I manage to corrupt my system (home built, overclocked) once every few months, and most recently WMP10 does not work. Tried repair but no help.

So, I have just re-installed WINXP and all my software. I thought if I can backup my system software, it would be less time consuming.

In the old thread, there were reommendations on Ghost 9. Ghost 10 is out now, so what do you think? Also, Norton System Works 2006 is on sale at FS. Can it do system backup? I have a 2003 copy and it does not do system backup. Just wonder if the new editions do.

Thanks for any advice.

Acronis True Image is way better than Ghost for disk imaging. It's more reliable, faster, cheaper and works with more hardware. Be sure to back up to a different physical drive, not a different partition on the same drive.

^+1. Ditto. True Image is great. Very easy, and reliable. It's got me out of a few sticky situations. :eek:

http://www.runtime.org/ DRIVEIMAGE XML
Works really easy and its free! I use it at the office to roll out new machines with full software packages preinstalled.

Thanks guys. Exactly what I need. I'll try the free Drive Image first. Will give you some feedback on how it goes, and how many dvd's are required to backup my system.

I use Acronis and recommend it.

One note: If you buy the new version be sure to check for updates. They had a problem a while back where the backups worked but they weren't registered properly and people thought the backup was faulty.

I used the DriveImage to backup my c: drive which is my boot drive with winxp. It is about 13 GB and it took about 15 minutes to write it to my second drive. If I use the compressed option, it took 36 minutes and the final compressed size is 10 GB, not a big saving, but took much longer to do.

This program is very easy and simple to install and use. It is free, no registration required.

It allows me to browse the image (since it is in xml format), and it looked like my real c: drive.

I cannot test the restore feature, since I just re-install my system, and do not want to test it at this time. Maybe after a while, it will somehow get corrupted and I'll give it a try. But, it seems to be working, and it is free.

Thanks for all your sggestions. Thanks to ctown for the link.

I also use Acronis worked great for me Just recently bought a new hard drive for the purpose of cloning it now my old one which is going on 4 yrs old is my backup.Great product

I am one of those who does not regularly back up my files. I claim it's not laziness but lack of good software. Does anyone know of any free backup software or cheap that will do relliable ongoing incremental backups to DVD?

Thanks
Peter

I've done my recent backups useing this great boot CD.... more specficaly theNorton Ghost utility. The CD runs off a "virtual drive" it creates in your ram, so the HD you want to backup is not being used at all. It will also backup to DVD and will span multiple DVD's.

Hirens Boot CD (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hiren.thanki/bootcd.html)

Unfortunatly some of the utilities.... though provided free by the indidual companys were copywrighted, so he took down the download. It's found easily though through bittorent.

It also won't automatically do your backups for you... you just have to boot up the CD onc in a while.

Just to be clear (and so Hugh doesn't get upset), it would be illegal to use such boot CDs unless you purchased a license for GHOST or any other software on the CD. We don't want to be accused of promoting pirated software, now do we?

PeteX, its hard to make a recommendation without some info. What OS do you use. If its Windows, have you tried to use the native backup utility? If Linux, you can create a simple shell script which can TAR the files into a DVD sized archive very easily. There may be some freeware out there, but without more info, we can't recommend anything.

. What OS do you use. If its Windows, have you tried to use the native backup utility? If Linux, you can create a simple shell script which can TAR the files into a DVD sized archive very easily. There may be some freeware out there, but without more info, we can't recommend anything.

I am using Windows XP home and I was unaware of the "native backup utility."
I had a quick look in my programs and don't see it. My version of XP came loaded on the computer without the software on CD so I am not sure if everything was installed. I should tell you that I am not very familiar with OS ccomplexities e.g. simple and shell script are mutually exclusive terms to me.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Cheers
Peter.

PeteX

The following are some good threads to check out regarding back up software:

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42119
http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23803


I know you want free but you get what you pay for in this world. If your computer and data are worth anything to you, I'd say spend $40 and get a program like Acronis.

I am using Windows XP home and I was unaware of the "native backup utility."
Try this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320820/

Here is one: http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

I use SyncBack to my external HD....very simple to set up and use. It is freeware.

Just to clarify Syncback is not in itself freeware but they make a version that they distribute as freeware. That doesn't diminish it effectiveness and its a perfectly viable alternative as well.

synback and cobian both look good, Thanks Guys.

Cheers
Peter

The Backup utility is included on the Windows XP Home Edition CD-ROM in the ValueAdd folder. To use Backup, you must install the utility manually.
So if you don't have a retail installation disk, you might be out of luck. Someone else's disk might do the trick though.

Not exactly free but, if you have the retail version of Nero 6 you also have a very good backup utility. Personally, I prefer Drive Image 9 which is very reasonable and discounted occasionally (if you get on the mailing list.) It does disk imaging and backup. Disk imaging beets backup hands down for speed and restoring boot partitions.

So if you don't have a retail installation disk, you might be out of luck. Someone else's disk might do the trick though.
Anyone's disk should work ok, as long as its a Home edition. You may also be able to download the necessary files from somewhere. If you know someone with a MSDN subscription, they can download the CD ISO and burn you a new copy as well.

As long as you have a legit copy of XP, you should have also received an XP CD even if you purchased through Dell or similar. You might also find a copy of the CD on your hard drive as some dealer include it there rather than an actual CD.