What is Reddit's opinion of
DriveImage XML?
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30 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Take a flash drive and copy any important documents / savegames. You can do a full drive image if you want to be sure you don't miss anything. I use a free-for-noncommercial software called DriveImageXML to make backups to external USB HDDs. I keep the backup around for a couple months till I know I don't need any files in it anymore, then I wipe it. If I DO need a file, I restore JUST THE FILE I NEED, and make sure it's scanned, that way the infection stays in the backup.
Don't restore or attempt to restore SOFTWARE to your new load of windows. Any executable file can be infected, and there's a good chance that even a new load of windows with all the updates and an updated virus scanner could miss something. Just go download it fresh. Most software (like LoL) is installable via web, if you have your license/login information nothing will be lost.
Generally speaking, documents are safe (except, apparently .RTF files these days...).
DriveXML. Its a one at a time mechanism, but nice and clean if you dont need to deploy to several different workstations. For that, I would also recommend CloneZilla.
Try Macrium Reflect. I have used it on many devices (servers and workstations) with very few issues, and definitely no blue screens as a result of it that I can recall.
Another free one that isn't as polished, but I use it at home, is DriveImage XML.
If I comprehend you correctly, you back up your data to a storage drive (e.g. external HDD). You then back up that external drive to your DS. As your day / week goes on, you modify the data on the external drive and you now want to make sure said external drive's files are copied over to the DS on a regular schedule.
Here are a list of rsync applications available for Windows that will enable Windows to talk the language. From there, you will need to ensure that you have the same directories on your DS as your source.
A less involved option than rsync is to use a cloning software like Shadow Copy Cloner (link - it's a paid program, though), DriveImage XML (link - this is free), Acronis True Image, CloneZilla (this is also free and incredibly powerful - I use this when cloning 70+ machines during our annual machine deployments), or similar. Once you map your DS to your drive list, your system sees it as an available drive and you can tell one of the above backup programs to just clone your data from your external drive directly to the mapped DS drive (and associated directory within).
If you really wanted to move the OS and games onto the new drive, you can simply clone your old drive onto the new one.
You can do this using something like DriveImage XML to either backup and restore the entire disk image or even 'hot image' the drives, if you have the resources to do so.
You can also reference this guide or google if you need some help using the software.
Now, whether or not that will significantly affect performance depends on a lot of other factors, and to be honest, if the game files are located on the fast drive, it should not matter where the OS is installed. -- If anything, having the OS on a separate drive will clear up accessibility to the game, right? But chances are you are not hitting a SSD reading speed bottleneck in your gaming performance.
CloneZilla is great, and you might also want to checkout DriveImage XML which is free as in beer for personal use. It allows you to make images from within windows of the currently live partition using VSS.
DriveImage XML or Acronis TrueImage can do this. The former is free while the latter is not. I've tried both pieces of software to transfer an entire drive's image from one hard disk to another larger drive. I haven't done it with Windows 7 yet, so I hope you have a good experience with it. :)
I've used that one before as well. Viruses can be a real pain when they screw up that file association, so that fix really helps out.
There's also a good freeware program called DriveXML that I have used on clients' computers to schedule regular HDD imaging.
I don't think you want to do this in Windows.
But since you asked, and required it to be windows...This may fit: http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
And here's a good Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software
If it matters, the Samsung drives don't come with drive cloning software. WD and Seagate drives come with branded, somewhat cut-down versions of Acronis Disk Director. Those versions will not accommodate Samsung drives -- officially, at least.
If you don't have some cloining software, you can pick up DriveImage XML, which is free for personal use (a commercial license costs at least $100). I've used it myself. Its interface isn't as slick as Acronis', but it seems to get the job done pretty well.
But if you just want to partition a new drive, then Windows' built-in tools will work just fine.
Personally, I prefer the UBCD for Windows for this.
