Best free disk imaging
Get Acronis True Image for free
Regular contributor Rick Farrow writes "Hey Gizmo. Looks like Acronis is giving away true Image 8 Personal for free. Makes me wish I was back on XP." Nice find Rick. Although V8 is an older version of True Image, it was in fact my favorite version. Sure, it doesn't have the fancy features of the latest version, but it's way smaller and runs faster. TIP. A lot of folks have trouble finding the V8 download link so here's what you must do: Once you have obtained your free serial number, register with Acronis and then login to your account. You'll find the V8 download link in your Registered Products folder at the Acronis site.
http://www.acronis.co.uk/mag/pcpro/ati8pe
Drive imaging resources
Subscriber Grover Hatcher has sent in a very useful list of articles on drive imaging available from the Wilders Security Forums. Here's what he has written:
a. A new option is now available thanks to Paul Purviance (a.k.a. "Mudcrab"). He has provided us with guides showing how to make an external USB drive act in place of the Acronis True Image Rescue CD. An external drive can be made bootable with the TI Rescue program so that it boots directly into the TI Rescue program and can also contain your backup archives for easy backup or recovery. "How to Create an Acronis Bootable USB Hard Disk"http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=176958
b. For those who are new to Acronis TrueImage (or find their user manual too daunting), I have created "Need Help These Beginner's Guides May Fill That Need!" There are two PDF files Beginner's Guide to creating a basic full disk archive Beginner's Guide to restoring a basic full disk archive
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=168165
c. In your June 2007 letter, Item 2.6: "Get Acronis True Image for Free", this version according to Acronis is customized for the vendor and support must also come from Maxtor/Seagate. The link below by "Mustang" lists the limitations
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=175584#7
d. Also, be aware of Mustang's excellent "Beginner's Guide to Creating a BartPE CD with a TI Plugin"
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=162424
The best drive imaging program
A drive imaging program is a utility that creates a backup snapshot or image of your disk drives, most commonly your system drive. You can use that backup image to recover from system failures, spyware infections, installations gone wrong or any of the dozens of other things that can seriously mess up your PC. Every PC I own has a drive imaging utility installed and I use these regularly to make image backups of the C: drives. I simply can't tell you just how many times I've been able to use these backup images to restore a non-working PC to perfect health. Restoring from an image only takes me minutes while a full Windows re-install can take many hours or even days when you take into account re-installing application programs. That's why I recommend every PC should be imaged regularly using a reliable imaging program. Now let me tell you the harsh truth: when it comes to the best imaging program it's a two horse race between the commercial products Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost with the freeware contenders trailing by a couple of miles. Not that there aren't some usable freeware products; it's just they aren't in the same league when it comes to function, features and reliability. Choosing between True Image and Ghost is tough because they are both quality programs. That's why I asked regular Support Alert contributor J.W. to review the latest versions of these products. In his normal methodical way he's scrutinized each from top to bottom and pronounced one the winner. Find out which from J.W's full review on the Support Alert web site. Just teasing actually, here's what J.W. concluded: "I will be removing Symantec Ghost from my system. My recommendation and choice ... for a disk-imaging program is Acronis True Image." Please do read J.W's review though; it's outstanding.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/drive-imaging-reviews.htm