Clone & Imaging freeware
wasbit
CloneMax - http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm
Clonezilla - http://clonezilla.org
CopyWipe - http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php
DiscWizard (Seagate) -
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
DiskImage - http://www.dubaron.com/diskimage/
Drive Image XML - http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
Drive-To-Drive Copy (Western Digital) -
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1
Dubaron DiskImage - http://www.dubaron.com/diskimage/
EaseUs Disk Copy - http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/index.htm
EzyImager (any storage media) - http://www.getdata.com/products.php
Fog - http://freeghost.no-ip.org/
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost
g4u - http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/
HDClone - http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html
HDCopy (9x/ME) - http://www.majorgeeks.com/HDCopy_d1288.html
Karen's Replicator - http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp
Macrium Reflect - www.macrium.com
NFGDump - http://sourceforge.net/projects/nfgdump/
PartImage - http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page
Partition Saving - http://www.partition-saving.com/
PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) - http://ping.windowsdream.com/index.html
Roadkil's Raw Copy - http://www.roadkil.net/RawCopy.html
Saturn Disk Image (create iso) - http://saturndiskimage.sourceforge.net/
Self Image - http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
USB Image Tool - http://www.alexpage.de/?page_id=3
Western Digital Data Lifeguard -
http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=1
WinDD - http://sourceforge.net/projects/windd/
XXClone - http://www.xxclone.com/
XXCopy - http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm
Links - http://www.s2services.com/quickdiskrecoverylinks.htm
----------------------
'enter8' posted here -
http://www.zeropaid.com/bbs/archive/index.php/f-/t-18205.html
Free Partition Editors, Managers and Recovery (Partitioning Software)
(Fhttp://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml)
"Out of this list, I think Ranish is the most respected.
This being said... I've put in a considerable amount of time researching
this and have found partitioning disks where the OS is already installed a
sketchy endeavor, regardless of whether the software is commercial or free.
Quite a few people get lucky and it works, but a handful don't. The process
doesn't give me much of a warm fuzzy feeling.
If I needed to change the partitions on my drive, I might burn my documents
to DVD, erase the drive (with a zero fill), create my partitions from
scratch (using my HD software) and then re-install my applications/copy back
my docs. This might be overkill, but I've read too many stories of people
trying to change the partitions on their disks and strange things
occurring."
mike
Acronis True Image will let you restore to a different size partition.
back it up, change partitions, restore.
And it's freeware if you catch the periodic free downloads.
Dave Doe
says...
Um... I didn't see it in the list. ?
--
Duncan.
Bob Adkins
>
>This being said... I've put in a considerable amount of time researching
>this and have found partitioning disks where the OS is already installed a
>sketchy endeavor, regardless of whether the software is commercial or free.
>Quite a few people get lucky and it works, but a handful don't. The process
>doesn't give me much of a warm fuzzy feeling.
I'm trying to think why anyone would want to partition a HDD. Modern
OS and BIOS can use up to 1.5TB partition sizes. If a drive crashes,
all partitions are lost, so it's not a safety feature. Drives are now
so cheap that you can buy 2 or 3 and have real drives, not just
partitions.
mike
And that's why so many people have problems.
If you have a single 1.5TB partition, how do you back it up
and where do you put the backup?
I suggest a SMALL boot partition. My win7 boot partition has
14GB of stuff on it...the partition is 24GB just because I didn't
know how much bloat M$ would add when I set it up. I can back up
my boot partition in minutes to another partition on the same drive.
I'm protected against most malware. I can copy the backup image
to two DVD's or one 8GB flash drive and protect against anything else.
I can save the last dozen backups just in
case something happend last month that I didn't catch till now.
The "static" stuff, everything on the other partitions, is backed up
ONCE on DVD .
Let's see you do that with your 1.5TB partition.
Dave Doe
says...
>
> Bob Adkins wrote:
> > On Thu, 7 Jan 2010 11:17:28 -0000, "wasbit" <was...@live.co.ok> wrote:
> >
> >> This being said... I've put in a considerable amount of time researching
> >> this and have found partitioning disks where the OS is already installed a
> >> sketchy endeavor, regardless of whether the software is commercial or free.
