Re: Is there any disk image software that recovers from bad media?

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: *Vanguard* (no-email_at_post-reply-in-newsgroup.invalid)
Date: 04/16/04 

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 10:24:19 -0500

"wojo" said in news:sXQfc.45716$F9.6048@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:
> Ahead Nero comes with a program called BackItUp. This program does
> recover from a bad disk error as your describing. It warns you of the
> bad disk and then prompts you to replace it with a new disk then
> continues on your merry way. You can download the free trial version
> of Nero6 Ultra here: http://www.nero.com/us/nero6-ultraedition.php
> Every aspect of the trial works for I believe it's 60 days and then
> you would have to purchase it but purchasing it is very highly
> recommended. As far as I am concerned it's the best burning package
> I've seen out there.

I'm currently at Nero 5.5.10.54, the last version before customers get
forced to pay for the upgrade to version 6.

The problem with backup software is that it is a logical backup, not a
physical backup. Files are read and copied onto the target media. You
can run into problem on a restore of EFS-protected files. You can run
into a problem that the logical restore of reading files and trying to
replace them onto the hard drive won't give you the same exact image
because files were inuse and they are not placed exactly as they were
before. The Veritas Backup Exec Desktop program also lets me select the
CD-RW drive so I could use it to span a backup file across multiple
CD-Rs but that's not the type of backup that I'm looking for.

With DriveImage, the first CD was bootable. I didn't need the bootable
floppies. I could just boot right from the disk image CD and start the
recovery (not a logical data restore but a physical drive recovery).
With a logical data backup, you have to use a bootable floppy. Also, in
some full recovery modes for backup programs, this bootable floppy
merely lets you install Windows which then automatically starts the
backup program to perform a logical restore (boot by floppy, installs
Windows, auto-runs the backup program, does a logical restore). That's
how the Veritas "Disaster Recovery Set" works. You need up to 6
floppies (equivalent to the Windows 2000 startup floppy set), the
Windows installation CD, and you create a full backup (on tape or CD).
This takes a hell of a lot of time not only in creating this recovery
set - which is STILL a *logical* backup - but also in using it because
of the time to boot from the multiple-diskette set and installing
Windows before it even gets to run its minimal version of its backup
program. I did that once. I never used it again. It also was not a
*physical* disk image backup. I think a later version of the Veritas
Backup Exec Desktop (and probably the one that I have) lets you
eliminate the bootable floppy set by letting you make the first CD-R
bootable. Still doesn't eliminate it being a logical backup.

I need a *physical* disk imaging product that reads the hard drive
sector by sector and restores that *exact* physical image on the hard
drive. I don't want it reading anything from a file system (which means
you have to boot that OS to provide the file system in the first place).
Ghost had the problem that it defaulted to a logical disk image because
it read the files instead of the sectors. You can use the /IA switch
but, when I trialed it, it would include the unused sectors in the disk
image to the image file was huge. DriveImage would do a
sector-by-sector read of the hard drive regardless of what OS was on
that partition, do compression to minimize the media count, and skip the
unused sectors to further reduce the image file size. Unfortunately it
has absolutely no graceful recovery from media failures. I don't recall
Ghost having graceful recovery, either.

I did take a look at Nero's ViewIt tutorial on how to use BackItUp. It
mentions when selecting a target of where to place the data that you can
select "Nero Image Recorder". Does this force a reboot of the computer
to then run a DOS-mode-like version of its program? Obviously you
cannot create an exact image of the hard drive with a live OS currently
running and making changes to the disk when you are running the disk
image. There was nothing described of "image recorder" in the manual.

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