Jump to content

Disk Imaging Software

IcemanND

By IcemanND
in Software Hangout

 Share

Recommended Posts

IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
Posted

I've been tasked with testing other disk imaging solutions to see if we stay with what we are using, Ghost, or move to something with more better features less expensive, you know the drill. So far I have found the following products, some freeware, some commercial. Are there any I have missed?

I am only concerned with utilities to create disk images for windows based machines, disk to disk cloning is not a requirement but it is a benefit, image creation is a requiement. If they do others that is fine. And if we want to make this the find them all repository I will gladly add more to the list that serve other functionality and break the lists up.

When my project is finished I'll post the resulting functionality comparison here for all to enjoy.

Disk Imaging Products:

Disk Cloning Products:


bj-kaiser

bj-kaiser

Posted
Posted

what about Imagex that is in the WAIK and on the Vista DVD?

It would have been nicer if they hadnt forget to flush the console buffers (you cant read the console output until it exits). But so far you get it for free from MS and the save/restore times are not that bad.

Molecule

Molecule

Posted
Posted (edited)

I don't know if this is the area you are going to be working in,

but Kroll Ontrack has a dos (6.2) based disk image tool.

It is typically shipped as "software" when you buy a retail HD.

Maxtor has MaxBlast (by Ontrack),

WD has DataLifeGuard (by Ontrack),

Seagate has ?? (by Ontrack).

I understand that the DOS versions included on the CDs are all just versions of Kroll Ontrack's dos-based image copier and restorer. They just do a sector by sector copy (sector 0x0123456... source HD gets copied to sector 0x123456... target HD), so source HD and target HD need to be healthy, and target HD needs to be larger than source HD. It is reported to be fast because it uses only BIOS.

If I may make a request along this line -- I'd love to figure out eventually how to add a kiosk feature to my w98se. On shutdown, reboot to dos 6.2, run an image program, and shutdown. On next bootup, I would be back to c:\ (OS and programs), and it would be at the pristine image condition. All email, personal files, etc. would be on D: to whatever. But C-drive would remain virus free. Do any of the above image programs have a image restore, kiosk capability?

Edited by Molecule
IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
  • Author
Posted

@Molecule - I don't know of any feature like this in imaging utilities, but there are products like deepfreeze by faronics, and I don't know if it is around anymore HDSherrif (may not have the name quite right). That freeze either partitions or whole hard drives and after any changes are made a reboot returns them to their pristine state.

jaclaz

jaclaz

Posted
Posted

OT:

@Molecule

The idea of imaging forth and back the system is not, in my view, the best way for "kiosk mode".

It would be better if you used one of the various ways to boot Win9x from a RAMDISK.

Alternatively, and maybe even easier, you can experiment with the grub4dos features of the --mem command.

Of course the machine needs to have enough RAM for it.

@IcemanND

Sorry didn't intend to hijack the thread. :)

jaclaz

IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Here is the list of items I will be using to compare products, any others I missing?

Cost

Features

  • Supported Hardware
  • Bootable Media
  • Image Explorer
  • Drive Wipe
  • Change SID
  • Partition Drive
  • Format Drive
  • CD/DVD Burning
  • Verify during/after burn
  • Backup to local partition
  • Partition Resize during restore
  • Multicasting
  • Scriptable
  • Editable Images
  • Mountable Images

Backup/Restore

  • Virtual Disk
  • Individual file/folder restoration
  • Self extracting
  • Date/Time stamp preserved

Backup Options

  • Live Backup
  • File skip
  • Compression
  • Splitable images

Drive Cloning

  • forensic copy
  • Encryption
  • Password protected
  • Label Backup

Scheduling

  • Windows Task Scheduler
  • Application included Scheduler
  • Task Editor
  • Set date/time

Boot Disk Types

  • Network
  • SCSI
  • USB
  • Firewire
  • CD
  • DVD
  • Floppy

File System support

  • Fat 16/32
  • NTFS
  • EXT 2/3 FS
  • ReiserFS
  • Linux

Support/Docs

  • User Guides
  • eMail Support
  • FAQ
  • Phone Contact
  • Download Updates
  • Help Documentation
  • Knowledge Base

mikesw

mikesw

Posted
Posted (edited)

You mention drive cloning encryption. I presume that you are talking about commercial disk encryption software

vs. MSoft disk encryption whereby the whole disk is encrypted and a password is needed on bootup before

Windows even starts to boot. I also assume you'll be evaluating the disk imaging of these encrypted disks too.

This wouldn't be the case whereby the file or the directory would be encrypted with the rest of the files/directories

remaining unencrypted since this is a trivial case.

Edited by mikesw
IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Actually I was referring to the ability to encrypt the image itself.

Imaging encrypted disks though possible is not recommended by the vendors I have dealt with, or you have to do it without compression so a 40gb drive results ina 40gb image and you can't resize it to a larger drive. I know this is the cse with Utimaco's SafeGuard Easy.

I'm not sure what would happen with EFS, if the drive was fully cloned it would not likely be a problem, creating an image may pose issues.

Molecule

Molecule

Posted
Posted (edited)
Here is the list of items I will be using to compare products, any others I missing?

Does the image include, and will the image restore, all date information on subdirs when they are "restored?" -- obviously same for files too? (Possibly called "forensics" -- but forensics might include much more than just preserving/restoring file/subdir dates.)

In some cases I have so many subdirs under a dir I need to sort them by date of origination to locate a file (I can remember "about when" better than I can "a specific name").

----

Seagate and Maxtor also have Diskwizard, a free cut down version of Acronis Trueimage 10

I was thinking of the 1.44 FD DOS versions. (I can't imagine how a restore could be considered secure when MS Windows is running.)

Edited by Molecule
IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Does the image include, and will the image restore, all date information on subdirs when they are "restored?" -- obviously same for files too? (Possibly called "forensics" -- but forensics might include much more than just preserving/restoring file/subdir dates.)

In some cases I have so many subdirs under a dir I need to sort them by date of origination to locate a file (I can remember "about when" better than I can "a specific name").

Forensic imaging takes an image of the entire drive including blank space, normally only used to image to another drive rather than to an image since it is a exact 1:1 copy of the drive.

So we'll call what you are after date/time stamp preservation.

Anyone have a good way to score ease of use? This is something that can be very subjective.

IcemanND

IcemanND

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Wow, I'm surprised by the number of products out there when you start looking. Which I am now going to stop doing, if anyone else knows of a product not listed post it and I will add it to the list up until the end of the day on Monday. Anything after that will not likely be reviewed but I will add to the list so we can have a single repository of imaging solutions.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...