> >> Quite a few people get lucky and it works, but a handful don't. The process
> >> doesn't give me much of a warm fuzzy feeling.
> >
> > I'm trying to think why anyone would want to partition a HDD. Modern
> > OS and BIOS can use up to 1.5TB partition sizes. If a drive crashes,
> > all partitions are lost, so it's not a safety feature. Drives are now
> > so cheap that you can buy 2 or 3 and have real drives, not just
> > partitions.
>
> And that's why so many people have problems.
> If you have a single 1.5TB partition, how do you back it up
> and where do you put the backup?
I don't see that partition size has anything to do with backup size.
System A is going to require X amount of space to backup, regardless of
1 or 100 partitions.
I agree with the original poster.
Indeed, even for imaging entire partitions, the s/w doesn't use the
physical size of the partition as the backup size - it backs up the
information (including partition info) - ONLY.
>
> I suggest a SMALL boot partition. My win7 boot partition has
> 14GB of stuff on it...the partition is 24GB just because I didn't
> know how much bloat M$ would add when I set it up. I can back up
> my boot partition in minutes to another partition on the same drive.
> I'm protected against most malware. I can copy the backup image
> to two DVD's or one 8GB flash drive and protect against anything else.
> I can save the last dozen backups just in
> case something happend last month that I didn't catch till now.
> The "static" stuff, everything on the other partitions, is backed up
> ONCE on DVD .
>
> Let's see you do that with your 1.5TB partition.
As said, it should make (almost) no difference.
--
Duncan.
mike
Read my post, do the math, you'll see that that's been accounted for.
That's not the issue.
The issue is...WHERE are you gonna put the backup? There are programs that
claim to backup your system and save the backup on the SAME partition,
but you can't start with a blank drive of a different size and
restore a bootable system using the ones I've tried.
If you have win7 ultimate, you may be
able to do that with total system backup if your drive isn't over half
full, depending on the compressibility of your files..if TSB even
compresses. Never tried it. I've got a better
strategy that works and is not subject to M$ interference.
If you have one partition on one drive, where do you store your
ripped DVD collection? Or your mapping database? or your porn
collection? Your virtualbox drive images or...or...
Do you really want to image ALL that stuff every few days?
And where do you store the image? The larger the image,
the less likely you'll do the backup. Of course, if money
is no object, just buy additional drives and pay someone to
back up the system while you're at the polo club.
With a small boot partition, you can download that freeware,
backup your system and try it out. If it trashes your system,
you can be back up in minutes.
Once you've tried a small boot partition, you'll never go back.
While you're at it, before you reinstall, blow away that 100MB partition
that magically appears and repartition the drive outside windows.
If you don't, it'll cause you no end of backup/restore grief.
It'll cost you bitlocker, and who knows what else if that's important
to you.
>
>
>> I suggest a SMALL boot partition. My win7 boot partition has
>> 14GB of stuff on it...the partition is 24GB just because I didn't
>> know how much bloat M$ would add when I set it up. I can back up
>> my boot partition in minutes to another partition on the same drive.
>> I'm protected against most malware. I can copy the backup image
>> to two DVD's or one 8GB flash drive and protect against anything else.
>> I can save the last dozen backups just in
>> case something happend last month that I didn't catch till now.
>> The "static" stuff, everything on the other partitions, is backed up
>> ONCE on DVD .
>>
>> Let's see you do that with your 1.5TB partition.
>
> As said, it should make (almost) no difference.
Then you're not paying attention.
>
Why Tea
It's not true that if a drive crashes, you would lose all the
partitions. In most cases you might lose the first partition, but
other partitions should still be intact. Of course there could be
disastrous cases which you lost the whole thing. In addition, it's
always handy to have s system partition (C:) and a data partition
(D:, etc) as experience tells us after a few years running Windows,
you usually have to reformat the system partition to start things
afresh again.
Flasherly
Binaries -- the ol' \BIN directory full of executables. One is the OS
- a partition primary (4 primes to a drive). Next is either for a
logical or primary, called PRG, away from the OS. All the C: prime,
OS links go there -- to the other partition, PRG, where they actually
reside.
