roirraW "edor" ehT
Builder/Installer
- Joined
- 5 May 2008
- Messages
- 529
I recently was trying to find a satisfactory backup solution for Windows 7 which also supported the ATI RAID chipset. The easiest way it would do that would be to use Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), which would use the same Windows drivers. Windows 7's built-in backup is satisfactory but slow and once in a while occasionally fails to perform a backup for no good reason. Not only that but you can't describe the backups (example: "Before installing Office 2010"). It's simple and functional, but I wanted something a little fancier.
I am a longtime fan of Acronis products, but I tried both Acronis True Image Backup and Recovery, and True Image 2010 under Windows 7, and although I liked things about both of them, especially Backup and Recovery (not having to go through a wizard to change one backup setting), I couldn't get either one of them to work consistently.
True Image has always had quirks, but the tradeoff was acceptable in the past. Also, neither True Image emergency disc supported my RAID even though the hardly updated Acronis Disk Director v10, both builds 2160 and the "new" build 2239 BOTH recognize my RAID drives when loaded from the emergency disc.
True Image has a BartPE plugin, and a way of adding itself to a Windows PE disc, but I don't want to fool with BartPE or Windows PE 1.x any more, I want Windows PE 3.x (based on Windows 7), or at least 2.x (based on Vista) Try as I might it was too technical to try to integrate both True Image and the RAID driver into a Windows PE 2.x disc, and even the new True Images don't support Windows PE 3.x yet.
When doing this research I had found information that Symantec was working on Norton Ghost v15. I had tried v14 under Windows 7 but it says it has compatibility issues right from the getgo, and even though I could find a way to force it, I'd rather wait for the full compatibility.
Just days after I find that v15 has been released. I hadn't tried Norton Ghost since v9 or 10. I am highly impressed by version 15.
Some features that are new to me were incorporated into v12 through v14 but there is one major new feature, the ability to backup from Norton Ghost's recovery CD (which uses Windows PE 2.x, I suspect 2.1 or 2.2 but could be wrong). Previously you couldn't do backups from the recovery CD.
Some of the not completely new features I love are the ability to customize a recovery CD. Norton Ghost scans your Windows installation and automatically offers to add any relevant drivers (storage/RAID, networking) to a customized ISO. You can have it burn directly to disc, create an ISO, or both. It will only use 32-bit drivers so if you are running 64-bit Windows, then you'll have to manually direct it to 32-bit drivers.
You can, of course, also manually load drivers from the recovery CD, from a flash drive for instance.
You can also add the customized recovery environment to the Windows boot menu, for much quicker and convenient loading than from a CD. In my tests, this worked great both in VMWare Workstation under Windows 7 Ultimate x64, and under Windows 7 Ultimate x86 on a real computer. For some reason on my own computer, this recovery environment never shows up in my Windows boot menu (I have three Windows installations currently listed, Windows 7 Ultimate x86 RTM, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 build 7100, and Windows Vista). I don't know what caused this glitch but it appears to be the exception, not the rule, so I'm not that concerned, and maybe they'll find a bug that's causing this and fix it.
Ghost v15 is slower at incremental backups than Acronis True Image, but the pros outweigh the cons since it appears to perform consistently at least.
Norton Ghost v15 acts very robust and I believe I saw on their website that it's only $60 which I consider very reasonable for software of this power. It has a 60-day fully functional trial. Note that customizing a recovery CD requires that you have the original recovery CD in the first place (unlike True Image). This probably helps discourage piracy.
I am a longtime fan of Acronis products, but I tried both Acronis True Image Backup and Recovery, and True Image 2010 under Windows 7, and although I liked things about both of them, especially Backup and Recovery (not having to go through a wizard to change one backup setting), I couldn't get either one of them to work consistently.
True Image has always had quirks, but the tradeoff was acceptable in the past. Also, neither True Image emergency disc supported my RAID even though the hardly updated Acronis Disk Director v10, both builds 2160 and the "new" build 2239 BOTH recognize my RAID drives when loaded from the emergency disc.
True Image has a BartPE plugin, and a way of adding itself to a Windows PE disc, but I don't want to fool with BartPE or Windows PE 1.x any more, I want Windows PE 3.x (based on Windows 7), or at least 2.x (based on Vista) Try as I might it was too technical to try to integrate both True Image and the RAID driver into a Windows PE 2.x disc, and even the new True Images don't support Windows PE 3.x yet.
When doing this research I had found information that Symantec was working on Norton Ghost v15. I had tried v14 under Windows 7 but it says it has compatibility issues right from the getgo, and even though I could find a way to force it, I'd rather wait for the full compatibility.
Just days after I find that v15 has been released. I hadn't tried Norton Ghost since v9 or 10. I am highly impressed by version 15.
Some features that are new to me were incorporated into v12 through v14 but there is one major new feature, the ability to backup from Norton Ghost's recovery CD (which uses Windows PE 2.x, I suspect 2.1 or 2.2 but could be wrong). Previously you couldn't do backups from the recovery CD.
Some of the not completely new features I love are the ability to customize a recovery CD. Norton Ghost scans your Windows installation and automatically offers to add any relevant drivers (storage/RAID, networking) to a customized ISO. You can have it burn directly to disc, create an ISO, or both. It will only use 32-bit drivers so if you are running 64-bit Windows, then you'll have to manually direct it to 32-bit drivers.
You can, of course, also manually load drivers from the recovery CD, from a flash drive for instance.
You can also add the customized recovery environment to the Windows boot menu, for much quicker and convenient loading than from a CD. In my tests, this worked great both in VMWare Workstation under Windows 7 Ultimate x64, and under Windows 7 Ultimate x86 on a real computer. For some reason on my own computer, this recovery environment never shows up in my Windows boot menu (I have three Windows installations currently listed, Windows 7 Ultimate x86 RTM, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 build 7100, and Windows Vista). I don't know what caused this glitch but it appears to be the exception, not the rule, so I'm not that concerned, and maybe they'll find a bug that's causing this and fix it.
Ghost v15 is slower at incremental backups than Acronis True Image, but the pros outweigh the cons since it appears to perform consistently at least.
Norton Ghost v15 acts very robust and I believe I saw on their website that it's only $60 which I consider very reasonable for software of this power. It has a 60-day fully functional trial. Note that customizing a recovery CD requires that you have the original recovery CD in the first place (unlike True Image). This probably helps discourage piracy.
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