I Am Confused: Cloning, Copying, Imaging--What is the Dif ?

[MegalosSkylaki]

I've read up about Norton Ghost; PowerQuestDriveCopy; PowerQuest Drive Image; and one by VCom (?).

Maybe cognitive overload--are unclear--even "imperialistic" claims of do-it-all.

Here is my Primary Objective:Ia) Copy extensive fies and Apps from Hard drive on same Computer to second HD--basically a "backup".Ib) Copy same PLUS OS to HD on another Computer.

QUESTIONS:

If I "clone" a hard drive, What happens to the Data and/or OS on First HD ? Is it left alone --or WIPED OUT ?

Will I need the CD's as some of my Computers were foundlings and I don't have the Cd's.

What the heck is the difference between PowerQuest DriveImage and PowerQuest DriveCopy??

Drive copy sounds like a Cloning utility ("You can easily copy the entire contents of your old HD to a new one").Sounds like a clone.

While DriveImage sounds like a conventional "backup" SW. But states "Drive Image allows you to backup the entire Hd..including the Operating System" Now sounds like "cloning".

Bare with a Newbie but-- Huh ?

Also the rap on Norton Ghost is that it is "complicated" in DOS with Boot discs while DriveImage (or is it Copy) uses a GUI wizard in Windows to work its magic.

Want simple--even idiot (or newbie) proof.

Want versitile--so that I can simply backup some HD's while Cloning the "works" in on some old Hd's and Fdisk them clean.

HELP before I blow more money and screw things up.

ThanX,

DOOOOOG

[muno]

I'll answer the question about norton ghost...

Norton ghost couldn't be easier to use in dos. You type 'ghost' in dos prompt, press up arrow few times, right arrow few times and few enters. You're ready to go.

I would go for imaging (norton ghost), run sysprep before it and image the hd. Then put the backup aside for easy restoration.

With images, you need to have identical systems. You can't, eg. put a ghost image of amd tb1400 system to an intel p3-500 system.

If you simply need to transfer files (not programs) then I'm sure you know how to copy

I find backup utilities a complete waste of time. You can easily back up important files to a cdr/w without any help of external programs - aside from burning software.
-M

[thekemp]

just use power quest drive image place first hard drive as master and the new one as slave and use the option to image to second disk. you wont loose anything i use this method when upgrading to a faster hard drive, also drive image allows you to back up your hard drive to cd-r so you have a copy you can restore from.
i havnt tried norton ghost but i haveheard it does the same thing with hard disk to hard disk.
also both of them work in dos the boot from floppys or drive image will boot from cd.
imo i would use drive image 5 as it has more uses.
good luck

[Tazman]

DooooooooooG-

Here's my take on Norton Ghost. I swear by it for "cloning" a hard drive. After I spend all the time doing a system build, installing and tweaking any flavor of Windoze and all the other proggies, I like to rest assure that I have the whole drive on cd(s) before I turn it over to the customer. That way, if they ever screw up the o/s and need a format (and they will eventually) I can restore the computer to the exact way I had it - in about 20 minutes.

But....

Norton Ghost is not for the feint of heart. I paid $100 for Systemworks 2002 in October of last year. The manual that comes with it is not very informative - actually pretty confusing. If you have any doubts, do a search here and see all of the questions I have posted about it . Once you figure out the basic boot disks and how to make a bootable cd and you Ghost a few times, it's a breeze (IMO, you probably wouldn't have the difficulties that I encountered). Before you buy, first check out the CDRW drive compatibility list at the Norton site. If your burner isn't listed it doestn't mean it won't burn the image. What it does mean is that more than likely it won't make the cd bootable. You'll still be able to burn the cd but you'll need a Norton Ghost floppy to restore it.

As for the difference of clone and image - I always was under the assumption that they are the same (marketing scheme????). I'm probably wrong about that but it works in my little world .

SoCalGal recommended PowerQuest awhile back and I bought it but have yet have had a chance to install it so I can't comment about it other than to say that her opionion counted enough for me to buy it.

Also, I would have to agree with muno that for backing up - it's easier and faster to use Windows Explorer and a CDRW than other software.

Finally, no, you won't loose anything off of your drive Ghosting. It just copies the drive exactly how you have it (errors and all) to cds. I have a pretty complex partition scheme (Win 98, ME, 2K, XP, Mandrake 8, and data partition) and I have sucsessfully restored it EXACTLY the way I had it after doing an fdisk from a 98 boot disk and wiping out all of the partitions and leaving the drive unpartitioned. When I booted to a Norton Ghost floppy, it detected the hard drive and restored it without a problem. Why did I do this?? To see if it worked - thank God it did .

Mike

[lynchmob]

Check this TechIMO thread .You can do what you want with xcopy or xcopy32.
lynch