Best Drive Imaging (Ghosting) Software

I just got a Sony Vaio SZ240P which has an internal 2.5" SATA Seagate 5400rpm 100GB drive.

I've cleaned off a bunch of the annoying pre-installed software (like Norton Anti-Virus and Roxio) and have installed a bunch of my own (like Avast and Opera) and am looking for reliable drive imaging software.

Research has suggested that Norton Ghost 10 is the most reknowned software in this space but it falls flat with nVidia RAID controllers (even when not utilizing the RAID capability) which are common on a lot of modern motherboards. There are also complaints and uncertainty regarding SATA support as well as the rather damning criticism that Ghost 9 and 10 can't "ghost" anymore (since they can only copy a drive image to another drive, over the network, or burn it onto DVDs whereas older versions could create a .gho image file directly in your existing filesystem). This seems to be a consequence of Norton re-branding an entirely different product (i.e., PowerQuest's DriveImage software) as Ghost. More info: http://En.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/Norton_Ghost

Acronis makes a for-sale product similar to Ghost called True Image: http://Acronis.Com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

It seems that DiskImageXML ( http://Runtime.Org/dixml.htm) is freeware that might also be up to the task.

Since Ghost may not properly handle my SATA drive, I ask: What disk imaging software are NotebookReview forum people using and why?

Thanks.

-Pip

 

I am using Acronis True Image, and I'm very pleased with it, but my needs are pretty basic.

Acronis allows you to download True Image, and try it out for (I believe) 15 days. Why not download it, and see if it meets your needs?

It's also recieved very good reviews in the PC mags.

 

Thanks for the tip, Shel. I'll test out the trial version (available at http://Acronis.Com/enterprise/download/ATICW/).

-Pip

 

I use norton ghost, very easy, boots from a CD

 

+1 for Acronis. I use it all the time to backup my stuff and have multiple images in case I want to reset it.

 

Acronis does boot up from a CD as well.

 

Does Acronis have a trial version, reason I ask, currently I have ghost, which is fine except I can't use it to backup to my NTSC formated external hard drive, which I'd quite like to do.

If Acronis would do this it could be what I use, but of course I don't want to shell out "whatever cost" for a product only to find it doesn't do it.

 

Read my post, 2nd from the top....

 

I'm using Acronis too. It is a Enterprise version. It is very helpful if my windows is crash. I save the image file in 2nd partition. If i need to recover a fresh windows, bootup the Acronis software from CD, load the image file from 2nd partition, my windows can be recovered.

 

I'm using Acronis myself as well. Easy to use, lets you split the image file to convenient sizes (I like the option to split it small enough to fit on 4.7GB DVD-Rs) and the bootable CD interface is nice and simple.

 

Give another point to Acronis from me. Saves me so much work.

 

Has anyone used Nero's backup software. I just saw Nero has such a function but I haven't tested it.

 

Since a clean install can take close to a day, I use True Image to make a backup can be re-installed later in like 15 minutes.