AdamKarp
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Imaging a Dual Boot setup using Norton Ghost 14
My primary Hard Drive has 5 Partitions. The first two partitions are used to Dual Boot between XP & Vista. I purchased a copy of Ghost 14.
Here is what I'm trying to accomplish:
I would like to create an image/recovery point of the two OS partitions, or the entire Hard Drive (if necessary). This will be a one-time backup following a clean install (after I install and configure my essential Apps and Utilities). The idea is that if the HD dies, or if corruption occurs, I would be able to replace the hard drive, boot into a recovery CD and restore the OS partitions (or the entire hard drive) to the way it was the day I created the backup (i.e. not only bootable, but also retaining the boot loader settings for my dual boot configuration).
I have an external USB drive to store the images on. Do I want to create recovery points for just the two partitions in question, for all of the partitions on the hard disk, or do I need to copy the entire disk, using the 'Copy my Hard Drive' function? The 'Copy my Hard drive' function confuses me, because it only allows me to select one partition at a time as opposed to an entire Hard Disk (which consists of 5 partitions in my case).
If the entire hard drive has to be backed up/restored, I'm not concerned with the other 3 partitions as I have daily backups of those in another location, and they are relatively small. I do, however, need the other 3 partitions to exist and be the same size after the restore.
Any help is appreciated.
Here is what I'm trying to accomplish:
I would like to create an image/recovery point of the two OS partitions, or the entire Hard Drive (if necessary). This will be a one-time backup following a clean install (after I install and configure my essential Apps and Utilities). The idea is that if the HD dies, or if corruption occurs, I would be able to replace the hard drive, boot into a recovery CD and restore the OS partitions (or the entire hard drive) to the way it was the day I created the backup (i.e. not only bootable, but also retaining the boot loader settings for my dual boot configuration).
I have an external USB drive to store the images on. Do I want to create recovery points for just the two partitions in question, for all of the partitions on the hard disk, or do I need to copy the entire disk, using the 'Copy my Hard Drive' function? The 'Copy my Hard drive' function confuses me, because it only allows me to select one partition at a time as opposed to an entire Hard Disk (which consists of 5 partitions in my case).
If the entire hard drive has to be backed up/restored, I'm not concerned with the other 3 partitions as I have daily backups of those in another location, and they are relatively small. I do, however, need the other 3 partitions to exist and be the same size after the restore.
Any help is appreciated.
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ASKER
Thanks for the info. I will run a test backup/restore over the weekend. If it works, I will be doing a clean install (hopefully for the last time until Windows 7), and creating fresh recovery points. I'll let you know how I make out. Thanks again.
Another advantage of creating backup image files (Recovery Points) is that they are compressed and contain only the amount of data USED in the partition. So it is very easy to create multiple backup generations weekly or montlhy and store them on a 500GB external hard drive. You can even tell Ghost 14 to break them into (for example) 4 or 8 gb chunks so that you can later burn the chunks to a single/double layer DVDs for offsite storage.
ASKER
Thanks for the info. I ran a test backup and then restored to a spare hard drive. The machine wouldn't boot. But it only took a few minutes to repair the boot sector.
ASKER
Thanks for getting me on track.
>> Thanks for the info. I ran a test backup and then restored to a spare hard drive. The machine wouldn't boot.
Glad you have it working now. Ghost works best when restoring to a new/blank/unformatted drive. If you use a "spare" hard drive, if you wipe the drive first or zero it with utility, usually works fine. I suspect in your case Ghost did not restore the master boot record or option wasn't selected.
Good luck.
Glad you have it working now. Ghost works best when restoring to a new/blank/unformatted drive. If you use a "spare" hard drive, if you wipe the drive first or zero it with utility, usually works fine. I suspect in your case Ghost did not restore the master boot record or option wasn't selected.
Good luck.
Separating Vista and XP when using Vista's Boot Manager
http://www.themudcrab.com/separatevistaxp.php