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Author Topic: Recommendation for free hard drive imager/backer-upper  (Read 1979 times)

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jasonbar

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Recommendation for free hard drive imager/backer-upper
« on: October 12, 2009, 07:59:04 pm »
Howdy-

Long story short, I want to do a drive swap on my MAME cab.  My boot HD is pretty well customized, w/ lots of Windows XP tweaks & settings, so I really don't want to do a fresh install.

I want to replace my SCSI C: drive with an IDE C: drive.  Both are 40GB, though I'm using only 20GB in the current SCSI C: drive.

Acronis was recommended by a friend, but that has a 30-day free trial & then you have to pay.  That would be good for this one-time drive copy, but I might need to recreate the C: drive in the future from the image that I'm going to create...

Also, it would be significantly easier for me if I can boot with my C: drive & then copy that same C: image, so the software needs to be able to image the drive that's running the OS at the moment.


So, after reading some reviews & poking around, these 3 seem to be good options:

1 - http://www.bacula.org/en/

2 - http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

3 - http://www.dubaron.com/diskimage/


Any experience w/ these programs or alternatives?


Thank you very much,
-Jason
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severdhed

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Re: Recommendation for free hard drive imager/backer-upper
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2009, 08:13:54 pm »
i have no experience with any programs that can image while the drive is in use...however i can tell you that acronis true image rocks!!!
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jasonbar

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Re: Recommendation for free hard drive imager/backer-upper
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2009, 01:57:08 am »
Poked around with #3, DiskImage.  It didn't seem to like that my source & destination drives were not the exact same size (though both were 40GB, their capacities were slightly different).

Tried #2, DriveImage XML.  EASY!!!  FAST!!!  SUCCESS!!!

Simply chose "copy", & selected my source & destination drives, got an error or two about the Shadow service not running, couldn't figure that out, but went ahead anyway (on the program's recommendation).  In about half an hour, my 40GB SCSI boot C: was copied to my "new" 40GB IDE drive.

Boots waaaaaay faster without the machine going through that SCSI card & hunting for drive(s).

35 seconds from power button to seeing desktop (mostly hidden)
58 seconds from power button to seeing MaLa menu


That'll do, pig.  That'll do.   :cheers:  <---- yes, I'm toasting mysefl!


Thanks,
-Jason
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