Ed_P Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 I think he was just emphasizing that the ASR function doesn't work with XP Home and you need to use manual procedures to circumvent the problem, ie you must do a clean install of XP and NTBackup in order to do a system recovery.A strong selling point for XP Pro imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 Yes - but isn't XP Pro more complicated, more NT line, and harder to migrate to from WIN98SE? - (besides the extra $100 per copy). I mean, I know I can solve a lot of problems with huge sums of money, but what's the fun in that?anyway - I've been posting my concerns elsewhere, and getting a lot of feedback that if I use disk imaging I can restore a dead disk with a disk image and NTBACKUP incrementals any naysayers here? 8-}thanks/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 anyway - I've been posting my concerns elsewhere, and getting a lot of feedback that if I use disk imaging I can restore a dead disk with a disk image and NTBACKUP incrementalsWell incrementals are created post full backups are they not? So what is going to tell NTBackup that all the files got backed up by an image and to only back up files that have changed since then? With W98 you could run a BAT file to turn the Archive flag off of all the files imaged, I'm not certain you can do that with Win XP. I'm not saying you can't, I've just never tried it. And it is an additional step required to ensure the integrity of the daily backups.If the imaging is fast enough why not use it to do full backups every night? Drive Image backups 40GB on my system in 45 mins. When I did tape backups I use to prefer differential backups. Thus if I had to do a full restore I only needed two backups. With incrementals you need the last full backup plus all the incrementals since the full backup. Thus if you backup on Sat and you have a failure on Friday you need to restore 6 backups, the full plus each of the dailies. Which is tedious and time consuming.Let us know what your "elsewhere" friends think of these ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marsden11 Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 You tell NTbackup to do a full backup then from then on you tell NT backup to make differentiall backups...MS refined this with Volume Shadow Copy in XP but took it full bore in Win Server 2003. After your initial volume snapshot the differentials take but seconds to run because they only capture the difference between the orginal snapshot and the last backup.With folder redirection... a single machine handles my 6 workstations... no muss no fuss... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 Yes - but isn't XP Pro more complicated, more NT line, and harder to migrate to from WIN98SE? - (besides the extra $100 per copy). No. Why would it be?anyway - I've been posting my concerns elsewhere, and getting a lot of feedback that if I use disk imaging I can restore a dead disk with a disk image and NTBACKUP incrementals any naysayers here? 8-}thanks/j And is that not what most of us have been saying all along? (DI7 may do incrementals. It's big brother v2i Protector does anyway.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 Hi Jameswhat's DI7?The crux of the matter appears to be this - please tell me if this doesn't capture ALL of the issue: After restoring all my files and folders to a new partition (assuming it's the WINXP bootable partition), it appears that there's something "special' that has to be done to make XP work. Other than this "something special", NTBACKUP is sufficient for capturing everything I will need to restore.I believe this 'something special" has to do with the boot sector and MBR. There are two camps of opinion how to capture this 'something special"1) use a disk image - I'd probably be wise to do this weekly, with the full backup. I'd use the image rather than the full backup for a full restore.2) use fixmbr.Honestly, as I post elsewhere, the more conservative (and I suspect, less familiar with the guts) suggest #1. A few MVPs have said that #2 is sufficient. Though it's an extra backup step every week, I'm starting to be inclined to use #1 only because it reduces the number of steps in a restore to a brain-dead routine...1) put new disk on other PC2) restore image3) restore incrementals4) put disk on target machine5) boot6) party.so that's the bottom line, I guess?thanks /j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 DI7 = DriveImage7 I'll graciously leave the rest of your post for the others who have been helping you already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 Anyone try Ghost 9.0 yet. I'm thinking of getting it, but there are some things I wondered if they fixed since this is being marketed by Symantec as the fruit of its purchase of PowerQuest's DriveImage technology. In a nutshell, the XP portion of Ghost 9.0 uses the technology from DriveImage 7, that monstrosity that required the installation of .NET Framework (which is a no-brainer for me because I have it installed without problems on my setup). For non-XP systems, Symantec is kind enough to include Ghost 2003, which is actually a good deal. Sort of like PowerQuest including DriveImage 2002 with DriveImage 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 here at work i hear good things about ghost. but at $70/machine it's just seems like there's gotta be a less expensive way. I believe it will do the job, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 For non-XP systems, Symantec is kind enough to include Ghost 2003, which is actually a good deal. Sort of like PowerQuest including DriveImage 2002 with DriveImage 7. Haven't tried Ghost yet, other than the DOS version of Ghost 7.0DriveImage 2002 works fine in XP (I'm using right now); I don't know why they don't promote it as working in XP... