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."
Has always worked for me ... (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to encrypt after the copy you can do
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hdb1
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:5, Informative)
Partimage can compress data by a factor of 2. I have used it to backup/restore windows boxes on many occations and works great.
from winblows box:
1. boot off knoppix 2. nfs mount an export that has enough room to hold the backups. 3. use partimage to backup patition(s) to nfs mounted frive.
There are option on partimage to break the backup into managable sizes (say 600MB chuncks) for easy CD archiving.
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2)
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...
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3)
doing the same with dd... (Score:3, Informative)
just some thoughts...
Re:doing the same with dd... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3, Informative)
First run this script (under cygwin on Windows)
/dev/hda1 | ssh backuphost 'cat > WindowsBackup.bz2'
#!/bin/bash
dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes
sync
rm -f zeroes
That'll zero out the free space, so it will compress down to nothing when you run
bzip2 -c
But to be honest I haven't tried a restore yet!
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:5, Informative)
Or, if you don't want to mess with scripts and installing cygwin:
BTW.. if you want to use this for privacy, you probably *don't* want to use the All Zeros overwriting option. If you son't know why, read this interesting article [usenix.org].
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2)
It makes more sense to image the hard drive to some file, preferably an external one. For example:
dd if=/dev/sda1 | ncftpput -c -u username site.com filepath
And then use ftp to retrieve it back again later.
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:2)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, then your next dd will need a drive of
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3)
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:5, Informative)
Their pick for best disk imaging utility on the planet was none other than GNU dd. I've used dd several times to back up a Windows installation to a different disk and restored it with no problem. The host OS doesn't even have to support the filesystem of the target filesystem since it works at a lower level.
LNX-BBC [lnx-bbc.com] is the perfect backup utility. It's self contained, aproximately 50M, and it can read/write to many types of network storage, and of course comes with GNU dd.
for me too (Score:3, Informative)
To do it on the fly:
dd if=/dev/hda1 bs=1048576 | gzip -c >
An 8Gig-Partition should give you a compressed backup-File of about 3 Gigs.
This you can store on a large partition, split and store on several CD-Rs or mail it to your granny.
Splitting is quite easy too, you can tell dd to read a certai
Re:for me too (Score:3, Informative)
This is hard with compressed images, but if you either temporarily uncompress them or investigate a compressed filesystem driver.
Some cool versions of dd... (Score:3, Informative)
You could write a wrapper script around it with a cool progress bar if you were smart.
Try this one day:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null &
kill -USR1 %1
#wait a little
kill -USR1 %1
#etc...
Re:Has always worked for me ... (Score:3, Informative)
this is the most reliable system I've seen (I admin ~ 75 win32 desktops). Ghost occasionally fails in wierd ways, which sometimes don't get noticed right away (this is really bad).
You can do it to files as well, which is a bit more useful
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/nfsmount/on/big/drive/billsBox.image && gzip -9
for speed reasons you'll probably want to compress on the nfs server, but you get the idea...
caveat: for new installs, r
Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:5, Informative)
As for multiple machines, I've always gone with Norton Ghost Enterprise [symantec.com]. Where I work, we recently got a new shipment of 120 Dell Dimension GX270 desktops, P4 2.8Ghz, 120GB disks, top of the line machines. However since we are a government agency we have certain security policies that must be in place on each machine regarding user logins, domains, file permissions and network access. Setting this up on 120 machines would be an impossible chore. So I set up a spare Dell server running Windows 2000 Advance Server with Norton Ghost Enterprise. We then took one of the new Dells, reinstalled Windows XP from scratch and began applying all security measures and end-user programs to the install. Next, a Microsoft program called System Preparation Tool [microsoft.com] was run to prepare the system for the end-user, and the machine was shut down and booted off a Norton Ghost rescue disk with drivers for the onboard ethernet. Then the machine was conencted to the Ghost server and an image of the hard disk was dumped. From there the only remaining work was to boot a dozen or so new machines at a time and point them to our Ghost server and have them image the drives, then we repackaged them and delivered them to the users. The whole process took about 2 weeks from when we got the first machine to when the last one was delivered to the user.
Norton Ghost is great for rolling out images to identical machines, but it's hit-or-miss with machines that differ on hardware. And it certainly helps to have coprorate editions of the Microsoft software to avoid activation issues.
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:2)
Thats why Microsoft came up with their RIS service, you can create an image and it just disregards hardware on the machine. But I still use Ghost on dissimilar hardware where I work simply because its fast (copies our default computer setup in 5 minutes to a new pc and our programmer's boxes are done in just over 10) - plus if I recall, you can use ghost to roll out linux boxes to
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:3, Informative)
With SYSPREP and a well setup SYSPREP.INF file, you can skip the serial number, device driver installs, domain setup, admin password, and a whole of other things. The Docs for SYSPREP are big, but the examples do half of the work for you.
