• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Any "Restore comp cd" making programs?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Gessfk

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2005
I'm looking for a program that will create one of those disks that'll basically, put my computer back in perfect shape, with all my programs, settings, yada yada..after a clean format. Something like the ones that come with most built systems.

It just sounds so good.. format computer, toss in bootable restore disk(s), and have a fully redone computer in the time it takes to copy the files (right?)

I also wonder what one of these things would cost..hopefully not 500+ dollars
 
oh wow, this sounds exactly like what I was looking for. I'm excited, and reading on..thanks :)
 
Im using two HDDS + acronis true image. MY system being on disk nr.1 while the images of it on disk nr.2...try that, easy and efficient
 
gofra said:
Im using two HDDS + acronis true image. MY system being on disk nr.1 while the images of it on disk nr.2...try that, easy and efficient


How often do you back up your image?

And its been a bit since I used Acronis but I think there were settings to just append changes to the image or to rewrite the whole image - if you know what I'm talking about which one are you using?


I thought about doing it the same way you have it set up with backups every night (rewriting the whole image), but I was worried about all the disk activity doing harm on the life of my drives.
 
Ahh, dont worry about the life span mate - if your case is still and cooled nicely, that should've been the least of your conserns. Altohough the whole image can be made relatively quickly (few minutes, less then what it says when "compression on normal") I don't feel the need to do it every single day. If you insist though, I advise you to make two images - one that you can backup on daily basis and the other one that you will backup every few days/weeks. Why?

- disk space is relatively cheap
- better to have two images than just one - in case you back up a "bad" image. If you are using three or more hard drives, make sure you have an image on each one rather than two on the same disk.
- if disk is defragmented, image is done very quickly

Now, if you are worried about your disks health make sure you use Perfect Disk and defragment regularly (smart defragmentation).

I backup my image (yes, it can be done with "rewriting" = it's called incremental backup) every time I install an application or program. I do use that program for two days prior to doing that in order to see everything is working allright. As for personal/business data, I do it every week (two disks, two images). Ow and...make sure you're making those archives on the last partition of the disk (its the slowest one).


Cheers
 
Thanks for all the info. I'm in the midst of setting up my computer with all my programs etc... and I'm pretty sure I'm doing 2xRAID 0 80gig drives for usage, then backup to a 160gig drive (maybe I'll just do this every couple days, or if I do a lot of schoolwork or install new programs I'll backup on that day or shortly after). For more redundancy (as you said) I was also thinking of having a backup to another computer on my network maybe every week or two.

Right now I've been using O&O defrag regularly but I have been meaning to check out perfect disk.
 
Always liked PQ DriveImage myself. Something to be aware of... while the daily backup (or even weekly or whatever) is certainly nice and will save you from losing data beware that if you restore with the previous days image any problems and bugs you're trying to fix have been incorporated into that'd image. For myself I have an image of just OS (one for 2000 and one for XP) pared down to just the stuff I really want and drivers. Another with OS plus the usual proggies. Also keep a running backup on a second HD. Having a clean OS install readily at hand has great value, can narrow any problem down to the hardware level instantly.
 
Back