Acronis or Ghost?

[Burnsy2023]

Anyone familiar with Deep Freeze?

I guess you could say it does a similar job in a way. Instead of making an image (backup file) of a hard drive state, it instead 'freezes' the hard drive so that every time you reboot the freeze is still in place and it is as though you can just restored from a fresh acronis/ghost image, but without the computer downtime.

Really handy for organisations that are prone to multiple users messing with settings..

Use Windows Steady State instead

 

[SiD the Turtle]

Use Windows Steady State instead

Ah if only it supported Windows 2003.

 

[JC]

http://ping.windowsdream.com/

 

[Burnsy2023]

Ah if only it supported Windows 2003.

I wouldn't see the need to have it running on a server unless it's a terminal server and even then there's little case for that sort of functionality.

 

[m4cc45]

Much prefer Symatec Ghost (Corporate).

Been using it for about 10 years now and there's nothing quicker on the market. Acronis is okay but painfully slow. I also remember having a problem with Acronis whereby I had to fix the MBR everytime I restored the image.

I can't comment on the home software though which is going to be, obviously, different.



M.

 

[SiD the Turtle]

I wouldn't see the need to have it running on a server unless it's a terminal server and even then there's little case for that sort of functionality.

We run training courses so every week I have to ghost out various images to machines that all run on a base of Windows 2003 (and occasionally XP and Vista). Currently I use the Ghost suite to do this, which fulfils our needs... when it works. It's just unreliable. If something like this allowed me to 'reset' the PCs without having to re-image them, I'd be all over it!

 

[Dingleberry88]

I like the DOS version of Ghost.

 

[Burnsy2023]

We run training courses so every week I have to ghost out various images to machines that all run on a base of Windows 2003 (and occasionally XP and Vista). Currently I use the Ghost suite to do this, which fulfils our needs... when it works. It's just unreliable. If something like this allowed me to 'reset' the PCs without having to re-image them, I'd be all over it!

Why don't you create a recovery partition?

 

[naz]

I've been using Acronis since version 10 and its absolutely briiliant.
Has saved me many times in the last few years. Especially when my not so PC savy friends use my PC, and always mange to kill my Windows system

 

[A[L]C]

We run training courses so every week I have to ghost out various images to machines that all run on a base of Windows 2003 (and occasionally XP and Vista). Currently I use the Ghost suite to do this, which fulfils our needs... when it works. It's just unreliable. If something like this allowed me to 'reset' the PCs without having to re-image them, I'd be all over it!

Provisioning server might help?

 

[SiD the Turtle]

Why don't you create a recovery partition?

Provisioning server might help?

The ghost solution suite does this already. You call a task from the server app and it blats out the image you specified. As I said the product fulfils our needs, it's just buggy and unreliable

 

[Bomag]

I like the DOS version of Ghost.

So do I - just wish the sold a dos only version which works with some of the latest and unusual sata controllers. Acronis is fa to much like hard work!

 

[buachille]

Looking for the best way to backup a new windows XP install with a few programs / drivers installed.I've seen norton ghost and acronis true image around.Which would you all recommend? Or is there a better solution? Cheers

Acronis for sure. Put all your data on a seperate partiton from you windows install, or even better, a separate hard drive, and then back up your xp install (whether it's on a partition or a separate hard drive) with acronis.

Then if you get a virus or if your windows install corrupts for any reason, you can reinstall windows quickly and your data will all still be on the partition / separate hard drive untouched.

However, sometimes the acronis backup will fail to restore correctly (although I've only had this happen once), but if this happens you can install windows from scratch, and still you will have all your data accessible on the separate partition / hard drive. If you have to go down this road though you will have to reinstall all your programs - they can't be stored on the data drive, as windows needs to store installs in the registry . The exception to this rule is the few programs that store all their info in an xml file (like filezilla).