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Ghost 12 or Acronis 10 for Vista?

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Short answer for : you do not have to reinstall Windows and all your applications after a C: drive failure if you make a full disk (or system) image and a bootable recovery media ahead of time. Both Norton Ghost 12 and Acronis True Image 10 are disk-imaging tools that can restore an entire system to a blank drive so the OS and apps come back exactly as they were at the time of the image.

Building on 's external-drive suggestion, a simple, safe workflow to follow now:

  1. Clean the system (remove temp files, run chkdsk), then create a full image of the system disk (include all small/hidden boot partitions).
  2. Use the product's rescue-disc/USB creator to make bootable recovery media immediately after imaging.
  3. Store the image on an external USB hard drive (faster and more reliable than optical media) and keep at least one copy off the PC.
  4. Verify the image (most tools have a Verify feature) and, if possible, test-restore to a spare drive or a virtual machine.
  5. Repeat full images occasionally and use scheduled/incremental images if the product supports them for daily changes.

Practical restore notes and gotchas:

  • To restore you boot from the rescue CD/USB (change BIOS/boot-menu — often F12, Esc or similar), not the Windows F8 menu. Then point the recovery tool at your external image and restore.
  • Restoring will overwrite the target disk. Double-check drive letters before proceeding.
  • Restoring to different hardware can require extra driver fixes or a “restore to dissimilar hardware” feature; major hardware swaps may trigger re-activation.
  • If the system won't boot after restore, use the rescue media or Windows recovery to run Startup Repair to fix the bootloader.

Which to pick? For a first-time/home user the Acronis UI tends to be friendlier; for technicians or network cloning Ghost offers advanced scripting and deployment options. The crucial steps are: create an image, build rescue media, verify the image, and practice the restore so a real failure doesn’t become a panic.

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Member Avatar for mmmmmmmmmmmm

im sorry but what excactly is your question??

im assuming you are asking for advice on which one to choose so....

ghost is more reliable and has more options on which to do with our files but is $20 more exspensive!

both programs are compatible with windows vista!

post back if i dont not answer your question properly...

xx

Member Avatar for Member #23858

Thats exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks.

Member Avatar for Member #23858

I have not used these programs before and was wondering if anyone could tell me how they actually work. I backup to my external. My c drive with all apps and os goes bad. Will I have to reinstall? Which backup is easier to use in an instance like this?

Member Avatar for mmmmmmmmmmmm

hey,
basically, you just backup your pc onto eathier a DVD, CD, or external harddrive

external harddrive is the quickest and most efficient way of backing up :)

but basically im not completely sure because i have not yet had to restore my computer.

but i think that you turn on the computer and when the bios starts just press f8 and it will take you to the options, then you can access the backup file from the dvd drive or harddrive and it will automaticaly reinstall the files for you :)

post back for any more questions :)

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