Experiences w/ Drive Imaging Software? 837
"This policy of providing no way to backup and restore a fully installed system is impossible for corporations, of course. So Microsoft technical support representatives recommend sector-by-sector disk image duplication,
even though it is against Microsoft policy. Copying each sector of a hard drive bypasses Microsoft's copy protection by which Microsoft punishes all users, even if they are honest.
Sometimes Microsoft technical support recommends using 'third-party' disk image programs. For example, sometimes support representatives
recommend using Symantec Ghost.
All of the disk image duplication programs I've used have problems, in my experience. So, here's a question: What program do you use? What has been your experience with it? Can you recommend a program, or recommend staying away
from one?
Here are my experiences:
Symantec Ghost sometimes fails with non-specific error messages. Uninstalling
Ghost does not uninstall all the Ghost software. Symantec is one of the companies using copy protection, so using Symantec products may be a case of jumping from the Microsoft frying pan to the Symantec copy protection fire; also, you have no assurance that the copy protection will not become worse in the future.
PowerQuest DriveImage and DeployCenter have an uncertain future. PowerQuest
was bought by Symantec. This was after PowerQuest released DriveImage 7 with problems. The sale cannot be a happy event for those who spent hundreds of dollars on DeployCenter.
I've tried Acronis True Image. I've had better luck with it than with Symantec or PowerQuest
products. However, like the others, it sometime gives non-specific error messages that say something like, 'I've failed, and I'm not going to tell you how to troubleshoot the problem.'
Fred Langa, publisher of LangaList, recommends BootIt. I have no experience with it.
I haven't tried g4u, free, open source software provided under the BSD license g4u has the drawback that it writes only through FTP. There is no way to write to a network drive or a CD-R.
It's disgusting; people just want to make functional backups, but to do it they are dragged over the coals."
One area where linux (unix) is worth the $699 :-) (Score:2, Insightful)
Simon.
PowerQuest USED to be good... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reinstalling is usually better (Score:2, Insightful)
Zenworks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Doh, Forgot to preview on parrent and noticed lots of typos......good thing didn't major in english...
More Anti-MS FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
The article clearly states that MS does not support drive imaging as a *deployment* method. Nowhere does it say that disk duplication software is not allowed ever.
Back to the question hidden at the end of the
There are other misleading statements in the original poster's message. He includes a link implying that Ghost is Microsoft's recommended tool for drive imaging when the KB article says nothing of the sort.
Aww, go away. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why on earth are you sticking with a platform that you obviously despise? Your best solution seems to be, move to another platform already! Listen carefully, Linux is calling to you... You sound like the type of user who would rather use a platform he hates and constantly complain about it, instead of actually solving his own problems.
Your second best solution would be, write your own damn imaging software. Seriously if Ghost is so deficient it should be pretty easy to write better software, right?
The fact that Microsoft doesn't support disk imaging doesn't mean it isn't possible. Everyone does it, and by everyone I mean like 99% of fortune 500 companies. If they can all figure out how to use Ghost perhaps maybe YOU are doing something wrong? I've never had the problem you describe with Ghost, either.
Oh and finally? You're actually completely wrong. ASR along with backup software (such as Windows Backup) can completely restore your system from media in the event of a crash.
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, then your next dd will need a drive of that size or bigger.
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is that funny/witty because it should be 'To whom are you going to speak it'?
One mans ease of use is anothers security flaw (Score:3, Insightful)
The author of the "story" is wining and bitching about how hard it is to make a functional copy of a Windows installation and how supposedly this is some kind of "license enforcement" issue when anyone with half-a-brain can read the KB article themselves that the reason it's not supported and will cause problems is that you're violating the internal security policy of your own network by having duplicate machine SID's on your network. To make it work you have to change the SID, but since MS obviously feel it's not reliable enough they're recommending it as a workaround (since, hey, if anyone could just change the SID no questions asked we'd get another Slashdot article about how Windows is fatally flawed). Had they simply put in a safety that stops the image from working completely, I'm sure the crap would have flown even further.
Not to mention that there are perfectly fine methods for doing large-scale Windows roll-outs for those who need them, which don't involve 3rd party software kluges like Ghost.
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Zenworks (Score:2, Insightful)
You can also image linux machines with zenworks, cept it does it sector by sector instead of using partition table.
Re:Remember to strip the SIDs first! (Score:2, Insightful)
Backing up linux/Unix is a matter of backing up the filesystems with tar/dump/ufsdump/whatever to tape. Restoration involves booting from CD, reparitioning the disk and restoring from tape, installing a boot block and rebooting. If you're being picky, you shut down apps first and backup from single user mode, but 99% of companies get by fine with live backups (other than Oracle and DBs etc).
As far as I'm aware, the only way you can possibly back up a live NT system fully is to run disk mirroring and break off one mirror and back up that using some drive imaging. Restoration involves a complete restore of the entire filesystem, however.
Don't know about your university (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know whether that affects drive imaging software or not. I've used g4u to create and use images of Win2k and WinXP machines without problems (well, none that seemed specific to imaging), and I had never heard of "sysprep" (reading up on it now).
I would really like to have an "Ask Slashdot" where all of the people who say "You just don't know how to administer a Windows network; if you did, it would be perfect" get the chance to tell us where to go to learn this fabulous information. I'm used to working with Linux and prefer it heavily, but right now my job is to maintain/upgrade a Windows+Novell network, and I still want to do a good job. I am gradually discovering things like SMS, but in many ways still feel lost. If there really are ways to make all this crap behave, I'd sure like to know about them.
Do keep in mind that I work for a financially troubled state institution. Sitewide MS licensing is already paid for as far as Windows and Office, but suggesting $$$ on software or training is not helpful. I don't mind reading, though.
Mod parent down (Score:1, Insightful)
2. cscx goes overboard on original posters poor choice of words in saying that 'NTFS is fundamentally broken' when he really means that 'Windows is fundamentally broken' as the problem with live FS backups lies in MS's file locking design which ultimately comes back to their brain damaged DLL design. What do you mean I can't unload a DLL without rebooting? You put something that you might want to remove later in a HASH TABLE? Dumbasses.
3. The SID attached to the host, which cscx exhorts the virtues of, is ultimately useless and a nuisance as hosts outside a domain/AD with the correct user credentials can still use network services. So why the hell do I have to dork around with sysprep?
In answer to the initial poster's question, I use Symantec Ghost Enterprise to solve most of these problems. Yes, it has strange error messages. Try looking them up in the manual, and then posting them to the Symantec support group (although they are totally useless when it comes to using ghost to image linux, yech, it corrupts the ext3 logfile) If you read the manual, no, really read the manual the tool is amazingly powerful. If you don't read the manual you'll just give up on the install and load everything by hand because it'll be quicker.
Re:using dd to clone over the network (Score:4, Insightful)
Ssh may be a better idea than netcat.
Re:Zenworks (Score:2, Insightful)