jsheldon Posted January 29, 2006 Report Share Posted January 29, 2006 I've just spent what feels like the best part of the last week reformatting my laptop to get it back to factory fresh and the re-loading all the bits of software that I use. The HD was getting bloated despite ruthless cleaning of old software etc. What I'd like to do now is back up the hard disk as it is now onto dvd's with software which would create a bootable disk, which when run would wipe the HD and replace with the backup on the disks just in the same way the factory Toshiba disks did in case I have to do this again. It would save me having to reload all the other bits of software on again, redoing settings etc. Any one have any recommendations ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techieboy Posted January 29, 2006 Report Share Posted January 29, 2006 Have always previously been a fan of Norton Ghost but have just bought a copy of Acronis True Image for the office based on reviews. Haven't used it in anger yet but it looks considerably more powerful than Norton. It's definitely worth doing, I always image my disks after the initial OS install, service pack/patch installs and basic application installs. Makes it easy to blow away the whole disk and restore to a working configuration in 10 minutes. Just make sure you allow for your data/docs/mp3's etc by saving them to a different partition to the OS and applications. Cheers, Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sufu Posted January 29, 2006 Report Share Posted January 29, 2006 acronis is amazing compared to norton, much easier to use, and much more capable, I use it at work and home and its never failed to impress. you can create a boot cd that will allow you to backup the whole hd to an image across a network, and in the event that you need to, you can restore it in the same way too.... thats assuming you have a home network you can use... If you dont have access to a home network then its down to using something like Nero Backitup, which will allow you to backup all your data to dvds/cds (but you'll still need a basic install on the laptop first in order to restore everything), or removing the drive and cloning it using acronis or ghost in another machine... can anyone think of a better solution? im out of ideas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fudge Posted January 29, 2006 Report Share Posted January 29, 2006 Assuming that your laptop has a DVD writer (or you have an external usb writer), you can do it quite easily with Norton Ghost. I did this with my laptop (fortunately). The restoration was a doddle just inseted the DVD, had a cup of coffee, swapped the DVDs (I had more data than would fit on one) and shortly after laptop was back to full health. As a bonus, you can access individual files/folders within the backup from Norton Ghost when running in XP if you ever delete something by mistake and need to restore just a file(s) from the backup DVDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsheldon Posted January 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Looks like Norton or Acronis then. Will Acronis create a full image of the hard disk onto dvd(s) that are bootable, which will when they are run wipe the hard disk and replace with the drive image? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mb Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 PC Pro (January) included a free copy of Paragon Exact Image 7SE - I haven't tried it but if you want a copy let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blaa Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 I use Norton Ghost, every week I make an incremental backup of my system hdd. Prolly should have even more hdds so I could backup some more of the 1.2 TB I've got stored. Mostly mp3 and tv-shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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