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Imaging software

Started by hausmaus, 2012.04.11, 04:09:40

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hausmaus

Hi, everyone--

(I hope this is the right forum for this question.  ;D )

I've decided I'd like to make a full image of my BBS' drives which are HPFS formatted.  Does anyone know of any current imaging software that will work properly with HPFS formatted drive and be able to create an image over my LAN?

Thanks,
HM

Andi

DFSee. Depending on the booted OS you can save the images on network drives or USB attached disks of course. DFSee runs on OS/2, DOS, Linux and Win. Of course when booting from the DOS boot floppy/CD these options are limited. AFAIK there is a bootable Linux USB image available too.

But for backing up an OS/2 machine I usually prefer xcopy or zip.

hausmaus

Quote from: Andi on 2012.04.11, 12:56:54
DFSee. Depending on the booted OS you can save the images on network drives or USB attached disks of course. DFSee runs on OS/2, DOS, Linux and Win. Of course when booting from the DOS boot floppy/CD these options are limited. AFAIK there is a bootable Linux USB image available too.

But for backing up an OS/2 machine I usually prefer xcopy or zip.

I'd forgotten about DFSee but I was trying to find a freeware/open source solution for now.  I just can't justify the cost of DFSee with my current financial situation (I'm a starving college student :)) although DFSee is definitely worth registering!  I should have said that I'm currently backing up the BBS via Back Again/2000 to tape.

I'm wanting to create two images of the machine to burn to DVD to keep safely off-site in a safe deposit box.  I don't mind having to re-install and configure OS/2 as that's the easy part.  Redoing the hundreds--thousands, really--of man-hours invested in the BBS itself is another matter entirely.  I discovered os2notes.com last night and there was a good article on the website about different backup solutions.  Although it wasn't quite what I was looking for, it gave me some good ideas.  I also discovered in another forum here on os2world.com how to use GTAR/GTAK with the tape drive I have installed so there's another option also.

Thanks for the DFSee reminder.  Maybe when my financial aid comes in next semester I'll go ahead and register DFSee since it works on everything.

--HM

RobertM

Symantec Ghost should work. It will revert to "raw" mode and do a bit by bit copy. At least.the  version on my BartPE disk works... havent tried newer ones. Cool thing is like dfsee, bartpe comes on a bootable cd - well, once you make that cd. ;)

The other advantage is it generally supports USB for any computer from the XP era through almost today. That means you can plug an external usb hard drive in and save the ghost files there.

Googling "bartpe" should provide you links on where to download it. You will need access to an xp machine to build it though.


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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aschn

Beside Dfsee (of course) I prefer any version of Acronis TrueImage, as
it works much more reliable than the (more and more unsupported)
Symantec Ghost (which bases on a renamed Partition Image from
Ex-Powerquest.)

There were also free versions available on some computer magazines
media.

Of course, smart imaging is not supported for OS/2 file systems. That
means that copying happens per sector, not recognizing empty ones.
(Robert wrote about raw mode when he described Ghost.) The funny thing
is that generally Acronis TrueImage cloning works much faster than
DFSee cloning.

I have no comparison experience with DFSee and TrueImage on OS/2 file
systems, as I always use DFSee in that case. But for NTFS2, the
difference is remarkable.

Andreas

RobertM

Andreas is correct... Ghost is slow since it is going byte by byte. Also, it is higjly recommended that one ONLY builds the BartPE disk off a FULLY updated Windows XP system. Some initial releases were not fond of OS/2 and may render the system unbootable until you fix the MBR and/or partition changes it makes. (Basically, the BartPE disk you build is built from your installed version of Windows, and inherits whatever added "features" came with your current build level)

The only reason i use it is if i want a very easy way of creating the image on a USB drive - or, if I've pulled the OS/2 drive, i can stick it into an enclosure,  plug it into a running machine, and ghost to that machine - then, if the need is there, stick in an identical drive and restore the image.

One more word of warning - and another reason Ghost should be a last resort: you really should only plan on "restoring" the image to an identical drive. That's also part of the reason i use it for certain things; when (a)   all i want is a machine state archive; inotherwords, "all is running well, let me make an image before i install all these fixpacks or try this upgrade" and  (b) for some of the machines where i have identical drives sitting on the shelf in case something goes wrong with the drive in the computer.


Side note... the easiest method - though not blazingly fast or space efficient - that i have used is to format a drive the appropriate OS/2 file system(s) - one appropriate partition for each one you want to   back up. Then, i turn the machine off, install the drive(s), boot off the install disk(s)  and simply xcopy to


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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RobertM

...cont: xcopy to the new drive using the "/h /o /t /s /e /r /v" switches.

There are some extra steps involved, like ensuring you've (with only the new drive in) installed boot manager - if needed - and ensured the correct drive letters are assigned. This method should be a last resort option - but in the case of odd disk issues, i sometimes prefer it since one can control, for the most part, what OS/2 does to the disk(s).

Sorry about the split posts... i will try to remember to fix it later... my phone does not like the forum's edit window and wouldnt let meadd any more text to the end of the post - it kept jumping up into the lines above.


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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