Best Ghost program for Windows

[OwlHoot]

I'm looking for a program to ghost partitions under Windows.

A couple of years ago I bought Symantec Ghost, but was amazed and disgusted to find it relied on floppy disks! As my PC doesn't even have a floppy drive, and floppy disks are increasingly hard to find, that's Symantec out.

Any other suggestions? I did hear there was another ghost program with a good reputation.

 

[RichardCranium]

I backup my XP machines by taking partition images using the free Runtime Software's DriveImage XML. Link.

(For mucking about with partition sizes and locations I use GPartEd running off bootable Linux CD.)

 

[stingman123]

Acronis? Never had any problems there.......

 

[VectraMan]

Yes Acronis seems to work pretty well from that point of view (though I'm still having problems with it for regular data backups.).

You can boot off a recovery CD and restore the contents from a NAS, or USB external drive. And it can run without shutting down the system.

 

[Amiga500]

Norton Ghost. You don't have to use floppies, you can use a CD, netboot etc.

 

[MPwannadecentincome]

Norton Ghost. You don't have to use floppies, you can use a CD, netboot etc.

WHS - I used Ghost in the past and it never asked me for a floppy - I did my backup onto DVD. Hmmm that was a long time ago I think I had better do another one, and the laptop too.

But Norton Ghost is for backups, not partitioning.

 

[DimPrawn]

Acronis? Never had any problems there.......

WHS. Makes Ghost look positively ancient.

 

[suityou01]

I backup my XP machines by taking partition images using the free Runtime Software's DriveImage XML. Link.

(For mucking about with partition sizes and locations I use GPartEd running off bootable Linux CD.)

Oooooh look at you. All Linuxy.

Shouldn't you all be running Linux anyway.

 

[OwlHoot]

Thanks for the prompt suggestions guys.

Acronis looks a bit bells and whistley for my taste. Always seems to happen - A good new product is released, and over time the manufacturers feel the need to pile on more and more features until its original function is almost buried in the middle of them all and actually quite hard to find!

I suspect if I installed Acronis it would be badgering me incessantly to set up backup times and policies, and wanting to run scans at all hours of the day and night, whereas all I want is a simple utility that copies my C: partition on demand, and restores the copy on demand, wallop, wallop, no mess no fuss.

(Not even remotely interested in other partitions, as I can easily copy these in Explorer.)

Runtime Software's DriveImage XML looks just the ticket though.

 

[MPwannadecentincome]

Thanks for the prompt suggestions guys.

Acronis looks a bit bells and whistley for my taste. Always seems to happen - A good new product is released, and over time the manufacturers feel the need to pile on more and more features until its original function is almost buried in the middle of them all and actually quite hard to find!

I suspect if I installed Acronis it would be badgering me incessantly to set up backup times and policies, and wanting to run scans at all hours of the day and night, whereas all I want is a simple utility that copies my C: partition on demand, and restores the copy on demand, wallop, wallop, no mess no fuss.

(Not even remotely interested in other partitions, as I can easily copy these in Explorer.)

Runtime Software's DriveImage XML looks just the ticket though.

Glad to see you have got yourself sorted out!