[dba-Tech] Petulant PC

John,

» My biggest issue with this stuff is actually trying a restore. «

Boy, howdy!  Ain't that the truth!

What has always puzzled me about Ghost since Microsoft went to its
current OS model of logins/security was this:  my understanding is
that XP looks at the serial number of the installed drive.  If I use
Ghost to clone a drive and the main drive goes bad, then I have to
re-install Windows and go through activation on the cloned
drive...perhaps with some grovelling to Microsoft to let them know
that I'm not stealing their software.  Is that your understanding,
too?  Our sysadmin says that it shouldn't be that hard to get Windows
back up and running on a cloned drive.

He also says that Casper XP will clone the drive the first time
through and then perform incremental backups thereafter.  This True
Image sounds good, though, too.

Today I'm taking my drive in to our sysadmin to see if he can rebuild
the registry from the "hive"...

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI


On 6/5/07, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
> Steve,
>
> I decided to try True Image 10.  I have just had all I can stand from
> Symantec, their tech support is about as bad as it gets.  True image is
> available through NewEgg for $35 including shipping.
>
> My biggest issue with this stuff is actually trying a restore.  I read one
> service site that said "never do a restore over existing data" (they were
> talking images here).  The reason is simple, if the restore fails you have
> hosed whatever chance you might have had of getting the original data
> recovered.
>
> Of course that means getting another disk large enough to perform the
> restore on, and of course in the case of a laptop, which will physically fit
> in the machine once you are done recovering the backup.
>
> I was reading a side by side review of Symantec's product and True Image.
> The author stated that he was a die hard fan of the Symantec product until
> the latest versions started creating corrupt backups.  While the product
> would say that things failed in the LOG FILE, it never actually said so on
> the screen, so the only way to know whether you got a good backup was go
> read the log file.  Which of course the average Joe will not think is
> required.  In fact the author was burned and discovered this when his backup
> was corrupt.
>
> Anyway, I am going to do this stuff once I get my software.  Get a good
> image of both my laptop and my wife's laptop, then get both backing up
> critical data.  I have already moved my family photos off onto the Raid 6
> system, and have a backup area out on that machine for raid protected
> storage.
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting