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Using one large disk for image backup and test restoring the images.
I'm trying to work out a reliable, simple, low cost backup strategy for
my home pc. I'm using Win XP Pro. [ Drive #1 (74.5 GB) ] %Free #1 (Active) NTFS C: 39997 MB 25 #2 NTFS E: 39997 MB 36 [ Drive #2 (37.3 GB) ] #1 FAT32 D: 24152 MB 4 #2 NTFS F: 14001 MB 8 The two hard drives are IDE drives. What I'd like to do, is install a 250G ide drive which would be used only for backup data. Use a software application to save at least one mildly compressed image of each logical drive to the 250G disk. I also want to do a test restore of each image after it is saved. To do the restore, I'm thinking that I can make a 40G partition on the 250G disk, and restore each image into that partition for each test. For the image of the C: drive, I'd also like to test the restore by booting XP Pro from the 40G partition on the 250G drive. Is there problems with using the Image Backup application to restore an image into the 40G partition on the 250G drive? I'm worried that the application might insist on disregarding the 40G partition and just over write the whole 250G space, wiping out all of the other backup images ? What is the best image backup application to use to carry out my plan ? What do others think, is this a workable strategy. Is there other strategies that better meet my original criteria, reliable, low cost, simple? |
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Thanks for addressing all the questions in my post.
Another thing I'm not sure about is when I create the 40G partition on the large hard drive, is it designated a NTFS or FAT32 partition at that time ? I've got one FAT32 drive, will this be a problem for the image restore application, if I create the test restore partition as NTFS and then try and restore the FAT32 image into the NTFS partition ? What about Ghost 9 and BootIt NG, would they both be able to do what I want ? Initially I thought USB external drives were the obvious way to go, but after reading about the problems some have had with them, speed compatability, corrupt data, etc. I thought I don't have to have the convenience, at least initially. I'm comfortable plugging in the extra IDE drive. In the longer term, I'm hoping Blu Ray or HD-DVD will become available with hardware and media at a price that's viable for the home PC user. |
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