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 here at work i hear good things about ghost. but at $70/machine it's just seems like there's gotta be a less expensive way. I believe it will do the job, though.If you purchase the Enterprise version of Ghost it is $25/client with a minimum of 10 clients needing to be bought. You can download the software, but if you want a CD it will cost you $20 for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 couldn't corroborate this on their website - can you provide a link?/jdoes ghost do anything IFW doesn't? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 9, 2004 Author Share Posted September 9, 2004 Ok - FWIW- i think the ultimate answer (more input from elsewhere), if one is uncomfortable with the fix MBR strategy isBACKUPS: Use image backup for full backup (but pick a program, like IFW, that allows for single file restore). Use NTBACKUP for incrementalRESTORE:1) put new disk on other PC2) restore image3) put disk on target machine4) restore incrementals (so that ntbackup runs in the same environment used for backups)5) boot/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 couldn't corroborate this on their website - can you provide a link?/jdoes ghost do anything IFW doesn't? http://nct.symantecstore.com/0060/620011_g....html?sid=27674I redid the pricing and a 10-user volume license is $360.20 (don't know if that's Canadian or USD) and the media pack is only $28. Still a bargain price if you buy in volume. I think the price per/unit decreases the more clients you buy. Just played around a bit and yes that's the case. 100 users costs $22/user. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 BACKUPS: Use image backup for full backup (but pick a program, like IFW, that allows for single file restore). Use NTBACKUP for incrementalExcept that you still need to do a full backup with NTBackup in order to do the incremental. You can't use an imaging application and then hope to do an incremental. The incremental is based on the last Full Backup from NTBackup. Disk imaging is a bit-for-bit copy of a hard drive or partition (or with compression). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 9, 2004 Share Posted September 9, 2004 does ghost do anything IFW doesn't?IFW? Sorry, what's that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 I will argue for Ghost's merits! I started using PowerQuest's Partition Magic in 1997 since their version 3 and bought each subsquent version except for DriveImage 7. Each version was necessary to deal with the evolution of NTFS and hard drive capacity limits. I was familiar with Norton Ghost, having used the DOS client for multicasting images at work, but never really played with it. Ghost is a DOS application that while it can't read and write to NTFS partitions locally, it can write to them if it is a network share. You can use Ghost to image a whole disk or partition and save the image file to local a FAT/FAT32 partition, network share, or directly to CD-RW and DVD+, DVD-R and DVD+RW. Ghost cannot write directly DVD-RW. You can also use Ghost to clone directly to another hard drive. Cloning means to duplicate a hard drive without having to first create a disk image. DriveImage can do the same thing.What Ghost has, that for me is quite useful, is command line switches, so you can run Ghost from a batch file and automate all its features.Ghost can image and restore FAT, NTFS and Linux Ext2 and Ext3 filesystems. It can selectively do sector-by-sector imaging of Linux partitions (very important if the GRUB bootloader is installed in the root partition) while compressing FAT/NTFS partitions in multiboot disk setups.It has good network support, writing to external USB and FireWire hard drives and CD-R/RW and DVD burners.The Enterprise version has a few nifty features such as a Ghostcast Server that allows for restoring images to a network of client computers via TCP/IP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 IFW? Sorry, what's that? "Image for Windows", mentioned previously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 "Image for Windows", mentioned previously. Hmm, looks like it has all the features of Ghost and more! I will have to look into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 Hmm, looks like it has all the features of Ghost and more! I will have to look into it. I know one MVP that swears by it and it's companion, BootIt NG.I guess for the price they can't be beat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 I'm testing IFW in my VMware guest system. A lot of the features already built into Ghost need to be downloaded (though free), so I guess that's why they can sell for such a low price. It doesn't have the niceties of Ghost like a graph telling you how many megabytes you're imaging, or your transfer rate.Hmm. I can't seem to restore the image. Don't know if that's because this is the trialware version or because it's running in VMware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 10, 2004 Author Share Posted September 10, 2004 from what I read -ghost 9 is a major overhaul and driveimage was integrated into it - so the jury's out on how good it is right now/jdon't hestiate to email the IFW guy for tech support, he often responds