Last is a minute area for desktop folders. DON'T put them on C:
prime. Third and last partition. This is where the folders exist
that C: prime OS Windows uses. Also, on this last partition -- where
all the programs installs go: for C: prime, -and- PRG partition, -and-
the BINARY (GHOST, which features compression) sector-to-sector images
of C: prime.
Everything else doesn't really benefit from imaging and compression.
What's the point of PRG ghost image if it's going to take a long time,
anyway to restore. (I keep my on DVDs, anyway -- as well as the
partition for OS images and installs.
Unused (latent) programs I haven't tested (commercial - freeware) --
music -- video, they're all on partitions, more or less. Video, for
instance, I'm transferring from DVDs to a 1T single partition NTFS.
BTW -- these 1T drive(s) are utilized 3.5 powered docking stations and
accessed via a USB.
Relevant partions to sum:
C: Prime OS -- 4G partition. Takes 1:45sec to image/GHOST WindowsXP
from RANISH, booted Windows98 via DOS. 1.5G free. Binary image files
approx. 800Meg compressed (roughly the size of the physical swapfile).
F: PRG partition --19G. 2.5G of PRG installs. Roughly 16.5G free.
G: OS PRG Zips/Ghost Images (also contains three dated and rotating OS
C: prime binary image backups). 2G free.
I have huge reservoirs of stored programs, PDF publications, and audio
visuals. Absurd to Ghost them.
Intended by way of illustration for a working model of working/
utilized sector-to-sector GHOST Operational System *backup*. Again,
there's only one drive actually being ghosted, and the other two are
variously backed on DVDs. It's fast-est- for a quick OS restore,
although things *may* become increasingly complicated past that, or
may be entirely irrelevant to someone, say -- using a computer for the
entire SW USA phone database to run telemarketing or some such
nonsense (pure conjecture, as I don't like solicitors).
Bob Adkins
>I suggest a SMALL boot partition. My win7 boot partition has
I suggest a small, fast boot disk like a WD Raptor or a SSD.
For storage, use a big, cheap disk. If the files are irreplaceable,
use 2 identical disks, 1 externally (USB). No partition voodoo to
worry about!
When a HDD dies, all partitions die with it. You can send it out for
recovery, but it's prohibitively expensive. Why not back up on a
separate disk? It's 100% less likely to lose all your data.
>Let's see you do that with your 1.5TB partition.
Well,,, I use Acronis Tru Image, and I can back up my entire boot
disk, just the OS, or anything I want to a compressed file on another
disk. I can back up full or differential. My current boot disk with
all OS and installed files are stored in a single 15GB TIB file.
It's a great feeling knowing it only takes 15 minutes to restore my OS
and hundreds of my favorite installed Freeware apps, completely
bootable.
Partitions have largely outlived their usefulness, but there may be a
few minor exceptions.
mike
So, we're in heated agreement. We do exactly the same thing.
You just prefer to put your partition
on one of the most expensive chunks of storage hardware available.
Works for me...wish I could afford it. I'm a $2 computer kinda guy.
Rod
I prefer one partition for the OS, and a second for image backup and data
files. If the OS goes south, then you can restore with a rescue CD right
from the HDD, and still preserve all your data. One huge partition gives
you no flexibility at all.
Whatever the user prefers. That's why they call it a "personal computer".
Bob Adkins
> I'm a $2 computer kinda guy.
Me too.
I've had my 74GB Raptor for years. I'm saving pennies for a SSD. By
the time I save up enough beer can money for it, they should be very
fast, and glitch free. I use the cheapest large drives I can find for
storage, but use 2 for redundancy.
Craig
> On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:38:54 -0800, mike<spa...@go.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm a $2 computer kinda guy.
>
> Me too.
>
> the time I save up enough beer can money for it, they should be very
> fast, and glitch free.
Bob, if you're watching SSD developments, you should check out Anand Lal
Shimpi's series on the technology & reviews. The latest is here:
<http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702>. Right now, it
looks as if OCZ may be the one to drive prices down.
They're still steep but the technology seems to have more-than-less
arrived with TRIM support. Now's the time for some serious
commoditization. If you have any sources you track for pricing &
performance, lemme know.
thx,
--
-Craig