does quite well. Your download includes a fully functional boot manager (30 day trial) and the most powerful and partitioning and imaging tools around, (no time limit)The tutorials and the built in help file tell you all you need, most of the imaging function is pretty intutitive.Besides doing imaging, the "partition work" portion does anything you could need to set up, resize, move, create, delete, format. etc.Is also operating system independent, works with MS, Linux, Mac, BeOS.....Most valuble tool in the box. Did I mention that it is free?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Drive Image XML does a nice job and "is currently distributed as freeware" for personal use. You didn't mention which OS you use but DI XML supports Windows XP, 2003 and Vista.As with any backup software the key is not so much the backup phase but the restore phase. As such DI XML's restore requires running from one of it's supported OSs. In that you can't restore an active C: drive it means that DI XML requires another OS from which to restore your live system's C: drive should you require doing that. Another pc, another hd or a bootable CD or USB stick is needed. BTW Specmon I don't see Bootit NG on TeraByte's Freeware webpage. It is on their Purchase page though. Where are you getting it for free? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Yes, I need to back up my drive before it crashes. I heard that the best is to create an image on another hard drive. What is the best software for that? I heard of Norton but I'm kind of disappointed with them after I bought Norton Internet Suite. Any other suggestions on how to back it up?Thanks I have never used any of the products mentioed above, but I do use and recommend Acronis True Image. Version 10 (Home edition) supports Vista.http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specmon Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 (edited) In the left sidebar, the "downloads" section has a link to BootIt Next Generation.This link gives you a .zip file. Extract the contents to a folder and run "MAKEDISK.EXE" This opens a wizard that walks you through creating a disk. Select the defaults, then the last step is to point to the drive where your burnable media is located. The boot disk created has the ability to install the boot manager (this is the 30 day trial) or to do partition and imaging work. This part has no time limitation.Once you have the boot disc created, you really have no more use for the program on the HD, everything runs from the bootable disc you just created.Sorry, I could have been more informative about that.On the Freeware page of Terabyte Unlimited, there is TBIview that lets you view and extract individual files from BootitNG images. I have it, but have never used it. Edited March 31, 2007 by Specmon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 Hello,My personal preference for backing up is to archive just the data files from a computer to tape or optical disc using backup software, or a file comparison program for copying between hard disk drives, but for imaging hard disk drives I would second the recommendation for Acronis TrueImage. Regards,Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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