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aturner
Sydney Morning Herald
December 14, 2009
Full text of original article at Sydney Morning Herald web site

Are you prepared for disaster?

What do you do when your operating system refuses to operate?

Backing up your important files is essential, but do you back up your operating system as well? I like to set up my computers with several partitions, so I can install Windows on one partition and then keep the My Documents folder on a separate partition. Then I use disk imaging tools, such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis' True Image, to take a snapshot of the Windows operating system and save it as a file on the data partition. This way if something goes wrong with the operating system I can quickly roll back to a recent version, or even a fresh installation, without losing any of my recent documents or emails because they all live on the data partition. SuperDuper! does the same job on my MacBook.

Using disk imaging tools to restore my computer is basically the same as reinstalling Windows and all my applications - except it takes minutes rather than hours. If you use your computer for testing hardware and software, disk imaging tools can be a real time-saver. It's obviously also handy if you're struck down by a virus or Windows just goes flaky after a software update. You can even create a CD, DVD or USB recovery stick to boot from on a real dark and stormy night when Windows refuses to even start up.

For a long time I was an advocate of Norton Ghost, in particular Ghost 2003 because it was about the only version of Ghost that didn't require you to hunt around for the installation disc every time you wanted to restore your computer from an image. Then I struck trouble when I was building a dual-boot XP/Vista media centre a few years ago. Ghost 2003 wasn't compatible with Vista (which is understandable), but Ghost 12 was rather flaky and also struggled to deal with dual booting on Vista's new Master Boot Record - basically the area of the hard drive where the computer keeps track of how many partitions are on the drive.

After pulling my hair out over Ghost 12 and having many fruitless conversations with the support line, I decided to try Acronis' True Image 10. True Image avoids MBR hell by taking a back-up of Track 0 - which contains the Master Boot Record, Partition Table and other important data. When you restore one of the operating systems on your computer, you can choose whether or not you want to restore the MBR as well, a choice Ghost 12 didn't offer. It's a feature you will rarely need but, when you do, it's a godsend. There are a few extra features I liked about True Image over Ghost, such as the ability to boot straight into the True Image recovery environment without the need to find the disc.

I recently built myself a new triple boot XP/Vista/Windows 7 test machine - with disk imaging tools an essential component so I can easily test software on multiple operating systems. Rather than mess around with Ghost 15, I went straight to True Image 2010. There's even a fully-operational free trial so you can test it for yourself. So far I've been extremely happy with True Image 2010 and I couldn't see myself returning to Ghost. I'll admit Ghost 15 does seem to have a few interesting new features, such as Blu-ray and Windows 7 BitLocker support, that might appeal to some people.

This is in no way a full review, but I must say I'm impressed that Acronis True Image 2010 addresses my biggest complaint about the older version - the inability to consolidate older incremental back-ups. True Image has the ability to automatically make incremental backups of your operating system each week, so if disaster strikes you've got a few recovery points to choose from. Unfortunately there was no way to limit the number of incremental back-ups kept and force True Image to consolidate older incremental back-ups. Now this feature has been added to Acronis True Image 2010, making it a full-fledged set n' forget disaster recovery solution for newbies - on par with Symantec's Save and Restore (a consumer-friendly version of Ghost).

Some people still swear by Ghost, but I'll be sticking with True Image. If you can't afford to waste time reinstalling Windows when disaster strikes, I highly recommend you try out some form of disk imaging software.