RE: Windows registry cleanup tools - PowerQuest Drive Image

["Phil White" pdwhite@xxxxxxxx]

Harry,

	If the drive is of a newer interface type or larger size than those
popularly available when Drive Image 7 was being sold you may need to get a
newer version of it to do the job.

	Symantec bought out PowerQuest about two years ago and more or less
froze the products, but is still selling some of them. Other parts were
integrated into Ghost.

	Symantec is MOL what is termed as a "bottom feeder" in the world of
software. Their game is buying out competitive products and sinking them in
favor of their own (and often less powerful) products. PowerQuest is/was
just one more notch in their belt.

	There are several more image copying utilities out there. You may
want to look at what Alohabob has to offer. Their utilities are not only
effective and easy to use, you can also tweak the configuration for more or
less detail if you need to. See: http://www.alohabob.com/

		Phil



Philip D. White,
Senior Information Architect
University of Houston, CASA Testing Center

Phone: (713) 743-4135
Fax: (713) 743-8630
Email: pdwhite@xxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Harry Binswanger
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 1:01
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Windows registry cleanup tools


>The obvious solution to data and OS backups, including backing up the reg
>is this: make an IMAGE of the whole kit and caboodle, OS, apps,
>data--regardless whether they are on the same or different partitions.
>Once you have a clean-running system, deposit the image on an external HD.

Was doing just that using Power Quest's Drive Image 7.0. But then someone
on this list said that that wouldn't really work to restore a drive of a
different manufacturer, size, or what have you (wouldn't match the
external drive). That is, I couldn't a) image drive C:, b) wipe C: clean or
install a fresh C:, c) use Drive Image to copy external drive's image over
to C:, d) drive away as if nothing had happened.

So the next best thing is just to XCOPY everything from C: to the external.
No point in using Drive Image if it's not going to accomplish more
"recovery" than XCOPY.

So I have a .BAT file I run from DOS, the essence of which is the line:

xcopy c:\*.* /c /e /f /d /y %backup_drive:\

The variable, %backup_drive, holds the (changeable) drive letter of the
external drive; it is user input earlier in the .BAT file. The switches
back up only files with a newer date--and, via the /e switch, keep the copy
going past errors (uncopyable files that Windows' Copy facility stops at).

>External HDs are getting cheaper by the minute. Where I am, they are down
>to one Swiss franc per GB. Shucks, a 250 GB HD can even be purchased with
>a fastethernet link now, and you can daisy-chain multiple 250s, so every
>pc and Mac in the LAN can access it/them. Image software is readily
>available. This is a cheap and practical solution for the home user, and
>not overburdened with documenting what you do. If your system crashes or
>the reg gets cluttered beyond repair, just copy the image from the
>external HD and overwite the partiitons affected. Image software has the
>necessary GUI to do this, usually including a bootable CD-ROM which gets
>you underneath the corrupted Windows OS so you can communicate with the
>image source (viz the external HD) and locate the image(s) to be copied.

PowerQuest? What imaging software can do this?


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx