I've been google searching for some backup programs and have found a few
including Norton Ghost.

I want a program to run on Vista that will let me recover all my files
(including all the OS files) when someone or something has trashed the MBR
and registry without having to reinstall windows.

(1) What capabilities does the vista backup program have? Can it make
bootable backup or does it require that I reinstall vista, MSOffice and my
other programs and then use backup to restore my data files?
(2) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable DVD from which I
can restore all my files?
(3) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable USB hard drive
from which I can restore all my files?
(4) Is there a way I can create a mirror image of my C drive on a USB drive
so I can boot from my USB drive should my C drive get trashed? Would I have
to buy a second Vista license if it is solely for my personal use? Is there
a program I can use I could run daily to keep the USB drive up to date?
(5) Are the answers to the above questions the same for Windows XP?



Assuming Vista backup does not have these capabilities, what vendor do you
recommend?
Thanks,
Siegfried

I use Norton Ghost. You make bootable CD with the program on the disk.
It make an image of the main disk Check the program out.



--

"Siegfried Heintze" <siegfried@heintze.com> wrote in message
news:eKeHutuzHHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> I've been google searching for some backup programs and have found a few
> including Norton Ghost.
>
> I want a program to run on Vista that will let me recover all my files
> (including all the OS files) when someone or something has trashed the MBR
> and registry without having to reinstall windows.
>
> (1) What capabilities does the vista backup program have? Can it make
> bootable backup or does it require that I reinstall vista, MSOffice and my
> other programs and then use backup to restore my data files?
> (2) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable DVD from which I
> can restore all my files?
> (3) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable USB hard drive
> from which I can restore all my files?
> (4) Is there a way I can create a mirror image of my C drive on a USB
> drive so I can boot from my USB drive should my C drive get trashed? Would
> I have to buy a second Vista license if it is solely for my personal use?
> Is there a program I can use I could run daily to keep the USB drive up to
> date?
> (5) Are the answers to the above questions the same for Windows XP?
>
> Assuming Vista backup does not have these capabilities, what vendor do you
> recommend?
> Thanks,
> Siegfried
>

Try Acronis True Image, you do not have to buy it to use any of the fuctions
also it cheeper than Ghost

Lew

"Jerry Grabill" <jgrabill@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:%23OS50NvzHHA.1184@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I use Norton Ghost. You make bootable CD with the program on the disk.
> It make an image of the main disk Check the program out.
>
>
>
> --
>
> "Siegfried Heintze" <siegfried@heintze.com> wrote in message
> news:eKeHutuzHHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> I've been google searching for some backup programs and have found a few
>> including Norton Ghost.
>>
>> I want a program to run on Vista that will let me recover all my files
>> (including all the OS files) when someone or something has trashed the
>> MBR and registry without having to reinstall windows.
>>
>> (1) What capabilities does the vista backup program have? Can it make
>> bootable backup or does it require that I reinstall vista, MSOffice and
>> my other programs and then use backup to restore my data files?
>> (2) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable DVD from which
>> I can restore all my files?
>> (3) Are there programs that will let me create a bootable USB hard drive
>> from which I can restore all my files?
>> (4) Is there a way I can create a mirror image of my C drive on a USB
>> drive so I can boot from my USB drive should my C drive get trashed?
>> Would I have to buy a second Vista license if it is solely for my
>> personal use? Is there a program I can use I could run daily to keep the
>> USB drive up to date?
>> (5) Are the answers to the above questions the same for Windows XP?
>>
>> Assuming Vista backup does not have these capabilities, what vendor do
>> you recommend?
>> Thanks,
>> Siegfried
>>
>

Hi Siegfried

I use WinPE (Windows Preinstall Environment). It creates a *.WIM
file.

I have created a 'WIM' Windows Image of my dual boot system. It works
well for XP and Vista. It is the system that companies like Dell etc
use on their recovery partitions. It can also be put onto a DVD/USB
hard drive etc with your backup image of your operating system for
quick recovery.

I have two images, of each OS so far: The first is the initial
activated install, plus any Windows updates available at the time. The
second image I did two months later and also has Office 2007, any
further updates, plus a few other things like Nero etc. I will create
another image in a few months if I install any more software or if
there is too many more updates - so it is kind of like a snapshot of my
c:\ & d:\ (XP & Vista) drives. It means that it only takes about 10
minutes (honestly - 10 minutes) to get back to a fully working version
of Vista (or XP or any OS).

I don't use WinPE to back up my Documents / Favorites / Music / Email /
etc / anything that is MY data - I have moved the all of that stuff to a
third partition, so I can share it all with both my XP boot and my Vista
boot. Plus this means I don't have to backup OS very often, once maybe
twice a year. It depends on what I install and how many Windows
updates there are.

One of my jobs is a tester at a software company and I have to test
software on virgin installs of XP and Vista. WinPE is the fastest and
most reliable software I could use. Which is why PC manufacturers use
it for their recovery partitions. If I am testing on any of the Win9x
I have to use Ghost and it takes forever and they are only small OS's!

The current versions of Ghost make a backup of the operating system
that it is running on! Which worries me a little for reliability (yes
I know that it has been fully tested and thousands of people use it but
it is not for me). Although, that said, it was VERY EASY to USE and can
to incremental backups. I did a lot of research on this a year or so
ago, but at the time no-one could answer whether you could make the
backup using Ghost 10 bootable. I found plenty on how to make Ghost 9
backup image bootable. It isn't as fast as WinPE either.

I hope that you find some of this information useful.


--
justintime
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