Cloning a hard drive to DVD

[wirelessguy]

I have about 400 computers that I service for a school district. All personal data is kept on a home drive on the server. When I have to reformat and Install XP on a machine, I would like a way to make a image of the drive on a dvd, so if this happens 3 weeks down the road I can just pop in the dvd and install the image from it instead of having to reformat/install again. Does anyone have any ideas?
I have found many that let me image to another hard drive, but was wanting to use a dvd instead.

[BipolarBill]

All current *commercial* imaging applications support storing images on DVD. Don't confuse cloning with imaging. You can't clone a hard drive to DVD because they are different types of storage. You can only clone to another hard drive.

Acronis True Image
Norton Save and Restore
Norton Ghost
Paragon Disk Backup

These are all commercial. All support DVD backup. Paragon is the least expensive. It supports Blu-ray and makes self-booting restore DVDs.

[Steve R Jones]

I don't think Windows Home Server will deal with 400 pc's, but I'd imagin there are ways like WHS where pc's can be cloned to a central machine. They can auto update the images at set times....If the pc drive dies - you replace the drive - boot off a cd and connect to the central machine and retrieve the image..

[BipolarBill]

This must be your lucky day!

http://www.techimo.com/forum/general...-software.html

[Rootstonian]

You don't want copies of the 400 machines right? You want to do what our place does and have a "base" image for each machine type. So you have say 10 images or whatever.

We know at our place if you install anything on your HD or save files on your computer and it goes bad, tough luck, you get the "base" re-image.

[maximus01can]

G'day All,

I've just purchased another box and would like to save time and bypass the installation of a bunch of programs etc. Would using "Drive Backup" be your choice as opposed to installing everythng from scratch? XP is already installed on the new macine and ready to go, Would I be asking for headaches and grief trying to ghost my old drive over to the new one? Even though I know my way around the yard pretty good I've never ghosted before. I do have an external HD that I could image to......I guess I just need some convincing for or against.

Cheers,
Max

[BipolarBill]

Unless the hardware is identical between old and new, it would be trouble.

You already have Windows up and running. Take a few days to reinstall your programs to the new machine. You will be better off.

Imaging and cloning should only be used for one machine or a group of identical machines - as in the enterprise.

[maximus01can]

Thanks BPB, I'll take that advice and run with it since I was a little nervous about ghosting. I guess the old saying still works, nothing good comes easy so I'll take the time and start from scratch.

Cheers,
Max

[maximus01can]

With that being said, can I at least transfer all my settings/favorites/desktop etc. from XP using "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" or is there something else that works well?

Cheers,
Max