Quick disk image question

[aggiestudd07]

I want to create a disk image of my boot drive, but i am not able to successfully build and boot into UBCD4WIN due to build errors and BSOD's while attempting to boot to it.

Am I able to create a disk image while in the windows environment if that is the drive i am trying to image?

[dbwillis]

I wouldnt trust an image built from inside a machine thats been having operating problems and BSOD's

Cant you take the HDD out and put it in another PC? friends, brothers, local shop?

[aggiestudd07]

I wouldnt trust an image built from inside a machine thats been having operating problems and BSOD's

Cant you take the HDD out and put it in another PC? friends, brothers, local shop?

the operating problems and BSOD's only occur when attempting to use UBCD4WIN, it has nothing to do with the OS stability.

I could pull the HDD, but wouldnt be the best method in my opinion as the closest willing friend is across town, plus i would have to bring a 2nd HDD to save the image

[aggiestudd07]

Original Question:
Am I able to create a disk image while in the windows environment if that is the drive i am trying to image?

[Joe Average]

Acronis True Image can do "live imaging," yes, meaning it can create an image of the system partition (where the OS is) while it's in operation. I've been doing that for nearly two years now, with daily backups while XP Pro x64 is in operation, with True Image, without a single issue so far.

I don't think Ghost offers that capability, nor some others, not 100% sure. I'm just ignorant of the other tools as True Image is the only imaging software I use and recommend.

Restoring the image, of course, always has to be done outside the OS environment and is usually accomplished by booting off the rescue media (a CD or DVD you create with the imaging software) and proceeding step by step to restore the image to the drive in question.

[aggiestudd07]

Acronis True Image can do "live imaging," yes, meaning it can create an image of the system partition (where the OS is) while it's in operation. I've been doing that for nearly two years now, with daily backups while XP Pro x64 is in operation, with True Image, without a single issue so far.

I don't think Ghost offers that capability, nor some others, not 100% sure. I'm just ignorant of the other tools as True Image is the only imaging software I use and recommend.

Restoring the image, of course, always has to be done outside the OS environment and is usually accomplished by booting off the rescue media (a CD or DVD you create with the imaging software) and proceeding step by step to restore the image to the drive in question.

thanks for clarifying, it really helped. i will be going with trueimage. it will prompt me to make a rescue disc when i create an image?

[colinstu]

I'm pretty sure it will prompt you, but there should be an option in one of the menus to create a bootable CD. The CD was able to find my USB Harddrive where I stored my harddrive image, thanks Acronis!

[Joe Average]

When you install True Image (it's primarily a Windows application, of course), there will be an option towards the end of the installation to make the "Recovery Media" which is the CD with the bootable version of True Image on it. You can do it then (just takes 1 CD), or just wait till after the installation is done by skipping it, doing the reboot, and when the system comes back up go into the Start Menu - Programs - Acronis True Image - and find the Recovery Media maker, same principle.

That's about it.

[Old Hippie]

Acronis will do an image within the OS, but if you want a clone, it will have to go into DOS mode to complete the clone.

I feel safer doing a clone from the Acronis bootable media.

Good Luck!

[aggiestudd07]

Acronis will do an image within the OS, but if you want a clone, it will have to go into DOS mode to complete the clone.

I feel safer doing a clone from the Acronis bootable media.

Good Luck!

can you explain the difference b/w image and clone? and if i want to do the clone, will it start in windows and then require a reboot into DOS and finish there or does the entire clone have to be completed in DOS? or by DOS do you mean CMD?

[nitrobass24]

An Image is an individual file that Acronis creates that holds all of your drives partition, mbr, and data info.
Cloning is typically used when lets say, you get a new drive(bigger, faster, etc.) and want to use it instead of the old one. It will make an exact copy to the new drive.

What end result are you trying to accomplish?

[aggiestudd07]

An Image is an individual file that Acronis creates that holds all of your drives partition, mbr, and data info.
Cloning is typically used when lets say, you get a new drive(bigger, faster, etc.) and want to use it instead of the old one. It will make an exact copy to the new drive.

What end result are you trying to accomplish?

in that case i want an image, like i previously had thought. i want the image file to be stored on an external hdd so i can tinker with vista and quickly and easily revert if i dont like it

[Old Hippie]

Read about the differences here (http://www.williamaford.com/CloningaHDD.php).

