This is my first post and I really need your help. My question is I would like to be able to re-image my reformatted hard drive with my windows 2000 OS and All my installs and updates without having to go through loading everything all over again each time. Can I load up my system and do all my configuring and take an "image" that I can load complete onto a freshly formatted hard disk? This seems like it would be so much easier than having to re-install windows,do all the updates,load all my software, and configure it all the way I want it. Please help, Thanks! Dave
You sure can. There are many programs out there, but I use Norton Ghost. It works great and has saved me endless hours of work, when I needed it.
I haven't had the chance to use Acronis yet, but the posts that I have seen on it have all been positive. When it comes down to the difference between 4 days of installing software, and the 7 minutes for me to Ghost back to a previous working state, it doesn't seem long at all.
Wow, seven minutes is pretty fast. It used to take me about 20 minutes, but it may be I was using an old version of Ghost (2003, I think it was). But yeah, it's sure a hell of lot faster than reinstalling everything. Just installing windows and the updates and drivers to get a clean "base" install takes me over 3 hours.
I use the 2003 Ghost version. If I only clone back the OS partition, from my backup, it takes 5-7 minutes. If I clone back the entire 120 GB hard drive, then it will take 15-20 minutes. I have an actual clone (copy) of the partition and the entire hard drive. I din't image them.
