Looking for good free image backup software

DarkCyber

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 14, 2003
Messages
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What are some of the better apps for making a complete image backup that work in either Windows or by booting up from disc and will create the image to a USB drive? I have used Norton Ghost and True Image for a long time, but want to move away from paid apps.

I ran across this EaseUs Todo Backup Free 3.0, but don't know anything about it. Anyone used this?

Thanks!
 
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The main drive manufacturers offer True Image for free you know. I'm just not sure if those versions offer all the functionality you want....they at least make complete images. Worth checking into.
 
Clonezilla has been discussed quite a bit around here, although I have no personal experience with it.
There's no reason to use it anymore except perhaps on very old chipsets that you can't use something newer on (lack of drivers in WinPE).

OP, go with Macrium Reflect. The only downside is that you have to install it once to create a bootable disc. After that you can uninstall it if you want.

With MR, you can download the Windows AIK and build a bootable disc automatically. With this disc you can create images of hard disk, specific partitions, etc. It also has a very nice 'intelligent clone' feature which lets you hook two disk up to the same computer and make an identical copy in about 4-5 minutes. Also, it uses the newest version of Windows PE that is built off Win7. That means drivers for storage controllers is built in, which is nice for AHCI and RAID configurations. Once booted to, you also have the ability to load drivers off a USB if it can't detect the drive.

Oh BTW, it's free!
 
Aha, I knew Seagate DiscWizard just today in another forum.
It is powered by Acronis and is free!
But at least one seagate or maxtor drive is required for this program to run.
 
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions. On this particular system I used the free Western Digital version, but I am still looking for a replacement for using on all my systems, which have varying hard drives in them (different manufactures that is). Probably going to go with Easeus Todo.
 
Here's what I finally came up with. I created a Bart PE boot disk and included the Drive Image plug in and that is what I am now using to create any image's I need to make from DOS (or at boot...not from with in Windows).
 
I was looking at the same thing. I'm also looking for a good imaging software that has native AHCI support.

In this case, my target PC is a PowerNotebooks laptop w/ a Core i7 720-QM, 8GB of RAM, a 750GB Seagate Momentus HDD, a DVD burner, and Win7 Pro SP1, which I installed with Intel's AHCI drivers.

Or should I spring the $40 for Acronis TrueImage 2011? I have a copy of TI9 that I used on my last build back in 2006, but I don't think it has support for AHCI mode.
 
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