Re: Drive Image--OT

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from J R FOX  on Wed, 11 Jan 2006
11:41:07 -0800 (PST)


> O.K., that would seem to account for the Registry --
> carrying with it the Desktop stuff, preferences,
> settings. But what about all the installed app.s
> (with *their* preferences), not to mention the
> gazillion MS security patches we've applied over time?

Well, everything on the BootDrive gets restored. So if that's where your
applications are, they get restored too. Now, my approach is to only have the
operating system on the BootDrive. This keeps the size of the BootDrive backup
to a minimum. If you've really been rigorous, and installed apps elsewhere,
put your TMP directory elsewhere, put PAGEFILE.SYS elsewhere, then BootDrive
might even be small enough to fit on a CD. Maybe. Maybe not. I'm further
assuming that your other drives are NOT trashed -- that you are restoring only
the BootDrive.

Yes, I think it's true that almost all of these image makers will build a
self-booting CD/DVD, assuming the hardware needed to burn discs. But I don't
think most people backup to CD. Neither is CD/DVD a really satisfactory
solution for incremental backups, where you only backup files that have changed
(of course, it can be done, if you don't finalize the CD, but it's cumbersome).
I think most people want to backup to a second hard drive, or to an image, or
to a big flash memory. If DOS is capable of restoring the image, fine -- no
problem. Having available a DOS boot floppy or CD or flash drive with FAT32
capability is something I automatically assume (how else do you fix deep
problems? that's why you format the BootDrive as FAT32, so that Win98 DOS can
address it). I'm simply raising the issue of which OpSys performs the
restoration, because -- specifically -- I don't know how NTFS restoration is
handled, whereas FAT[32] ought to be very straightforward. Partition Magic can
format an NTFS drive under DOS, and certainly WinInternals NTFSDOS can
read/write NTFS under DOS, so there's no doubt that it is possible with
sophisticated drivers; but normally NTFS can't be addressed from DOS.

But I also don't agree that my method (reinstall the OS, then Restore using
native NT Backup/Restore) is complicated or requires *any* detailed knowledge
of anything. Moreover, *it works*, using any backup medium. To assert that my
method is complicated, and then promote DFSEE in the same context, is almost
ludicrous. I've used DFSEE for many many things, but can't think of a more
complicated, obscure, or especially more *dangerous* (in the hands of anyone
short of a partitioning expert) utility than DFSEE.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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