Acronis True Image 10 or Norton Ghost 10?

[isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org]

I'm tired of complete reinstalls once a year. What's the best program?
I've read pros and cons on Newegg.com.

Do they truly back up the entire OS, registry and programs to DVD?
If so, how do they shutdown the protected files and system files that are
currently running?

[R. McCarty]

I'd opt for Acronis True Image instead of Norton Ghost.

One issue for all imaging is the potential loss of personal
data. Since XP stores your profile data on the same volume
with XP if you use an Image to recover from an earlier date
your personal data ( Image date to present ) will be lost.
The way I avoid that is to have a separate partition to store
all my personal data. This way any recovery only restores
XP & Applications and the data isn't overwritten. Takes a
little work to redirect/setup but very valuable long-term.

<isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org> wrote in message
news:Z8ednaBYKaS4lerYnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@giganews.com ...
> I'm tired of complete reinstalls once a year. What's the best program?
> I've read pros and cons on Newegg.com.
>
> Do they truly back up the entire OS, registry and programs to DVD?
> If so, how do they shutdown the protected files and system files that are
> currently running?

[DL]

Reinstalls once a year, why, what are you doing to your sys?


<isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org> wrote in message
news:Z8ednaBYKaS4lerYnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@giganews.com ...
> I'm tired of complete reinstalls once a year. What's the best program?
> I've read pros and cons on Newegg.com.
>
> Do they truly back up the entire OS, registry and programs to DVD?
> If so, how do they shutdown the protected files and system files that are
> currently running?

[Bill Ridgeway]

"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:%23DW4VXWGHHA.3872@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I'd opt for Acronis True Image instead of Norton Ghost.
>
> One issue for all imaging is the potential loss of personal
> data. Since XP stores your profile data on the same volume
> with XP if you use an Image to recover from an earlier date
> your personal data ( Image date to present ) will be lost.
> The way I avoid that is to have a separate partition to store
> all my personal data. This way any recovery only restores
> XP & Applications and the data isn't overwritten. Takes a
> little work to redirect/setup but very valuable long-term.
>
> <isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org> wrote in message
> news:Z8ednaBYKaS4lerYnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@giganews.com ...
>> I'm tired of complete reinstalls once a year. What's the best program?
>> I've read pros and cons on Newegg.com.
>>
>> Do they truly back up the entire OS, registry and programs to DVD?
>> If so, how do they shutdown the protected files and system files that are
>> currently running?

I would suggest having a spare hard drive in a removable caddy onto which an
image is re-created every so often to refresh the spare 'system' hard drive.
This could be used to backup user files every week This gives a basic
system and user files. It's not going to be perfect (RAID is, perhaps, the
nearest to perfection) but it should give a reasonable resiliance to fire,
theft, viruses that have evaded detection and mechanical problems.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

>
>

[isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org]

"Bill Ridgeway" <info@1001solutions.co.uk> wrote in
news:el756e$mt6$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk:


>
> I would suggest having a spare hard drive in a removable caddy onto
> which an image is re-created every so often to refresh the spare
> 'system' hard drive. This could be used to backup user files every
> week This gives a basic system and user files. It's not going to be
> perfect (RAID is, perhaps, the nearest to perfection) but it should
> give a reasonable resiliance to fire, theft, viruses that have evaded
> detection and mechanical problems.
>
> Regards.
>
> Bill Ridgeway
> Computer Solutions
>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Are you referring to Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image when you suggest a
"backup", or do you mean any backup program such as Nero backup.

Once again, how do these any of these programs manage to backup files that
may be locked (such as Zone Alarm or AV program files) or system files
currently in use?


Regarding the individual who posted the message about data files not being
included by the imaging programs - I would always backup the documents and
settings directory + any database files or any others updated since the
drive image was dones. It doesn't take much to just copy your system or
program files to a DVD-r or +R every so often.

[isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org]

"DL" <address@invalid> wrote in
news:OuxljgWGHHA.2464@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl:

> Reinstalls once a year, why, what are you doing to your sys?
>


1) I think it's recommended by many techs and
2) My registry becomes bloated after awhile, and I'm one of these people
who are constantly questioning strange dll's and exe files.

It's amazing what even the most benign sites can do with their cookies and
Javascript files. Do a regedit and go through your root and HKLM strings
and tell me how many strings there are that you would question.

[louise]

R. McCarty wrote:
> I'd opt for Acronis True Image instead of Norton Ghost.
>
> One issue for all imaging is the potential loss of personal
> data. Since XP stores your profile data on the same volume
> with XP if you use an Image to recover from an earlier date
> your personal data ( Image date to present ) will be lost.
> The way I avoid that is to have a separate partition to store
> all my personal data. This way any recovery only restores
> XP & Applications and the data isn't overwritten. Takes a
> little work to redirect/setup but very valuable long-term.
>
> <isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org> wrote in message
> news:Z8ednaBYKaS4lerYnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@giganews.com ...
>> I'm tired of complete reinstalls once a year. What's the best program?
>> I've read pros and cons on Newegg.com.
>>
>> Do they truly back up the entire OS, registry and programs to DVD?
>> If so, how do they shutdown the protected files and system files that are
>> currently running?
>
>
I image my drive approximately once a month (Ghost) and I do
nightly backups to another usb drive using Retrospect.

On more than one occasion, I've restored the Ghost image and
then updated the actual data files from my nightly backups.

Louise

[louise]

isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org wrote:
> "DL" <address@invalid> wrote in
> news:OuxljgWGHHA.2464@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl:
>
>> Reinstalls once a year, why, what are you doing to your sys?
>>
>
>
> 1) I think it's recommended by many techs and
> 2) My registry becomes bloated after awhile, and I'm one of these people
> who are constantly questioning strange dll's and exe files.
>
> It's amazing what even the most benign sites can do with their cookies and
> Javascript files. Do a regedit and go through your root and HKLM strings
> and tell me how many strings there are that you would question.
>
I've happily used JV16 to clean the registry. When I
uninstall a particularly intrusive program, I use JV16 to
seek out all references to those particular files.

Every once in a while I defrag the registry.

I've not had the need to reinstall.

Also, if you "reinstall" from an image, you're taking all
the stuff you're complaining about with you to your new
installation - aren't you?

Louise

[Heather]

"louise" <louise@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:4tpgk4F15b86lU2@mid.individual.net...
> I've happily used JV16 to clean the registry. When I uninstall a
> particularly intrusive program, I use JV16 to seek out all references
> to those particular files.
>
> Every once in a while I defrag the registry.
>
OK......I use JV 16 myself. It is the only one I trust.

But "defrag the registry"???? What in heck do you mean by that??

Baffled

[isotobin@identicalimagepleez.org]

louise <louise@invalid.invalid> wrote in news:4tpgk4F15b86lU2
@mid.individual.net:

> Also, if you "reinstall" from an image, you're taking all
> the stuff you're complaining about with you to your new
> installation - aren't you?
>

No - because I would just reinstall an image of the OS and it's upgrades,
plus all the programs like MS Office, Firefox, AV, firewall, etc. that I
would always load. That would save me about 85% of the time in reloading
everything. If I do it once a year, I can then pick and choose from all
the other programs I want to reinstall (ie which anti-spyware programs I
thought were best, registry utilities, audio/video codecs, etc.).

The codecs alone with shockwave and other plugins can wreak havoc with
video files and cause major conflicts (ffmpeg/ffdshow alone adds all kinds
of strings to the registry as does all the other codecs).