As an added note, I tend to only backup my system drives occasionally as my data and media files reside on different partitions and for these I use ZTreeWin quite regularly.
Here's a few things for backup and restore I've been working on that may interest others...
I like to create a CD, or better still, a bootable thumb drive, to backup and restore my hard drives. Most diagnostic, repair, and archiving software is based on Linux. The trouble is, a lot of good stuff is really hard to use, but one of the best and flexible archiving programs is called FSArchiver.
This program is also hard to use but there's a script for FSArchiver that makes the task of backing up and restoring easier, it's called FSArchiver_Dialog
It's not necessary to download this, the link is included for reference.
What I mainly like about FSArchiver is:
- The ability to restore to partitions of a different size.
- Backup/Restore is performed independent of the main operating system (CD or boot thumb).
- Independent MBR/Table backup and restore.
- Likely to be around for a while, with updates for new systems.
- Supports numerous drive formats.
- It's free!
fsarchiver_dialog
Step-by-step backup:- Select path to store files--image backup (option P), this mounts the drive to store the archive.
- Highlight partition to store archive.
- Select default directory for archive.
- Select partition(s) (option S), you wish to save.
- Check mark actual partition(s) with an asterisk.
- Confirm MBR/Table backup (or use option M).
- Select or enter the image file name,
- Confirm to continue.
Creating Multi-Boot Thumb Drives:
I've created a multi-boot thumb drive with a program called YUMI.
On a 1GByte thumb drive, I have these bootable programs:
- AVG Rescue (Antivirus)
- Ophcrack XP (password finder)
- Parted Magic (Linux OS with disk and other utilities)
- Apricorn EZ-Gig II (Proprietary, old Archiving software)
- EaseUS Disk Copy Image
YUMI give links to sites for the programs it directly supports. Other ISO's can use a feature called "Try an unlisted ISO (Runs from RAM)". This latter feature may take a while to extract and load when in use as a boot option (so one has to be patient).