Restoring a partition using image software

[goldeagle2005]

Hi all

I have a computer with 4 partitions on an 80 gig HD. Now, 10 Gig is what ive allocated to drive C: (the system drive). I have a tendency to try out every piece of software out there, and hence i tend to reformat drive C: every 4 months or so. Each time I do this, I manually start Windows XP setup, format drive C:, bla bla bla. What I want to ask is this. I want to create an image of drive C: only, and store it on a DVD so that I can boot from the said DVD and it'll restore drive C:, without touching the rest of the partitions. I plan to take an image of drive C: after I've installed all drivers, essential programs (A/V, MS Office, Nero etc). What software do you guys recommend for this? Ofcourse, I'll need to create a bootable DVD for this. How do I go about this?

Thanks a lot.

[DMR]

Norton/Symantec's "Ghost" program will do what you describe, and the program's usage is pretty straightforward.

[goldeagle2005]

Right. Any freeware alternatives available? Pardon my ignorance on this, I just have no experience with image software.

[DMR]

I'm not sure about freeware alternatives, but hopefully someone else will have a few ideas...

[nizzy1115]

I dont know of any freeware utilities. Mostly imaging is used in corporate and buisness environments. I use ghost at home and we used to use it at work. Now we use novel's zenworks for our imaging. It is much nicer than ghost. ...but you need a novel server...

ghost will probably be your best bet. its not too expensive, but it will be worth it.

[fry]

hi, you can you tell me why do you use ghost? is it better than other backup software? i ask you, because i use true image by acronis, my friend suggest me to try it. I've read a lot of forums, and ghost mentioned more often?

[nizzy1115]

I know ghost has been around for ever, as far as i know it was one of the first. Im sure there are others out there now, but I used ghost because of its networking capabilities (you could pull images from a server rather than locally). I have heard of the one you mention, and people seem to like it, so i guess what every you are used to you should use. They will all do the same thing in the end :)

[fry]

networking capabilities(you could pull images from a server rather than locally) are really great thing, true image has this feature too, it is very handly.

[goldeagle2005]

Guess it all comes down to a matter of choice. People go with what they believe will be a 'better' software, simply because of the company's rep. And Symantec is a well known and widely trusted name.

[goldeagle2005]

Norton/Symantec's "Ghost" program will do what you describe, and the program's usage is pretty straightforward.

Hi. I'll be getting the software today. Before that, I want to ask you: whenI restore the image, will it wipe out the data on all my other partitions as well? Usually imaging apps wipe out the entire HD and then restore from the image. I need to ensure that the other partitions remain untouched.

Thanks

[fry]

in addition may be it will be interesting for those who will read this post, i found an article where Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are compared, and it's an independed examination. so here it is:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/drive-imaging-reviews.htm