Disk Imaging Advice Requested

[aznamzonbb]

Hi, I want to perform disk imaging with my IBM T22 laptop. The C drive is 13 GBs and with all the programs installed, it will probably be around 10GBs. I only have a cd-rom drive attached to the laptop. I am thinking of using a disk imaging program that runs on Windows 2000/XP so that I can burn the image onto an external DVD burner drive that I am thinking of purchasing.

Problem is, will I be able to restore the disk image with this USB connected drive? Or does it have to be physically connected to my laptop? I really do not want to purchase a DVD burner just for this laptop (as you can tell, it is quite old).

Also, which disk imaging programs does anyone recommend?

Thanks everyone!

 

[pmonett]

I must admit that I see an issue with your question, and that is that you say your laptop is old.
Can it boot via USB on an external drive ?
If it cannot, then I think you had better try buying an external hard disk and copying your data over manually. The laptop can always be reinstalled.

If the laptop can be booted via a USB peripheral, then you might be able to give it a shot. Although, if your laptop is that old, you'll probably only have a USB 1 interface, and that isn't all that good for the brand-new DVD writers out there.

Actually, I honestly think the better option is the external HDD. Two discs failing at the same time is rather rare, so if your system does croak, you'll have a ready backup to plug into the new one. And a more user-friendly one too.

If you do go through the DVD route, I would recommend Norton Ghost. I've been using it for more than a decade now, and it has never failed me.

Pascal.

 

[Santei]

Hi there,

I think the best decision will be to purchase external HDD. Use backup software like Acronis True Image. I've been using this program for quite long time, according to my experience it's the easiest and most convenient software I've ever seen. It has very good-looking intuitive windows wizard, just follow the prompt and you could make the perfect bakup in minutes. Keep this image on external HDD, so you'll be able to restore image from it-very comfortable and dependable.

Santei

 

[G0AOZ]

Does the laptop have an network port? And do you have a minitower or desktop machine as well? If yes, then how about making a network boot disk and running say Drive Image or Ghost and putting a complete copy of the drive onto the desktop PC.

This is how I deal with laptops in my care including a very ancient one on which I use an old D-Link parallel port network adaptor.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[micker377]

What "filestore" are you using? Fat32 has a 4gig file limit. NTFS is unlimited. My system is Fat32 (14gig of info), and my external backup drive is NTFS. When I back up to my internal (seperate) hard drive, it (Acronis) creates 4 files. When I use my external (NTFS) drive, it is one 14g file. Yes, I alternate backups. You can also burn to CD's. This is called file spanning. When one CD is full, you just insert another one. Sound like the old floppy days, but can you imagine how many floppy's this would take?

 

[pmonett]

Sorry to be contradictory, but Microsoft says that the maximal theoretical size allowed by FAT32 is 8 terabytes.
God help the poor soul who tries to do that !
A more precise reading of the article reveals that even Microsoft considers that 32GB is a more realistic average limit. A far cry from the theory.

Pascal.

 

[Freestone]

Just to reconcile differences between Micker & Pascal's posts:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp

FAT32 Volume Sizes:
"In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems."

FAT32 File Size Limit:
Maximum file size 4 GB minus 1 byte (2^32 bytes minus 1 byte)

 

[pmonett]

Right, I misunderstood. Micker was talking about file size, I was referring to partition size.

Pascal.