Re: Dumb question re back up

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> > An alternative backup method is to use imaging software like Symantec
> > Ghost (Graphical Host Operating System Transfer)
>
> Lots of complaints about Ghost on the newsgroups, though. I tried Drive Image,
> which is the same idea; it made clean, verified images, then I tried to view
> the images with Image Explorer, and they were always corrupt and unreadable.
> At least XCOPY is 1:1, and thus verifiable without fancy methods.

Ghost has some significant limitations, but it burns direct to CD whereas the
packet writing feature of DI (I've primarily used DI for a few years now) never
worked with my Plextor burner. I've never made use of Image Explorer, which in any
case runs only under WIN. I don't like the idea of doing any critical operations
-- esp. low-level stuff such as use of PQ -- under any version of WIN. Just don't
trust it. From what I've heard, it is recommended to do a CHKDSK (and maybe a
defrag run too) on a partition prior to imaging it, or the image may prove
unreliable. There are some other things that can lead to image corruption, and I
hope I wrote them down somewhere for future reference as I was tripping over them.
That being said, I have done a few entirely successful partition Image restores
using DI. It continues to comprise about half of my backup regimen, in tandem with
4mm. DAT. I think it is possible that an image can flunk inspection by Image
Explorer, yet still work at restore time.

Jordan