Complete drive failure

[David Sutton]

Yesterday I got the "disk boot failure" when I tried to start my 4 months old desktop, so took it over to the place that built it for me. They found the drive had failed and remembered me from when I purchased it, so just replaced it and sent me on my way with condolences.
It contained my C and D drives which had program files and documents and LR catalogue, so this means a complete re-install of everything. Oh bother.
On the plus side, I backed up at the weekend, so have only lost a day or so of work. I've slipstreamed my Xp installation disk with SP3, so I don't have to go through that nonsense again. Also my laptop is pretty well synched with my desktop, so I know what to install, I have my passwords (also printed out and in the safe), my browser is synched with Foxmarks, I have Photoshop set up the same as on the desktop, I think there is some Brazilian chocolate in the front room and the cappuccino machine is warming up. So it's going to be all right. (sigh)
What I would like to know is if anyone can recommend software to back up a Windows installation and program files. I've heard of Norton Ghost and that's about it. I think it's going to be the re-profiling of my monitors and prints that will get most tiresome. I tried a system back up program about a year ago (can't even remember it's name) but gave it away when I found that the restore part (which is, after all, what I'd want it for) involved purchasing extra software and may not actually work. So, what works, any suggestions? Thanks in advance, David

[Farmer]

Yesterday I got the "disk boot failure" when I tried to start my 4 months old desktop, so took it over to the place that built it for me. They found the drive had failed and remembered me from when I purchased it, so just replaced it and sent me on my way with condolences.
It contained my C and D drives which had program files and documents and LR catalogue, so this means a complete re-install of everything. Oh bother.
On the plus side, I backed up at the weekend, so have only lost a day or so of work. I've slipstreamed my Xp installation disk with SP3, so I don't have to go through that nonsense again. Also my laptop is pretty well synched with my desktop, so I know what to install, I have my passwords (also printed out and in the safe), my browser is synched with Foxmarks, I have Photoshop set up the same as on the desktop, I think there is some Brazilian chocolate in the front room and the cappuccino machine is warming up. So it's going to be all right. (sigh)
What I would like to know is if anyone can recommend software to back up a Windows installation and program files. I've heard of Norton Ghost and that's about it. I think it's going to be the re-profiling of my monitors and prints that will get most tiresome. I tried a system back up program about a year ago (can't even remember it's name) but gave it away when I found that the restore part (which is, after all, what I'd want it for) involved purchasing extra software and may not actually work. So, what works, any suggestions? Thanks in advance, David

Under XP, I can recommend Acronis.  For Vista, the OS based backup is just fine.  You could also consider Windows Home Server as a solution to backup multiple machines over a network.

[John.Murray]

Try g4u (ghost for unix) - totally free, and completely O/S agnostic.

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u

It's actually a BSD based ISO image that is capable of copying a hard drive image, or partition to another drive / partition / or even ftp network share.

[Gellman]

I also recommend the Acronis product.

Create a disk image immediately after you have installed and configured all your programs. This will allow you to return to a clean and functional state on a new drive without having to reinstall operating system and programs. (Saving hours/days.) Then run Windows and anti-virus updates.  You may need to update some other programs, such as MS Office for security patches, or if you have installed newer versions since the date you made the drive image, but this is minor compared to reinstalling everything from scratch. Add backed up data, and you are good to go.

After you update any programs that may need updating, create another disk image if you wish.

Good luck!

John

[David Sutton]

Many thanks to you for you recommendations.
I've formatted, installed, updated, activated, done the files and settings transfer thing, installed Firefox and T'bird and installed their back ups and am back online. I moved the drive containing the C and D drives to the place in the tower where I think it gets the most air. The people who put in the replacement drive moved the cables around and Windows tried to install on and wipe the drive containing my photos, but that's sorted. Well, it's a start. Another 2 or 3 hours and things will be pretty much as they were, except this time there will be a disk image. Thanks again, D

[DarkPenguin]

Try g4u (ghost for unix) - totally free, and completely O/S agnostic.

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u

It's actually a BSD based ISO image that is capable of copying a hard drive image, or partition to another drive / partition / or even ftp network share.

Neato.  Might have to fire up one of the mothballed PC's to be an ftp endpoint for this thing.

[Plekto]

I'd actually recommend that you get two smaller drives for your OS and run them as a raid 1 stack.  That way all I'll really lose are my data drives, which are easy to recover or restore from backups.

WD sells these:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=402
Smaller, of course, because data recovery firms charge based upon drive size.  IIRC, these are under $75 each.

http://www.buy.com/prod/250gb-re2-sata-ii-.../206870097.html - $70 each plus free shipping.
Really silly not to run raid 1 on your boot drive, IMO, at these prices.

http://www.buy.com/prod/western-digital-ca.../206827116.html
I have two of these in my desktop.  Bit cheaper, but $300-$400 less if I have to actually ever recover data professionally.