immediately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 from what I read -ghost 9 is a major overhaul and driveimage was integrated into it - so the jury's out on how good it is right now/jGhost 9 merely has the ability to restore DriveImage files; they remain two separate products. For how much longer is anyone's guess, but both products stand on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 DriveImage 2002 works fine in XP (I'm using right now); I don't know why they don't promote it as working in XP...I run DriveImage (DI) 2002 also on Win XP. But there are definite considerations.On my machine all my partitions on my primary drive are Fat32, the removeable secondary drive is NTFS. DI works fine. Even with my multi-segmented images.On my daughter's machine whose partitions were all NTFS DI had problems. When XP's Cleanup/Defrag compresses less frequently used folders DI couldn't run when it booted to DOS. DOS can't read compressed NTFS folders. And reinstalling and accessing the folder didn't help. I had to create a FAT partition and reinstall DI to it. Another problem with her machine was DI stopped creating OS her backups to the NTFS Data partition. The problem was either tied to the backup requiring a 2nd segment or that the primary segment was being fragmented. DI sometimes can't handle anything but simple file allocations on NTFS partitions under DOS on some systems. My solution for her was to expand the FAT partition and direct DI to create the images there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 10, 2004 Author Share Posted September 10, 2004 Ok folks – sorry this post has gone on so long, but for those of you who are still with me – I’ve gotten enough information that I think I can explain how it all works:In the partition that contains XP, there is special information in the boot sector which is specific to your XP installation and needs to be captured in a backup if you want to be able to restore (as opposed to rebuild) a disk. Only an image backup of the partition captures this information.There is also some information outside ALL the partitions (the master boot loader) that has to be restored to the boot sector of a disk that holds XP, for XP to boot. This information is not specific to your system.So – for backups, use an image backup for the partition that contains XP. Backup the other partitions however you want to.For restore, 1) add and format a new disk on the PC that had the failed disk: use the disk prep tools on the XP setup CD to prep the drive, including installing the Master Boot Loader .Once the drive is prepared, cancel setup.2) Restore the image for the XP partition over the network (most imaging programs support restoring over the network)3) boot.4) restore your other backups.What gets hairy is if you lose the information in the boot sector of the XP partition. This is when you get into repair-installs and such.Does this make sense? Did I miss anything?Thanks!/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 I don't totally agree with that. But try it and let us know how it works for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 When XP's Cleanup/Defrag compresses less frequently used folders DI couldn't run when it booted to DOS. DOS can't read compressed NTFS folders. And reinstalling and accessing the folder didn't help. I had to create a FAT partition and reinstall DI to it.Hmmm...I don't understand that. There's nothing for DOS to 'read' anyway. It just creates an environment for the DI program to run in. Even DI doesn't 'read' individual files/folders as it's creating the image.My copy of DI2002 is installed in an NTFS partition. I have 1 FAT32 partition, but I don't create any images to there.The problem was either tied to the backup requiring a 2nd segment or that the primary segment was being fragmented.I am not sure what you mean by that Ed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 You may be right, DI may not have been totally into DOS yet. The MBR pgm that DI creates points to the vfloppy.sys file on the hd and when it was compressed the MBR pgm couldn't read it when rebooting the machine.Her backup image is composed of 2 files; C_drive.pqi and C_drive.002. The pqi file is 2GB the other something less than that. (BTW my backup is pqi - 009 ) Her D: drive is something like 24GB of which she has used about 6-8 GB. DOS DI created the .pqi file fine but croaked when it went to create the .002 file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted September 10, 2004 Author Share Posted September 10, 2004 I don't totally agree with that. But try it and let us know how it works for you.that's why I posted it Edp - what do you not agree with?/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Fisher Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 You may be right, DI may not have been totally into DOS yet. The MBR pgm that DI creates points to the vfloppy.sys file on the hd and when it was compressed the MBR pgm couldn't read it when rebooting the machine.Her backup image is composed of 2 files; C_drive.pqi and C_drive.002. The pqi file is 2GB the other something less than that. (BTW my backup is pqi - 009 ) Her D: drive is something like 24GB of which she has used about 6-8 GB. DOS DI created the .pqi file fine but croaked when it went to create the .002 file.The maximum file size is 2GB (I think), then DI automatically starts another part. Try setting your own sizes and see how that works... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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