GHOST and SYSPREP. The better way to clone W2K and XP.
Re:Experiences with Norton Ghost (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Re:Experiences with Ed Norton Ghost (Score:5, Funny)
dd (Score:5, Informative)
It's worked for me.
Other than that, I've used ghost.
Re:dd (Score:2)
Mr.Zip
and another, ofwhich I can no longer remember the name....and the minute I hit the submit button, it will flash into my head, like a lightning bolt hitting a tree.
and yes, they all work great, depending on the task at hand.
we even ghosted our Testing Novell 5.1 server to our PXE/TFTP Server on Linux...although, the compression with ghost and Novell is horrible. (network boot and dump doesnt care tho)
Re:dd (Score:5, Informative)
Re:dd (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dd (Score:2)
I've never tried that, but this will work with NTFS formatted disks, correct? And all the boot block info as well?
Re:dd (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:dd (Score:3, Informative)
In general, dd will complain if the source drive is larger than the target drive, but the way we usually get drives is that the drives keep getting bigger in size.
So, I usually copy my 4G drive to the new 10G drive. In 90% of instances that I use dd, it's to try and save a dying drive.
You can also copy things by partition as well, so run fdisk (or other prefered partition tool) on the new drive and you can do
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1
the bs argument is handy for
Re:dd (Score:2)
using dd to clone over the network (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if this was a serious suggestion or not, but this is exactly how I do it! I use this method to clone linux cluster nodes, but it would work for windows as well.
I use a boot floppy, with the grub [gnu.org] bootloader (you could skip the floppy entirely if your hardware supports PXE booting, and you feel like messing with it). The bootloader grabs a kernel and ramdisk image from a tftp server. Then, a shell script creates a fifo, connect it to the tftp server, uses dd to copy to/from the image.
Here's an example of the shell script to make a backup (just do the reverse to restore):
This method was adapted from the clone [tldp.org] HOWTO, which has more in-depth instructions.
Re:using dd to clone over the network (Score:4, Insightful)
Ssh may be a better idea than netcat.
Remember to strip the SIDs first! (Score:5, Informative)
From the article: Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP have crippled file systems
Bullshit! That one statement shows that the article writer has a serious case of rectal-cranial inversion... For the uninformed, here is MS's definition of SIDs: "A security identifier (SID) is a unique value of variable length that is used to identify a security principal or security group in Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000 and Microsoft(R) Windows NT(R)." They are almost like *nix UIDs/GIDs, but a little bit more complex... NTFS is more complex in general. They actually contain information specific to the machine/domain/etc in the permission. To be more clear, an NT machine on a domain is treated as a leaf node in a tree... and each file in the filesystem of that leaf node can be assigned specific permissions relating to any user on any machine in that tree (domain). This allows very complex definition of file/registry/system permissions! Unix works in a similar way, but lacks those extra capabilities. What you need to do is strip the machine-specific parts of the SIDs out before you image the machine! (Here's a thought question for ya... ever tar a set of files on one unix machine, move them to another, untar and notice that the UIDs/GIDs are, as Strong Bad would say, "weirded out?")
Obviously the article writer is an amateur and knows nothing about how Windows or NTFS work... which makes me suspect he is not qualified to do his job. Assuming you can't image Windows machines based on the premise that Windows and NTFS are "fundamentally broken" is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. My university must have > 10,000 shiny brand new Dell computers, all running an identical version of Windows XP... and someone means to tell me they didn't image them, instead installing XP from scratch on each one? Please!
dd is great for quick-and-dirty imaging, but I'd be wary writing that image to a disk of a different size, etc... unless you hacked the partition table to make the new disk "think" it's smaller than the image, if the new disk is indeed bigger.
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 "sy
Re:Remember to strip the SIDs first! (Score:3)
So... do you still think the original poster has a "serious case of rectal-cranial inversion"?
Or "suspect he is not qualified to do his job"?
Re:What he said (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't, you can use a Linux LiveCD [knopper.net]
Skip hardware, go software (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone working at MS Product Activation listening? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Skip hardware, go software (Score:2)
Its fairly painless... on first boot after duping you just have to input a new product key and configure the hostname.
dd (Score:4, Informative)
One area where linux (unix) is worth the $699 :-) (Score:2, Insightful)
Simon.
