Backup software

Willbo · 4 Oct 2007 at 00:23

I've just got a laptop as a second pc to use. It will be used mainly for college/training course work. And for messing about on with various software etc.

What would be the best software to use to make a DVD with an image on that can be booted off in dos on bootup to restore the hard drive to a previous good state.

for example, i have old versions of windows lying around and my training course refers to these. so instead of reinstalling and setting them up when needed, i was going to install one, do a backup dvd, install another, do another back up dvd etc etc i'm sure you get the idea, so that basically, i can install whatever OS i need on my laptop a lot quicker than having to do all the installation work.

i was looking at either Ghost 12 or Acronis True Image Home, any help?

bledd · 4 Oct 2007 at 00:33

acronis, definitely

they have a trial you can test out on their website, you can get v10 for £15 if you shop around

Willbo · 4 Oct 2007 at 00:35

will that handle and cope with creating an image of my OS installation, drivers and set up onto a DVD to frequently boot from in DOS to restore various images?

bledd · 4 Oct 2007 at 00:46

you can burn directly to dvd(s) and they'll be bootable, or you can backup to an external hard drive (or a shared folder on a networked pc -since you have two),

you boot from the 'live cd' they provide you with to restore the images

v11 has just come out, and is about £30, has some handy new features, like cleaning windows up by removing temp files before doing a backup (saving a bit of space)

if you made an image of your basic install, with say office and a few programs, it should easily fit on one dvd, it's when you start adding huge picture collections and music and games is when the images start getting bigger

takes about 5 mins to restore say a 5gb image -maybe a bit longer if it's from a dvd

-------------------

also, just re-read your first post, you could look into virtual pc, it lets you make a virtualpc inside your current one, so you could have windows 98 running from inside a window in your XP, it's free and from microsoft -the performance isn't as good as actually installing it obviously, but it'd be less hassle for you

check this picture..

http://pecan.cz/obr/blog/virtualpc/virtual-pc-04-ram.png