Imaging, external drives, and restoration

Justing looking for advice/opinions before I make any decisions since money may be involved.
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So I've had my new laptop (dv6149us) since 12-11-06 and like a dummy i still haven't got around to making recovery discs. I've been to caught up in enjoying my new laptop among other things to be bothered with it. Luckily this isn't a post of a different kind and I'm posting to say I've ran into trouble. Things are still running fine only now I'm looking into making sure they continue to do so.


I've been looking around, and browsing the forum here and I saw comments about the Acronis software. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this software, either, creating a backup image and/or restoring a PC/laptop from said image? How many CDs DVDs did it take to create your computer Image?


Also, until recently my only real thoughts as far as backing up my laptop as been based on the use of CD/DVDs and now i'm thinking about buying a external hard drive, partitioning it and using it to store an image of my computer along with occasional file based backups. My laptop is generally used for personal use and the occasional bit of class work. I don't really store any truly important data on this machine, but still it's nothing I'd like to toss away anytime soon. I'm wondering if investing in a good external drive would be better than frequently replacing and updating DVD's and CDs. If I do go with the external drive I still intend to create an image via DVDs.



Any opinions, responses or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

To be honest, i really hated acronis. I tried it once on my dell I5100, and the layout was just crap, imo. and buggy too. i forget which version i had, but it was about a year ago.

Norton Ghost i've used successfully twice in the past, but not for any of my pc's.

So i can only recommend Ghost. it was easy to use, and didnt bug out or error-up anything.

Personally, when i need to do a fresh install, i just go from scratch all the time.

I will say with my DV6000t it was much more time consuming than my dell's. that audio driver is a bastard.

 

I can also recommend Ghost... somewhat. I've used it on all my PCs in the past (when they were running XP) to make an image of the hard drives once I had the systems configured the way I wanted. In the last few years, they've radically changed the software, though, and I've been hearing many negative comments about the "new" versions of the software.

I'm assuming your running XP. If you're getting the Vista Express Upgrade I probably wouldn't waste the money on any of the solutions as Windows Vista has a built-in imaging solution that works quite nicely. If you're planning on sticking with XP for awhile, then I guess Ghost is still as good as it gets.

 

yeah, part of the reason i was thinking of completely imaging the hard drive was to avoid the added hassle of trackig down drivers and installing them.

 

Eventually i will upgrade to Vista, (i'll be receiving the software through the upgrage program though i won't use it for some time if at all) for now i'm fine with Xp and there aren't enough outstanding features to make me want to upgrade. I suppose I need to take a look at the ghost software as well.

 

I've used Retrospect Professional to backup my systems. It works very well, is solid (don't know about on Vista, tho), and well-supported.

I partitioned an external hard drive (I think I used Windows disk management tool) and set up the scripts to run my backups. Works perfectly.

Setting up the scripts (full backup, system image, changed files, etc.) can be a little initimidating at first. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy.

You can also try before you buy.