Does anyone know of disk image software that works with Windows 7? Norton Ghost can't snapshot half my drives, I tried "Active Disk Image" which claimed to be Windows 7 compatible, that can't snapshot and also crashes. Anything else out there that works?
Acronis has a beta version of it's next gen software available on their site. Maybe you might want to give that a try and see. Also, Acronis 9.0 works with Vista, so being that Win7 is based on Vista, shouldn't that work with it? I have multi XP, 2K3, and Vista drives/partitions on my system and what I do is make clones from XP platform. Makes a perfect copy into another drive if that's what you are looking to do.
Well, acronis was actually my next step, but I got a slightly different message this morning and when I googled that I found a thread on fixing ghost on symantec's site (not fixing it for windows 7 but for XP or Vista). Anyway basically for whatever reason the symantec snapshot service (64 bit version since this is Windows 7 x64) was not set up properly (I had to reinstall Ghost since the windows 7 upgrade from Vista uninstalled it). Somehow it didn't install properly. By getting that service running (SynSnapServicex64.exe) as a service it now is up and running. I can provide more info on the fix if needed by anyone.....
Best is to use a product that you do NOT run from within the operating system you are trying to backup. In that case, you do not care what o/s you are using, but only the type of the file system. I use and recommend clonezilla.org/. Download it, burn it to a CD and boot from it. Easiest is to pre-partition your HDD or save the backup in a separate HDD. If you have one HDD, first split it in 2, and use a file system like ext2 on the second partition so that windows don't even recognize it. Then install your o/s in first partition, and periodically back it up to the second partition. Of course, a second HDD would make it simpler. If you are so inclined, you can also save the backup over the network (over ssh or windows network) - this is what I do.
Any reasons you guy look for something that is external to the OS? Partition backup technology is part of Windows since Vista - it started there with ImageX. It works file based (i.e. it makes not a dump image but actually creates like a zip file - in fact, the whole Vista upward installation approach works with those ".WIM" files. No need to pay. Just read your manuals and learn your tools. http://4sysops.com/archives/imagex-for-windows-7-new-features/ is a decent start. That being said, with Windows 7 it may make sense to install into a VHD file, not on a raw disc
Only primitive, dated clone programs cannot run in the background... And force users to jump through flaming hoops of fire. I've been using Casper for > 3 years with 100% reliability... On all my PCs. http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/ A good, simple solution is: (1) every PC has 2 drives, call them c: and e: (2) clone c: to e: every few days (3) both drives are identical and bootable (4) if something goes wrong with c: just open up the case and swap SATA cables... takes about 30 seconds.
With Casper's "incremental clone" feature, could update your clone drive daily... takes only about 1 minute.
How reliable is Casper? I'm currently using Acronis True Image (Vista Home 64-Bit) and have several gripes with it: Usually I make an incremental backup every evening, including a verify, and have checked the option to shut down the computer after this operation. When there has been an error - verify not ok - Acronis does not shut down the computer. There is not even a message in the log file, I have to close Acronis and reopen it to see some cryptic stuff I cannot make sense off. When I want to look up just the log file, no backup disk attached, Acronis takes forever to start. Browsing through the log file is next to impossible, clicking on a date takes about 15 seconds to produce a reaction by Acronis. Making an incremental backup (maybe 4 GB) takes about 30(!) minutes. The backup needs about 4 minutes, the verify alone lasts almost 30 minutes. I guess they verify all of the backup, instead just the increment. There are some bugs in the UI: recently I made an error and instead of opting for a proper backup file name I left it at the default "MyBackup". I noticed this, scrolled back through the dialogues and changed the file name: everything looked fine. Acronis started the backup but the verify step failed because Acronis did not find the file "MyBackup". Aside from that it seems to work properly: I make a backup every day and have made several restores, all were ok.