Creating a HDD image

rmg1

Hi all

I've been thinking about imaging my HDD in case of failure and think that's going to be the best option. My HDD is 80GB with 30.8GB used.

Now, three questions :-
1) What's the best (preferably free) software to create the image?
2) Can I fit the image onto one DVD somehow through compression?
3) How would I restore the image to a newer, bigger HDD (both are IDE, I've no SATA ports)?

All help gratefully received.

swvillafan

Clonezilla is a good free tool to use. Its interface is mostly if not all text based though so doesnt appear as user friendly as something like Acronis Trueimage.

The image would better be stored on a usb hard disk if you have one or are able to get hold of one. If using clonezilla I reckon you'd be looking at a 8-10 gb image (based on a recent image i took of a pc with an 80gb hard disk that had used a similar amount to the OP).

With regards to restoring, Clonezilla and other tools work by way of a boot disk. Theoretically you could remove the hard disk from your pc, pop in the new one. When turning on the pc, insert the boot cd and follow the steps to restore the image. You will only be able to restore to your original pc though, restoring to different hardware will cause BSOD errors or other issues.

fwor

1. The free one that I currently use is PING. I doubt that it's the best, because ones that you pay for generally have more friendly user interfaces. If you do use PING, beware if any of your partitions are xfs, as the underlying utility sometimes has problems with that format.

2. That depends on how compressible your data is! Some types of data (e.g. MP3s, JPGs, video in general) will usually hardly compress at all. IMO you will be lucky to get 30G onto even a dual-layer DVD. PING has the ability to "span" a backup over multiple removable media (CD/DVD), though I've never used that feature.

3. I'd do it by restoring the partition at it's original size and then using something like GPARTED to "grow" it to fill the HDD. Note that ~some~ file system types can't be expanded in this way easily, but NTFS can.

Donnie

Some suggestions here and here.

rmg1

Thanks guys, I'll have a look

Inactive

This; http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

As long as any one of your drives is a Seagate or a Maxtor, it is a free cut down version of Acronis.