Bootable CD
Has SpyBot, Hijack this, SuperAntiSpyware, McAfee Stinger with it
Has disc imaging software with it - DriveImage XML
Easy to update/rebuild the disc
If you got a Samsung SSD, the CD it comes with has a utility that will live-clone your drive.
If not, DriveImage XML is a free app with a shitty interface that will, nevertheless, live-clone your active hard drive onto a new hard drive. No CD needed, just run and done.
The interface is a steaming pile of fresh...ly-minted hockey pucks to the face, but if you're short on cash, this will do the job.
Yes you can. There's lots of software or there that will copy or clone drive to drive.
I assume the 500gb drive has less than 120gb used total?
Check this software out, it's free and works nicely. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
> I don't have win7 available for a clean re-install. A buddy of mine hooked me up with it when I built the rig, and he's moved out of state - which is why I was just going to create another user account. >
haven't made an image in a while since I prefer clean installs but I used to rely on Driveimg XML.
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
You may want to create a Linux livecd in order to flash it upon return OR just remove the drive from your 1st build and transfer it to your current machine for imaging duties
8 isn't as bad as people think it is. Well, 8.1 anyway. Honestly, I'd figure out the specs and just price out a cheap laptop for him. A $400 laptop will run circles around his old xp one. Unless it's some sort or high end gaming rig. Think of it like a used car. When do you stop fixing and replacing parts and when do you get another beater? The battery should be replaced, the hdd is probably close to failure, who knows what the fans and such look like, let alone damage to the gpu and or cpu. It's probably got a meager amount of ram, that will kill it after you upgrade to a Windows that will be phased out sooner rather than later.
You can still charge for transferring the data and some programs, and doing a virus scan and backup/setup. Check out drive image xml http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm for a free backup program.
Most of the other ways in this thread are sure to work as well; I only provide my alternative because it is simpler/easier for me.
Requires:
Second computer with a fair amount of free space -- enough to store the compressed contents of the original drive.
Cloning software -- DriveXML installed on this second computer. Acronis or Clonezilla can do this too but I have found DriveXML to be slightly faster and lighter-weight. I still use Acronis for drive monitoring anyway.
Way to connect a drive to this second computer (usually either SATA directly to motherboard or a USB-SATA adapter)
Steps:
- Shutdown primary computer and remove original boot drive.
- Connect original boot drive to second computer
- Backup original boot drive to second computer using DriveXML
- Safely disconnect original boot drive.
- Connect new boot drive.
- Restore DriveXML backup to new boot drive.
- Safely disconnect new boot drive and reinstall it into first machine.
- Boot successfully as if you never skipped a beat.
- Go into Windows and expand the partition to use the remaining space.
Disadvantage of this method:
Requires additional computer and extra cables.
Advantage of this method:
No risk of important boot files changing between a copy.
No mucking with the BIOS or bootable USBs.
I don't know what will be best for your environment. But I do suggest you look over Clonezilla and DriveImage XML.
You can run clonezilla from a boot CD. I tend to use parted magic from the UBCD to run clonezilla: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
DriveImage XML is more for backing up partitions as opposed to disks. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
They are both easy to use once you take the leap and test them out.
Good luck,
I like driveimage xml, its free, works on a bunch of recovery cds and is easy to use. I usually start with a fresh install of Windows, then I load all my programs, updates and non changing required personal files. Once that is done, I run my antivirus and malware scans, just to be safe. Then I plug in an external hard drive and run drive image. It's an imaging program. What's that? It takes a snapshot of your drive and stores it in a container. Your files are locked down. When your pc is gunked up, simply re image the drive and you're good to go!
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
Also, I used a secondary drive for all of my personal files. That way I can re image whenever I need too.
are all good. There are others that are linux based like clonezilla but that requires booting from a Live CD, etc.
With Clonezilla I have a base image backup of my machine that I can reload at a moments notice. Takes about 8 minutes to go from trashed to operational again.
This software will allow you to take imaged backups of your external. Just make sure you have enough space to store the resulting image.
