XP imaging/cloning

I'm resetting and tidying my netbook to pass on. When it's sorted I'd like to create an image so it can be reinstated if necessary.

What's the best - free - software to do this?

Clearly I'll also need a recovery boot CD, what software is best to do this?

I'd use the Windows backup/restore utilities if it was Win7, but XP...

Have you checker whether your hard drive supplier provides a free version of Acronis

Unfortunately I haven't got Acronis, free or otherwise

Clonezilla, free and works a treat. http://clonezilla.org/

Macrium Reflect or Easeus ToDo. But as said earlier, some hard drive brands supply a strict OEM copy of Acronis.

You can use ImageX provided by Microsoft but it is a faff for a one-time use.... See if you can get an old copy of Acronis from the internet somewhere (some of the older versions have been made free for magazines and stuff).

XP never liked being imaged though imho. You'd be better customizing a Windows XP installation disk with the drivers and ensuring it is SP3 (or slipstreamed in) and relying on that if it all went tits up.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

XP never liked being imaged though imho. You'd be better customizing a Windows XP installation disk with the drivers and ensuring it is SP3 (or slipstreamed in) and relying on that if it all went tits up.

What do you mean by "SP3...slipstreamed in"?

Last time I re-installed XP onto a replacement HDD I used a SP2 cd and then it took ages to download and update to SP3...it would be interesting to know if there is a quicker and easier way

Yes, you can either get a genuine Windows XP with SP3 installation disk.... or if you do not have one, use nLite (google it), to slipstream SP3 into your existing Windows XP installation disk - it creates a fresh ISO with the SP3 in it which you then burn to disk. You can also slipstream drivers and all sorts in there (but don't get too carried away otherwise you'll goof it up).

The former is better of course, because as always, Microsoft are better at making Windows XP installation images than anyone else.

Have a look at the Paragon web site. They do free versions of all their utilities, and their disk imaging works a treat. I've used it many times to restore disks or to clone to new disks.

"SP3...slipstreamed in" means a CD with SP3 merged into the original XP release. There are processes for doing this.

You don't need to do an SP2 upgrade if you are next going to do an SP3 one. SP2 is contained within SP3.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sun 24-Feb-13 18:53:02)

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

use nLite (google it), to slipstream SP3

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/index.html - looks good - cheers

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

"SP3...slipstreamed in" means a CD with SP3 merged into the original XP release. There are processes for doing this.

Yep, I just found this http://www.nliteos.com/guide/index.html with some help from Pipexer

In reply to a post by 4M2:

...it would be interesting to know if there is a quicker and easier way....

With a couple of extras for nLite you can also slipstream IE8 and a choice of up to all current updates as well as current drivers. It's worth taking a little time the first time that you use nLite as it can also create a completely customised and unattended installationn CD/DVD.

Just creating a sp3 cd/dvd, with all current updates and drivers, would suit me at the moment; but the custom install etc. features I will definitely look into later - cheers

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

XP never liked being imaged though imho. You'd be better customizing a Windows XP installation disk with the drivers and ensuring it is SP3 (or slipstreamed in) and relying on that if it all went tits up.

I have used Clonezilla on numerous XP and Vista computers I have rebuilt and repaired and the image has always restored without any problem.

Likewise, I've lost count of how many times I've used Acronis, Ghost etc with XP and I've never yet seen a problem.

I'll dig out what you need and upload a package for you somewhete if you like.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

I'll dig out what you need and upload a package for you somewhete if you like.

I've downloaded the nLite-1.4.9.1.installer and will have a play around with nLite and my XP sp2 cd later. Will burn to a DVD+R with Nero because that will verify that all data has been correctly written...

If I get stuck, I'll get back to you...

Thanks

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

Likewise, I've lost count of how many times I've used Acronis, Ghost etc with XP and I've never yet seen a problem.

I have measured performance degradation by using install images compared to a native installation in the past. To me its just easier to re-run the XP install and put the latest upto date drivers on than relying on an image (which may be out of date).

No problems - nLite was a breeze, stuck the XP SP3 ISO on a CD with Nero Burning ROM since the total size was a bit less than 600MB

[Replying to my own post as there's no specific post to reply to to give an update]

I knew that Samsung netbook had a restore capability, but I'd forgotten, or not realised, that the same feature also gave the capability of creating an image of the C: drive either to - in my case - the D: drive (partition) or to 1 or more DVDs.

I'll take an image to both media.

The only problem I see is that if the drive itself goes belly up I'm not sure how I can retrieve the image from the DVDs. The files have the type(s) of .woo, .wcl, .w01, .w02

Any thoughts?

Not exactly relevant: but with Win7 I initially wrote the image to an external usb HDD drive and update the image every now and again by over-writing . And like you I not sure how to use it if it should ever become necessary...guess I could boot the pc from that drive, but I'm not sure

I am sure it is possible to restore, my suggestion would be to try it next time you have a couple of hours to spare, as when things go wrong you will invariably be under pressure.

Before you try it make sure that you have downloaded a live CD/DVD of say Kubuntu and perhaps a live CD of Gparted, as well as having access to the software that is supposed to be used for restoration.

In reply to a post by philippercival:

I am sure it is possible to restore, my suggestion would be to try it next time you have a couple of hours to spare, as when things go wrong you will invariably be under pressure.

There shouldn't be any pressure since the Win7 machine is dedicated to video editing and I backup all editing projects and video/photo/audio files to a storage drive.

Thanks for the info and advice though

Edited by 4M2 (Wed 27-Feb-13 14:25:49)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Not exactly relevant: but with Win7 I initially wrote the image to an external usb HDD drive and update the image every now and again by over-writing . And like you I not sure how to use it if it should ever become necessary...guess I could boot the pc from that drive, but I'm not sure

You should keep a bare pristine image taken immediately after the OS, drivers and any "always used" software is installed. Other images can be taken afterwards. That way, if anything unnoticed has gone awry, or major changes to software used etc occur, you still have the original pristine image.

Indeed.

To recover from the image I need to be able to run the Samsung utility, albeit from the hidden partition wherever that is.

But if the HDD itself goes belly up there's no viable hidden partition to run. So I need to be able to boot from something somewhere enough to be able to run the recovery utility from a Windows XP system. Though even that, i think, requires the hidden partition to be viable as that's where mini-Windows (PE?) resides.

It would seem I need a bootable XP Windows environment that can run the Samsung utility to recover the drive C:.

Or should I be using a completely different strategy?

Well with XP I would do a clean install of the OS (hopefully, in my case, with sp2 slipstreamed to sp3) as discussed earlier.

All program installers (which are not on cd/dvd) and my documents are backed up onto another HDD. I do have all the drivers on a separate utility cd also.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

...... Or should I be using a completely different strategy?

In a word, yes! Try the two freebies I mentioned above and be sure that with whichever one that you choose, create the bootable rescue CD.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

You should keep a bare pristine image taken immediately after the OS, drivers and any "always used" software is installed. Other images can be taken afterwards. That way, if anything unnoticed has gone awry, or major changes to software used etc occur, you still have the original pristine image.

OK - so Win7 seems OK at the moment meaning that any further images should be written/over-written separately?

It's good practice to keep a bare image so that you can start again from scratch without the hassle of installing and updating etc.
I usually take 3 images - A bare one as described above, a "full" one which is taken when everything that I normally use is installed and set up and then a third taken when any major changes take place. This is the one that I overwrite regularly.

I've only ever installed Acronis when I buy a new version. Once I've created the bootable media, I uninstall the program and stick to the boot CD/USB drive.

Edited by Deadbeat (Wed 27-Feb-13 14:59:26)