How to clone/ghost/image Vista to a USB drive

I've tried searching all over the net and can find plenty of "how to recover from a clone/ghost on a USB drive" but nowhere tells me how to create a clone/ghost in the first place.

I am getting a Dell XPS M1330 250GB tomorrow and I already have an external IDE 160GB USB Drive.

I intend to install XP on the M1330 and not use Vista until I'm forced to.

Hence I want to copy/ghost/clone/image the set-up configuration on arrival to the USB drive as a backup in case it all goes horribly wrong during the XP install.

Can someone tell me how to do that and is there any freeware available or does Vista include a way of doing it? Will a 30 day free trial of Aconis or Norton be sufficient?

Or will the Dell CD/DVD's I receive with the laptop be sufficient to restore Vista if required?

Any help very much appreciated. I've searched the board and can't find any guides already posted.

 

I am sure that you can make an image with Norton Ghost.

 

Yes, the free 30-day trial of Acronis will work. I did that - well I actually bought TI 11 and used it booted from the CD to do an image of my OS partition at various stages as I did a clean install of Vista. Had to go backwards twice during the process and TI 11 worked just fine restoring that partition.

 

I posted this over in the Alienware thread regarding a Drive Image... I'm quoting myself because I am so noteworthy. But mainly for the link at the bottom that was a fantastic comparison of all the best image software out on the market today.

Windows Vista® Ultimate does have a built in image app but read the link at the bottom of this quote for some alternatives that will work fr you in Windows XP.

 

Thanks Jason Alaska and Bubbatex - has anyone else any other thoughts or step by step imaging tips especially with Acronis i.e. "How to image to USB drive from Vista with Acronis for dummies"

 

Some great reviews at PC Magazine, but all of them have problems. ShadowProtect seems to be the one to go for, but is warned not for beginners. Norton seems simplest to use, but users report lots of problems and poor support. Acronis seems very techy and far too many options.

All I want to be able to do is Install, Click a button to clone everything to a USB Drive and that's it. With a restore CD to recover it all with in event of failure.

 

I've used Acronis several times to restore my laptops hard drive with great success.

EVERYTHING is back, bookmarks, apps, everything, exactly as it was when I did the backup.

If you simply use Acronis default settings, it's very easy to use.

 

Ghost is geared towards the corporate world. They make an @ home product but its just a derivative of the enterprise version.

I happen to be quite versed in the ghost product and you can get a demo of even the enterprise version to do a backup with.

The bartPE folks ( http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) can direct you to making a bootable cd that is like WinPE and even how to get ghost on it to then do the backup from a 32 bit environment.

Alternatively the ghost demo can make a bootable disk from which to make the image.

 

Which version of Vista are you getting??
Some versions, such as Ultimate, have built in imaging software. I use this myself, and its never let me down. Saves an image to my external drive perfectly.

 

Ultimate and Business have image bu options, but I always felt that if the OS was active, can it do a really good job of imaging itself? I prefer to allow an outside program take an image of the drive or partition.

I have used TI 11 now for two weeks - did a clean install and then had to reformat a partition last night due to a disk error and TI 11 (running from a boot CD, not natively installed) has worked great.

 

You can download Microsofts WAIK and use ImageX for free all you want. Its not absolutely perfect and fully featured but you can make images with it and its at the right price. The Vista CD has an image file on it made with ImageX. It actually contains something like 6 images within it but uses de-duplication technology so that one file can be referenced by multiple images but only take up the space one time within the image file. So in other words you could make an image of your plain clean install, and then add to that image a second one with your apps installed and all the vista files etc... that are similar to both will not take up more space when you add the second image.

Its not super easy to use but it works if you have the fortitude to muddle through the learning curve to use it.

 

Vista Home Premium, not business unfortunately, can you image with "Home"?

 

Its not in Business edition unfortunately.

To answer your query, yes it does work great. Ive created several images of my system at different points in time. I also had the same doubts as you, since every other imaging program Ive used reboots and creates the actual image in DOS mode.

However, Vista handles it very well. You can actually let it create an image while you carry on browsing the Internet! lol I believe it uses a procedure like it does when running Windows Backup via Shadow Copy.

Ive restored full images several times already, as tests. To restore an image you simply boot off of the Vista Disc, and select the option to restore your OS, rather then install the OS. You then point it to the Image file on your external drive etc, and it sticks the image back on in around 20mins.

I think its perfect. the only thing it doesnt handle very well, is compressing the image file. But since I have a large external HDD, Im not too bohered with compression anyway. Also compressing and de-compressing only adds to the image creation and restoration time anyway. Also you cant browse image files, so you cant restore a single file/foler, you have to restore the entire image - which isnt a problem for me anyway, since I only create an image of my C drive, which has just my OS and programs.

Highly recommended. Why install Ghost etc, which is what I initially used with XP, when Vista does it all for you!

 

Vista Business does come with the Back up and Restore Centre.

 

Business does come with backup and restore centre - but it does NOT have the option to create an IMAGE BACKUP. The backup and restore centre also creates standard windows files backups and restores - just like Windows Backup in XP. Home Premium and Ultimate are the only additions to also add image backup capabilities.

 

ifti - I am looking at my BU & Restore window in Vista Business and I have two options - 'Back Up Files' & 'Back Up Computer' - the second option says: "Create a Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore image of your entire computer, which can be used to recover from a hardware failure"

Home Premium does not have this option - I have it loaded on an desktop.

Anyway, I am glad to hear that it works well - however, I have paid $30 for TI 11!

 

I have used Business before and Im sure I didnt have the imaging option, which was one of my reasons to upgrading to Ultimate......hmmmm....my version of Business was one of the first out, so maybe they've added it in...

 

AFAIK Business has always come with imaging capability.

 

Have you tried running it??
It might be that the option was there but when you go further it doesnt allow you to create the image...


EDIT: Sorry! You're right!! Im getting confused - I knew there was somethin missing that I wanted which is why I went for Ultimate - DVD maker!!! lol
Apologies!