Re: Backups versus Images?

"Teflon" <spambaitmeister@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:310d8e1f-da12-4c3e-bf48-03080baf2244@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sep 22, 7:49 am, "Ken Blake, MVP"
<kbl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:10:36 -0700 (PDT), Teflon

You're just a little over three years older than I am. Don't belittle
yourself because of your age.

Ken, you write like a much younger man, I enjoy reading your posts,
always learn something new. And I'm not belittling, just accepting
things the way they are becoming. Still believe in the old saying, "I
may not be as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was."

Too bad there aren't some industry standards in defining terms.

There are, once you figure out how/where to search for them. Half the
work is figuring out how to get started<g>.

All
of this 'clone', 'image', 'backup', etc. confusion reminds me of the
ever changing nomenclature (with suitable Acronyms) IBM used to use in
reference to 'new' functionality. Actually, the underlying basics
were always the same, I contend they just changed the words describing
them to confuse the customers and make their sales folks sound like
experts. When the customers got educated, the glib IBM salesman was
lost. Long live the SE.

lol, to a degree that's true I think. More realistically though I think
in the case at hand here, the names got changed around due to technology
advances creating more things that had to be described.



Anyway, thanks to all for responding. I will look at the utilities
suggested. May be back if something doesn't work.

(BTW - I was one of those glib IBM salesmen, the SE's saved my bacon.)

Actually, there are several places with good definitions. Probably the
easiest to read is at wikipedia.com. Some starting points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_image
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_image

Basically, a "clone" is a perfect copy. What exists on a drive at
locations 1, 2, 3, ... etc, will be copied to another drive's locations
1, 2, 3, ... etc.. After a successful clone, technically you could look
in the same place on either drive and see the exact same data. A drive
IS the clone. It becomes interchangeable with the original. A program
that can Clone is necessary and won't necessarily be capable of making
images.

An "Image" contains all the above information but it will be located
wherever the program feels it fits best. All the same information is
there but you don't know (or care) where the data is located because the
program is smart enough to put things back where they need to be when a
Restore is done. An Image is saved to a drive. To use the Image, it
is Restored back to a drive. A program capable of Imaging is necessary
and they also are often able to also clone.

A "backup" is any method of saving existing data to another location. It
may or may not be the whole drive, could be only parts of it, as in
personal data but not the OS, or the OS but none of the personal data
created, etc..
XP will not let you back up any files that are opened or being used
unless the program you use accesses what is called Volume Shadow Copy
Services. Almost NONE of the regular copy programs do that (copy,
xcopy, robocop, etc. etc.). Therefore, to back up the Operating System
drive, which always has files in use if windows is running, needs a
program capable of using VSS services. Any program that can back up the
OS uses the VSS services.

Some other terms that will be useful are the typs of backups and I'll
let you search those out are:
-- Incremental backup
-- Full backup
There are others but they are generally not used although wikipedia
will mention th em if you look these up there. wikipedia.com.
Sometimes it's easier to put the search term you want right in the URL
you use such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image
for image information. Then you might follow more links from there.

HTH,

Twayne`




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Partition help
    ... change that makes the current clone outdated. ... I also backup email and the email address book to the external hard drive on ... the idea of backing up to a partition on the same hard drive ... your HDD. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Cloning my hard drive?
    ... And obviously the two tasks, clone vs. image, are close enough to argue about. ... I say that because the only reason I am making the backup is for when something goes awry on the internal source drive, and I need to restore the internal source drive from the external backup drive. ... comprehensive backup system of one's day-to-day working HDD. ... I'm not swapping any drives here. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: External Hard Drive used for System Backup.
    ... you for the tip about the "Startup Disc". ... disc in order to clone the backup to an empty internal drive. ... someone buys the Casper 4 software after they have chatted with you. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard Drive - Use of Casper Program Question
    ... want to do in a backup cycle. ... clone the contents of that drive to your USBEHD. ... the subsequent disk-cloning ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
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