I'd also recommend DriveImage XML.
This software can even take 'Hot-Images' (ie drives in use) for later restore.
Both Clonezilla and DriveImage XML are free.
You'd need to reinstall the drivers, but it's possible. If it's five years old they're using XP? I'd encourage upgrading to Windows 7. A reformat is really going to help, and on top of the new hardware it's going to feel like a whole new machine.
Regardless for cloning a HDD, I like DriveImage.
If you're comfortable with Linux, you could put the new hard drive in a USB enclosure, boot a Linux live-cd, and dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb (check the man page, I may have remembered the arguments incorrectly), then install your new hard drive in place of the old one, and grow the partition to fit the new drive.
I've used DriveImage XML with some success before. I had a standard image saved to a drive and was deploying it to identical laptops, but it's possible to do a straight drive-to-drive imaging. You can install it as a plug-in for a BartPE disk. When I was using it, for some reason the boot sector was not copied, and I would need to run fixmbr on the newly imaged disk.
Regarding hybrid drives, I assume you're talking about the Seagate Momentus XT series, as they're the only hybrid drives on the market now. I have one in my laptop and my wife has one in hers as well. It definitely feels faster than a standard 7200 rpm drive. Boot time is faster as well as first loading of applications; however, once applications are loaded for the first time (assuming you have plenty of memory) Windows should store the appropriate data in memory in the block cache. If you shutdown and then cold boot a lot, or (for some reason) are limited in the amount of memory you can install, then the hybrid drive makes sense. Otherwise, you could just as well invest the extra money you would spend on a hybrid drive in more RAM and likely see more benefit.
You will want to clone the 500GB to the 1TB and use the 1TB as your boot drive. This will result in no changes for program paths which is what you want.
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
Not sure the best way of doing the backups. I've heard good things about crashplan though which is free for offline use.
Best imaging software i have used recently is DriveImageXML.
Not entirely sure if it will do exactly what you desire, but its saved me a bunch of times in the past, and it meets the requirements you outlined in the post. Its usually VERY fast, and its free for personal use.
It will let you restore the data to any new disk drive as long as the destination partition is equal or greater in space than the source partition.
It uses Windows' own functionality (Volume Shadow Service to do the job. There's Driveimage XML that uses the same functionality but has a lot more options and you can buy a license or use a free version.
Partition their main drive, remap the environment variables, and setup windows to backup their files on some 500GB external drive. If you really want, you can set up logical images (e.g. Drive XML) or do a bit-stream DD-type image. In any case, if you set things up right you can essentially restore/reformat easily (i.e. unattended - slip stream installs if we're talking about formatting).
Of course, this means you have to spend more time with your family instead of hiding from them.
It seems like your current setup is the best because you divide the load between two drives and the larger one is used for your larger archive files. Laptop hard drives get less cooling and take more physical abuse than desktops, so they will fail sooner. Just make backups and don't worry about trying to reduce wear and tear.
If you want to move the windows partition, you should copy the entire partition to the primary partition of the drive you want to use it on. you may also have to repair the MBR once that is complete. I like DriveImage XML for making partition copies because you can copy a windows partition while it is in use. Another option would be to copy the partition with a BartPE or Linux Live CD.
It's been a long time since I used this tool. But I believe DriveImage XML will let you mirror your hard drive onto an external disk. After the mirroring you would just swap disks.
But yes the double install would be easier.
I mention of what operating system you're running would be tremendously helpful.
This is good for XP: http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm You can put it on a BartPE disk to do the restore.
Use the "Windows Complete PC Backup" in the backup and restore center of Vista.
Both of these will likely need enough space to make a complete image copy. Neither will copy directly from one disk to the other.
Holy crap, thanks a lot for that reply sarah, it was really informative and I appreciate it. Thing is, is DI easy to use? I'm a computer newb and that interface looks scary.. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
What do you recommend for backing up the CONTENTS of the drive?
I'm using this site..but not sure if its trusted. http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/