A clone needs DOS because you can't copy an OS that's in use.
Short and sweet, an image isn't immediately bootable, but a clone is. ;)


and if i want to do the clone, will it start in windows and then require a reboot into DOS and finish there

Yep. Acronis will go soo far and then reboot to DOS, least, that's been my experience.
Anymore, I just use the Acronis boot disk to clone because I've had missing/corrupted MBR problems when doing it thru Windows.

[Old Hippie]

i want the image file to be stored on an external hdd so i can tinker with vista and quickly and easily revert if i dont like it


Image for you! :)

[dbwillis]

DriveimageXML can make an image from a running Windows OS, I use it every few months on a 2003 server I manage

[aggiestudd07]

DriveimageXML can make an image from a running Windows OS, I use it every few months on a 2003 server I manage

ya, i have that installed, but from all of the good things that i have heard about acronis, i think i might try out that one

[Old Hippie]

DriveimageXML can make an image from a running Windows OS

Acronis will too, it's cloning that requires the OS shutdown.

[aggiestudd07]

Alright, got 2 more questions:

1) When I go to try to back up my email, it just completely stops at 0% and doesn't do anything. If i click the Operation Progress window a couple times, it says not responding and it freezes the entire program. does it really take that long to make a backup of outlook email?

2) How long will it take to validate the backup when I image the entire HDD? I have about 90GB on a 150GB drive.

[Joe Average]

The time to completion for an image creation process involves a lot of variables: speed of the CPU, speed of the RAM, speed of the hard drive, speed of the network (if you're doing this over a network which is entirely possible), and other variables. The biggest one however is what kind of data you have on the partition you're imaging in the first place.

Highly compressible data should, using the True Image defaults, give you roughly about a 2 to 1 compression ratio; for every 2GB of compressible data, it'll crunch it down to about 1 to 1.5 or so on average. So, if you have 90GB of data, and if by some strange miracle all of it was highly compressible data (documents, word processing files, the OS files themselves, etc) you could be looking at 50-70GB of data in the image.

But with 90GB of data I'm going to bet you have a lot of video and music files - that stuff is already compressed and really isn't going to get any smaller.

If the imaging process is primarily focusing on compressing data, it goes a lot faster. Less or no compressible data, it's going to take a lot longer. I would say this process is most likely going to take at least 2 hours to complete, and that means at least 2 hours but will most likely take a lot longer.

One of my most recommended solutions to people for better and more efficient management of their hard drives is keeping the system drive/partition kind of small and using the rest of the hard drive for data storage, videos, music, etc. I never have a system drive/partition over 40GB regardless of whatever OS I'm using, and that typically means I can make an image of it fairly quick. When I decide to image my primary system drive, I always copy the non-compressible stuff (music, videos, etc) off to another drive or partition and reduce the footprint of the system drive as much as I can.

Imaging software these days is smart enough to not include the pagefile (which can be several gigs on modern high RAM machines), nor hibernation files, etc. It's always good idea before creating an image to back up non-compressible data to some other location, getting that stuff off the drive you're about to image, and also deleting your temp files, etc. Use something like CCleaner to clear out the muck on the drive - you'd be surprised how much crap can build up over time. CCleaner can wipe it all out in a few minutes saving you a lot of space - and time because that stuff doesn't need to be imaged anymore.

Also, disable System Restore just before making an image if the system is and has been functioning just fine. That will clear out potentially GIGS of effectively wasted disk space as long as the machine is working fine. Just before you actually make the image, enable System Restore and make a recovery point, then proceed with the image creation process.

Hopefully these tips will save you a lot of time during the imaging process, and a lot of (wasted) space on your drive you could be using more efficiently for something else.

Good luck...

ps
True Image can make an image of a drive with the OS running, yes, that's been discussed. But the "cloning" process which is usually a drive-to-drive real-time operation must be done outside of any OS environment meaning booting off the bootable media and doing the task that way. I've done it hundreds of times over the years with True Image, never lost anything yet. Just did a hard drive swap between two laptops the other day and used True Image 11 to image each drive to an image file stored on a USB external hard drive. Put the drives in their new "homes" and restored the images to the respective machines, no issues whatsoever.

[Old Hippie]

When I go to try to back up my email, it just completely stops at 0% and doesn't do anything. If i click the Operation Progress window a couple times, it says not responding and it freezes the entire program. does it really take that long to make a backup of outlook email?

Sounds like your program has a problem.

It takes @ 15-20 mins to image my c drive. That's about 34GBs of data on a 74GB disk.

Validation takes @ 10mins.

This is with Acronis using the default settings, making a complete new image.