norton ghost or alternative

[mtanoob]

I'm looking for a good back up program atm, last time I checked (about 2 years ago) a lot of ppl rated norton ghost highly. I tried it but it meant having my main drive as fat32 at the time , I think that was with ghost 2003. I was already on ntfs with xp by then & still am, can anyone recommend a good program for use with just one (partitioned) hard drive?.

I've tried checking the Norton site since, but as with all their products theyre very vague on the details of what it can or cant do.

[orappa]

Are you trying to make an exact image of the drive (if so, try Symantec DriveImage) or just back up certain files?

[mtanoob]

An exact image ideally, so that I can just restore from image like ghost was supposed to do. Basically I'd like to be able to reinstall my system in the minimum amount of time when something goes badly wrong - format & reinstall only take an hour, but remembering all the tweaks takes about a week or so .

Ah just realised, I should have mentioned in my 1st post, its the drive with my OS on I want to back up.

[NosGoth]

You said in your first post that you didn't make addional partitions. Meaning you only have 1 partition which logically has your OS on it.

I advice you, and you won't like this one, that you (preferable after a crash) format your entire harddrive and make 3 to 4 partitions.

That way you will never lose the data on the other HDD's so you can easely install Windows after a future crash.

This also makes it easier to backup your entire OS-HDD, because it's much smaller.

I hope I've been of help.

[orappa]

Yeah, I have 2 hard discs and I find that it's easiest to keep all of my previous files on the second one and Windows and all of my programs that I don't mind losing on the first.

[mtanoob]

My HD is partitioned, I was wanting to back up the OS on the primary partition to my logical partition, & be able to restore from the logical to the primary. I'm asking atm because I'm hoping to get a new system in the next few weeks, but it will only have 1 S-ATA hd to start with (but it will be partitioned) & want to practise on my old beat up system that I'm using now so I know wot I'm doing when I get my new machine.

Thanks for all the help btw

[NosGoth]

Well try re-formatting to FAT32 and see if you can use your Norton Ghost since your on an old-beat machine anyways. Ofcourse FAT32 isn't a great format for an OS such as Win XP. (or any Windows at all) That's the downfall. Try google and see if you can find another ghost-prog. which does support the NTSF-format. Install it, experiment with it and see how it goes. If all goes well you should do fine with it on your new system.

Good luck.