VOGONS


First post, by Planet-Dune

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I would like to make some disk images after I do the OS, drivers, programs etc installs. That way if something goes wrong, I should be able to just restore the image and don't have to start all over. Anyone know what's the best software to do this with? I read conflicting reports and seems a lot of the ones recommended in the past do not actually exist anymore...

Reply 1 of 11, by boxpressed

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I use Norton Ghost 2003 with 98SE. If you do a clean install with only video and sound drivers, the image will be around 300MB, and you can burn to a CD-R.

I keep a binder of about 30 CD-Rs will all sorts of video and audio card combos.

Takes about 3 minutes to restore with a DVD-RW drive and a P3 550 MHz.

Reply 2 of 11, by wirerogue

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it kind of depends on your hardware and os you are using. i backup all my retro machines because i hate installing software.
i use the following:
windows 95 - ghost 5.1, works well with low memory systems (windows or dos)
windows 98se - clonezilla 1.1.0-8, requires more memory than ghost, this version runs well on older chipsets like bx440 or i815 (bootable cd)
windows 2000 - acronis true image 10 w/bart's pe builder, has a few different boot and recovery options to run from windows or other bootable environment. also useful if you need to backup a raid array.
windows xp (and above) - macrium reflect . whatever the latest version is. still runs on xp. love those guys.

Reply 4 of 11, by Jo22

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wirerogue wrote on 2020-02-13, 03:07:

windows 2000 - acronis true image 10 w/bart's pe builder, has a few different boot and recovery options to run from windows or other bootable environment.
also useful if you need to above) - macrium reflect . whatever the latest version is. still runs on xp. love those guys.

I'm speaking under correction, but I think at some point Acronis True Image 7.x also supported Win98SE/Me, still.
Anyway, not sure anymore. I loved Acronis True Image in the Win XP days, because it was user friendly, logical and could do 1:1 images of partitons/HDDs,
with several compression levels, along with the ability to resize images and restore Partition IDs (useful for Win NT/XP). Last, but not least, it also had an emgerceny boot disc
that could be made with a media builder program (supported making floppies and CDs). It contained a self-booting copy of True Image by using a both DOS and Linux based system each.
Also cool was the ability of newer versions to be able to restore older versions backups. That way, you could upgrade without loosing your old backups.
That being said, True Image lost appeal after version 10 or so I heard. We mainly used ATI 7 and 9 here.

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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 5 of 11, by Joseph_Joestar

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Acronis True Image 8 works great for my needs.

I run it off the bootable CD and have used it to image and restore DOS 6.22, Windows 98SE, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It natively supports my USB 2.0 NTFS-formatted external HDD, so imaging is fast and space constrains aren't an issue.

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Reply 7 of 11, by Intel486dx33

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For DOS I just hook up a Slave drive and use the xcopy command.
C:\ xcopy e/s/ C:\*.* D:
And then sys the D drive lasts
C:\sys D:

Turn off and disconnect the slave drive and now you have an exact copy of your original C drive.

Reply 8 of 11, by derSammler

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No, this won't give you an *exact* copy of your drive. You can only get an exact copy by using imaging software, not by doing a file-copy. Not to mention that your copy is physical as well - being just on a second hard disk - and nothing you can put on a NAS for later restore, for example.

Reply 9 of 11, by Slashzero

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boxpressed wrote on 2020-02-12, 22:50:

I use Norton Ghost 2003 with 98SE. If you do a clean install with only video and sound drivers, the image will be around 300MB, and you can burn to a CD-R.

I keep a binder of about 30 CD-Rs will all sorts of video and audio card combos.

Takes about 3 minutes to restore with a DVD-RW drive and a P3 550 MHz.

Oh man! I really need to find a copy of Norton Ghost. Anyone have the disks as WinImage archives? Yes I could also do a google search but I’m at work, and there are so many fake “app archive” sites getting themselves to the top of search results.

Anyway, I used the crap out of Norton Ghost in the early 2000s. It’s great imaging software. We created base images and would use them to create test servers and client desktops as needed for testing enterprise software in various combinations. Virtualization killed all of that though.

It would be very useful right now with all the old hardware I have running.

Reply 10 of 11, by Horun

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Search Acronis 8, Norton Ghost 2000 or Norton Ghost 2003 at archive org 😁

added: I have bought Acronis from v10 thru v16 and then 2017 and 2018 versions. and all allowed making a great media ISO like v8 except in 2016-17 they changed things and the media ISO does not work the same. For anyone looking to image from WinXP thru Win10 I suggest Acronis v16 if you can find it...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 11 of 11, by Shagittarius

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I use Acronis True Image 2019 for my XP/Win 10 Machine. It's the last version to support XP, but it long ago lost Win 9x functionality. For my 98/XP Machine I use Norton Ghost 9.0. I have an older version of Ghost that runs on a floppy but I think that's only good up to 9x.