PowerQuest USED to be good... (Score:2, Insightful)
DD ? (Score:2, Informative)
Modboot + ghost (Score:3, Informative)
Modboot [nu2.nu] is really nice in that you can make a network boot disk for pretty much any network card that was or is in production without much hassle.
Two functional methods... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ghost worked fine for us (Score:4, Interesting)
Either way, just whip the top off the box, stick in your drive with the image on and use Ghost on a boot disk. Never had a problem with Windows 95, 98 or 2k, including NTFS.
Pulling images down off the network was a bit of a chore, as it'd fail if the lag got too high . . .
Tom's Root Boot? (Score:2)
There might be GPL issues that'd compound your Microsoft issues of sector-by-sector copying, but aren't we entitled to a backup? Which laws trump which?
dd and knoppix (Score:5, Informative)
I image a lot of identical laptops. With Knoppix, I can pop in a boot CD along with a pcmcia firewire card attached to a big external drive. Everything (even sound!) is detected on boot up and I can mount the external drive and dd an image to or from. I can write a 20 gig image to the laptop in just over 12 minutes. Going the other way takes a bit longer... haven't figured that one out.
I was using ghost, but its a royal pain. Limited support for external devices (no pcmcia support). Network backups involve making DOS/Windows for Workgroup (!) boot disks. Ick all around. Knoppix works much better. Network interfaces are also detected and configured via dhcp, so I could do net backups as well.
Hardware drive ghoster (Score:2)
dd to the rescue.... again! (Score:2)
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=//disk.image
Then when you need to restore the image on the system:
dd if=//disk.image of=/dev/hda1
(where the disk.image is the one you created above.) Best way would be to store the images on a networked linux server on a nfs share. That way you just mount the share on the localhost once you boot up into knop
Overkill (Score:2, Interesting)
All the people suggesting dd are absolutely right. It's simple and it works. And you can put a regular file for "of" if you want to create a disk image file.
I don't see why g4u's use of FTP for uploading drive images is that bad. Surely it isn't hard to throw up a Linux box running an ftp daemon, or enable FTP on IIS on your NT box.
I for one don't even bother with Symantec products anymore. If you know how to use Linux or BSD, fixing Windows problems through them is a snap. And from the looks of it
My recommendation (Score:4, Interesting)
dd (Score:2)
use the software mirror (Score:5, Informative)
1. put in an identical drive, and make a mirror
2. run the machine for a few hours while it syncs up.
3. reboot and take out the fully mirrored drive.
that takes a while, but it should provide a decent solution to backup all of the files on a windows machine. You can even run the system while the backup is running. You still have to reboot at least twice, and have a drive that is equal or greater in size, but it should work flawlessly if you know what you're doing.
Re:use the software mirror (Score:3, Informative)
You need to use "dynamic disks" (whatever the hell that is) in order to run a software RAID1 array under Windows. This isn't a prob for 90% of the people out there, but if you dual boot, it could cause problems.
If you do dual-boot, use DD as suggested in another post.
Re:use the software mirror (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorta (Score:4, Funny)
Mostly true, but not entirely. NTBackup.exe will save your system state (registry, drivers, etc) plus you can backup Program Files and Documents and Settings etc too. In theory (meaning: I've never done this) you could do one install of Windows, install your apps, then use NTBackup to save your system state and your Program Files/Docs and Sets folders. Then, you could go to the other machines, first do a vanilla install of Windows, copy the
I will say again I have never done specifically this. but I have saved a mucked up registry using this techique before. In your position, it's a method I'd explore. Expect limitations. For example, I don't know if XP'll shit itself over it's activation process. I suggest this as a direction to explore, not as a solution I'd stand behind.
Oh, one other thing, XP doesn't install NTBackup.exe by default, you have to extract it from the XP CD. Google has plenty of help here.
Re:Sorta (Score:2)
Trying to help the guy here. I also don't wanna stake my reptuation on how well Microsoft made their backup software.
Re:Sorta (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. That's the usual way it was done at the shop where I worked. The ghost images were stored out on a Novell Netware server in, I believe, the directory Login, which is read accessible before you log into the network. (This was on a machine that had no routable TCP/IP address, so only locally accessible.) ghost from a floppy customized with the right ethernet driver a
Zenworks (Score:2, Insightful)
FlashClone from Suredata (Score:2)
Did you actually READ the policy statement? (Score:5, Informative)
It also has the side effect of making sure you have all of your OS licenses. Or is that a problem?
Sysprep is your friend if you have a pile of apps and want to reinstall multiple copies of them quickly. I use Symantec Ghost myself, and the image in question has Win2K, Office 2K, a bunch of 16-bit apps, Acrobat Reader, a bunch of 32-bit apps to go with said 16-bit apps, IE6, and other stuff I forget or don't want to disclose at this time, and Sysprep makes these all imageable.
