Why do backups? The Ultimate HD crash

The little LOGO at the bottom of every post of mine, came from the Ghost site, circa 1997.
I've been using Ghost since then to Clone HD's and do regular drive backups.

Yes, you need to back up the entire C: drive, not just your documents folder, etc.
When a Hard Drive crashes, everything is gone.
The OS has to be reinstalled on a new drive, then there's all those hardware drivers, then there's all those neat little programs that you've downloaded and you've found that you can't live without.

It's a gross understatement to say "It's a mess and a heartbreaking mess at that".

It happened to me years ago, but that was Before I began using Ghost to make regular backups of my C: drive.

Now, a backup gets made at least once every week, and on a really busy week where I'm evaluating all sorts of new programs, I might even make a new backup every day.

What the heck.....on my system a full backup only takes about six minutes. That's just six minutes that can make the difference between safety and disaster.

Take the time......Backup! Backup! Backup!

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

Hello,

While disk imaging can be good from a convenience point of view, the presumption seems to be that the disk images created by Symantec Ghost (Acronis True Image, Active Disk, Paragon Drive Backup and so forth) are being restored on the same hardware. That is not always going to be the case, though.

In the event that computer from which the backup was sourced is no longer usable or available (fire, theft, other physical damage and so forth), one could end up with an image of an entirely different version of Windows and different hardware. For example, starting with an image from a desktop computer with an AMD CPU running Microsoft Windows XP and attempting to restore to a notebook with an Intel CPU running Windows Vista. In a case like this, a complete restore of the disk image is likely to result in a non-working computer, as the desktop and notebook computers require different device drivers in order for an operating system to boot on them.

While figuring out where all the data is and backing it up may initially be more time-consuming, it can make recovery easier since one just needs to install the applications which use the data and then restore the data from the backup.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

NOT TRUE, at least in the case of Ghost 2003.

If the data is on a CD or DVD or external Hard drive for instance, the program "Ghost Explorer" can be used to open the Image File just like an unzipping program can open a zip file, to reveal and even restore individual files or folders. It runs in any version of windows.
I've used it and it's very simple to use.

NO One who puts any value on their data should never NOT do backups because of the possibility of having to do what you are talking about.
That would be extremely foolish to say the very least.

Always do the backup and worry about the recovery later.
It's really quite easy to do, with Ghost and Ghost Explorer.

Such recovery may not be possible with other programs.
But since I don't and won't use other programs, I can't swear as to the ease of restoring individual files from the backup image.

So, use Ghost and be sure of being able to get your files back.
You can restore all your valuable data files to a completely different computer. NO Problemo!

For my own verification, I just looked into a DVD backup I made well over a year ago, from my old computer. All the files were right there on my screen, just like if I were looking at them with Windows Explorer.
Again.....NO Problemo!

This version of Ghost Explorer, that I have, will only open Image Files made by Ghost 2003. Images made by later versions of Ghost will not open. I tried it with several Images made by Ghost 8.3 (2005) and they would not open.

The Doctor

The best point about 'Ghosting' a hard drive is not so much the time saved re-installing the OS, it's the time saved tweaking all the software used, once it's all installed.

i.e. Word - all my toolbar buttons are changed round, re-ordered and swapped about - as well as the various preferences being set, templates set up etc. Ditto with my Corel-Suite.

OS - I've spent hours on different forums trying out the various tweaks and what-nots, slimming down Windows and removing the junk and unwanted stuff.

IT would take approx 1 hour to install my OS and various software (Yes, I do keep ALL the installation files of the stuff I use and like ), but it would take a day or so to tweak everything to the point it is, now.

I don't mind wasting an hour or so installing stuff, (I've a pile of good books to get through while I'm waiting), but a day or more is a definite no-no!

When I ran Windows 98/SE, it was so stable and almost Bullet Proof, that I never had to reinstall Windows.
Then came XP and it was such an unknown quantity that I wound up reinstalling it six times before I got on to the use of the "System Restore" feature. Which I've used twice in the past week.

Anyway, on the Ghost Explorer issue, I must digress.
I said in a past post that my "Ghost Explorer" would not open an Image File from any version of Ghost after Ghost 2003. Well that was true.

But (it seems like I use that word an awful lot), when I went to the internet, to look for a later version of "Ghost Explorer", I found one forum/thread on the topic and one poster said that "Ghost Explorer" was on the "Hirens Boot CD". Voila!!!! Yikes! Yowsers!

I have that disk, and upon looking it over, I found the version of "Ghost Explorer" that came with Ghost 11. Heck, it even had Ghost 11, at least the Ghost.exe file. (which will run from a DOS boot disk) Of course I tried it!

Much to my surprise and GLEE, the Ghost Explorer from that CD will open all Ghost Image files from previous versions...... Ghost 2003 and Ghost 8.3 (2005). Today I'm in Hog Heaven!

So if you've got a "Hirens Boot CD" laying around, you already have Ghost 11 (2007) and the Ghost Explorer program.

I was taken a bit aback though, because both programs are archived by an uncommon Archiving program.
I had to find and download the "WinUHA" program to permanently UN-Arc the files for Ghost and Ghost Explorer.
Then I could move the .exe files to other media for future use.

This should be good news for all those who use Ghost, and read this forum.
I'm sorry if it's boring for those who either don't or Won't use Ghost. Sorry!

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

For anyone wanting specific, detailed information, drop me a PM.