Re: PC Backup (was: Anti-Virus)

On 12 Sep 2005 at 9:10, David (David Gibbs <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>) commented 
about [PCTECH] PC Backup (was: Anti-Virus):

> Jones, John (US) wrote:
> > Imaging a configured PC is pretty routine.  $25, Symantec Ghost, and a
> > CD/DVD burner or network drive or external can do this easily.  
> 
> DVD's are the floppies of the 21st century ... you would need a crate of
> DVD's to backup most modern PC's these days ... and it's helaciously slow.

There is no substitute for a backup on either DVD's or CD's for when a hard 
drive 
fails.  You should defiantly do it.  Because it's time consuming people tend 
not to do it 
as often as they should.  Most of the time people need to restore because they 
lost 
something.  Sometimes a fat finger, sometimes a virus or trojan, sometimes the 
kids.  
I create a second partition or use a second hard drive and Ghost a lot more 
often.  I 
can set it to run when I'm done for the day and walk out.  It takes about an 1 
½ hrs 
and shuts off or restarts into windows when it's done.  The machines I leave up 
all 
the time restart into windows.  I'm much more apt to do a lot more backups when 
it's 
easy and not time consuming.  At anytime the following day if I want it on CD's 
I can 
use Nero while I'm working on something else to copy last nights backup to 
CD's.  
That's easy.

> I do recommend ghost ... and the current version (at least the one that
> ships with Norton System Works) allows the backup to occur while the
> system is running.  Previous versions required that you take the PC into
> restricted state.

Be careful.  Run a live test.  Try to remove your current drive and put in a 
drive with 
nothing on it.  Do a restore and see if it works.   I know some people that 
have tried 
it.  They failed.  Then they tried installing Windows and restoring the 
incremental.  It 
failed also.  Try it and see if it works for you.   They changed the current 
version to 
look like Ghost but it's really the old Drive Image.   I think the 2003 version 
works just 
fine.  I know the 7.5 Enterprise version defiantly works great.

> Personally, I have ghost running on my PC and do an incremental backup
> every two hours to a network drive.
 
> david