In that sense it doesn't matter WHAT imaging software you use to make a mass copy of Windows, as long as you Sysprep it before the fact.
As for disaster recovery backups of a single workstation, the included NTBACKUP still is tried and true. Though I liked the NT4 version better than the Win2K version.
Ghost 6.5 or 7.0 (Score:2, Informative)
I've also used DD from a linux boot disk. It takes forever, but used to handle imaging some drives that older versions of Ghost (pre 6.0) would choke on.
I tinkered with Acronis, but didn't care much for the limitations. (I'd like to be able to image a drive connected via USB with another OS image. Acronis only seemed concerned with its system drive, a
partimage (Score:2, Informative)
Everybody uses Ghost. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few things that you don't want to duplicate exactly when you're installing on a bunch of machines, even with identical hardware. If I understand correctly, that's the whole point of Ghost. dd doesn't always cut it if you're doing 400 installs on separate machines.
"week or even more?" (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry. If it takes you a week to install replication software, you shouldn't be in IT.
One word. Ghost. It works. If you see limitations with the normal version, grab the enterprise edition which offers Ghost servers and network system replication, with just a floppy on the client machine.
Sounds like.... Debian net-intstall floppies!
Re:"week or even more?" (Score:2)
Sorry. If it takes you a week to install replication software, you shouldn't be in IT.
I believe they were talking about the applications they used, not the actual disk imaging software.
One more for Ghost (Score:2)
Installing stuff for Ghost? Ours runs completely off floppy - either the client or the server.
Tried DD? (Score:2)
where
Then eventually run "gzip" or "bzip2" over that. You get a perfect mirror, that recovers everything, including MBR, partition tables, deleted files for undelete and empty diskspace (which is lucklily very compressable).
Recovery?
dd if=/backup/thatday/hda.raw of=/dev/hda
Another huge problem... (Score:2)
The REAL reason that they do not allow backups. (Score:2)
linux? (Score:2)
"Can you recommend a program,"
Linux? Ba-dum-dum.....hey, stop throwing cans at me!
All you need is good procedures. (Score:2, Informative)
But seriously, I just finished a contract at a large bank maanging the disaster recovery for a w2k advanced server environment(over 100 servers around the world, terabytes of data). To make it more complicated it was exchange (now there is a backup anoyance).
I never had any problems even using the internal NT backup (before they chose a solution).
All you need is a good DR procedure.
In short:
1. Make backups (Full, diff and incremental to taste)
2. Have OS install disks r
Min install on to another partition (Score:2)
Personally I would just go with Ghost. We use it a lot (several times/day for several years now), and it's n
Related (Score:2)
I am thinking of resorting to opening the case, pulling the HD, and putting it in a friends lappie that has a working cdrom
drive image and newsid (Score:2)
As far as sysprep is concerned, we've seen some problems with it on xp machines in that after sysprep is run, some of the settings that *were* in the default user profile are no longer there. We came to the conclusion that sysprep is junk and unnecessary if you replace it with NewSID from sysinter
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
vmware (Score:2, Interesting)
Fish out of water (Score:2)
This issue, has been discussed and resolved many times over by many different people.
Ghost, PQ Magic, SYSPrep, etc. I have seen 1000s of corporations roll out imaged systems just fine.
Novell ZenWorks Imaging (Score:4, Interesting)
For a image residing on a server that you want to bring down:
img restorep server
The only issue that I have ran acrossed is that sometimes it will give the wrong error. I've received the error that it couldn't find the server, but it was a hard drive issue. I think though this is an easy imaging software, and if you are up for fun, its seems that you can edit some of the config files to automatically image stuff, but I'm not for certain.
Here's a solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Dantz Retrospect for Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never used that feature, as my primary use of Retrospect is on Macintosh; I have a Windows client, but have not had to try to regenerate it following a total system loss. (And I don't have the add-on to do it anyway.)
But the rest of Retrospect is common across Windows and Mac. (Disaster recovery on Mac seems to be a lot easier.) The important part for this discussion, in addition to the 'disaster recovery CD' add-on, is the way it does a so-called 'snapshot' when it takes an incremental backup. This lets you get both the speed of doing incremental backups, plus the ability to restore a system to precisely the contents it had at that time. (So basically, it can handle deletes too, so it doesn't need to restore files from the full backup which were deleted when a later backup took place.)
I bought Retrospect for Macintosh after Norton 'Crash Gaurd Causes Crashes' Utilities removed their backup/restore software in a newer version. (Fortunately, the id10ts at Symantec offered a satisfaction guarantee on software. The store didn't believe it, they had to place a toll call to Symantec to find out they weren't kidding.)
I've been using Retrospect for Macintosh since System 8 came out, through OS X, and now with a Windows 98 client. It's my very favourite backup program, and what's more, the restores work.
Just need to get the upgrade to 5.1 for Mac so I don't need a separate backup system for my Linux box.
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.
Mod Parent...How? (Score:3, Funny)
Acronis TrueImage saved my ass (Score:3, Informative)
Once I got XP running and set up the way I liked it, I made an image. I installed a firewall and some other necessary programs, made another image. Added all the accessory programs I like, made an image.
Then I tried to install a major IDE. The installation hosed up at 99%. After a reboot, the machine was F'd up big time. I restored the image I had made just before starting the installation. Then I tried installing the IDE again and it worked perfectly. My machine has been running great ever since, and the IDE works just fine. Needless to say I also have an image with the IDE installed
TrueImage certainly saved me loads of time reinstalling my OS, configuring it, and installing all the programs I like. Not only that, but since I can cut an image of the OS while running it, making new images is a piece of cake. Booting from a disk to make an image now feels practically prehistoric. But the greatest thing about it is that its cheap, unlike certain other image software.
So I vote for Acronis.
It may not be an ideal corporate solution - I think Ghost is probably still the best for that. Its got automation, networking, pretty much everything you could want in image software. Except, perhaps, ease of use and low cost.
For personal use though, I'd argue Acronis is the way to go for MS OS.
Personal Soapbox section:
When you set up a new machine, make a separate partition for data and OS! It'll save you a lot of time because making OS images is fast and easy, and you can restore your OS without having to worry about losing data. The data partition can be backed up via more conventional means. Copy important data to CD or tape, or whatever other backup solution you want to pursue - but image your OS. I'd never set up a new machine any other way.
*sigh*.. PLEASE READ (Score:5, Informative)
I work for Microsoft. i designed an automated deployment system that over 2000 computers at MS used for 24/7 automated testing. (a follow on technology by some of my co-workers has taken this approach to the next step, so only a little of my code is still running out there, but i digress)
there is nothing crippled about NTFS on XP or otherwise. Imaging works just how you expect it to. we've used Ghost (multiple version) PQDI (multiple versions, including the 16 bit dos version) and some internal-to-MS only stuff even. All of these make and restore images of XP machines perfeclty fine.
Not only is imaging a windows machine not broken, it is a supported and tested product scenario with its own feature and test teams.
enter: SYSPREP
Sysprep is the 100% microsoft supported way of bulk deploying machines and setting them up for imaging. sysprep is fully scriptable as of XP and the same sysprepped image can be restored on hardware of nearly any type. It can automaticly configure the box, set a hostname, join a domain, setup local users/groups, etc etc etc.
I know this because if it doesn't work, nobody in the world can test visual studio.
Please look at microsoft.com and read about sysprep. It's your friend.
Incidentically, before sysprep-XP, when sysprep wasn't quite the cat's meow, you could still image and restore NTFS OSes (even XP, with WPA), even across different hardware. You just had to know what things to change/tweak. (which i found out WITHOUT special MS-only knowledge)
Sysprep for XP also works great with WPA, letting you seal/reseal an image so that the WPA activation bomb goes away.
Honestly people, ask slashdot stories should be ASKING, not presuming. because the presumptions are often wrong, and the meat of the "question" is an uninformed bash as opposed to a legitmate request for help or comments...
Knoppix (Score:3, Informative)
And it's free and can help you do other rescue and recovery stuff as well.
In case you don't know: Knoppix is the leading Live CD Linux distribution. A perfect chance to test it as well.
Use SYSPREP then follow the procedure (Score:3, Informative)
We use GHOST and Microsoft's SYSPREP to roll out the images on our 300 desktops as needed.
I wish we could get sysprep... :( (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Reinstalling is usually better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MS sounds reasonable in this case... (Score:2)
Re:must use sysprep (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I use... (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft MAY have a point (Score:2)
1) Say "Go screw yourself, it won't work and it stays that way"
2) Fix it.
Microsoft just went for the former. At least they documented that "feature".
Re:Become a switcher (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why would you back up the OS anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
Old box:
dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt
Copy selections.txt to new box
New box:
Install base system (about 30 minutes, maybe an hour)
dpkg --set-selections dpsyco to help copy configuration files from backups, or to multiple other systems.
Make sure you learn about the tools that are available. If you don't, and you screw up, guess who's fault it is?