I would love a Comodo version of hard disks imaging software like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. I always run test and beta software in my computer and use Norton Ghost to avoid frequent reinstalls from scratch. Comodo have a nice history of high quality products so I probably will love your “ghost” version. ;D
Yup, would certanly be very useful. Possibly such imaging that allows boot-time restoration from lets say DVD.
It should backup entire selected partition(s) and also include boot-time application.
So when you want to restore the image back to HDD you just insert the backup DVD, boot the machine with it and restore. I don’t know how latest Norton Ghosts or Acronis stuff works but last time i was using such stuff you had to use floppies to boot the image which i don’t like at all.
Thats why i’m sticking to excellent Gigabyte Xpress Recovery (which is hardcoded on my Gigabyte motherboard). Though this is a problem if i want to migrate to a non Gigabyte mobo…
Thats why such Comod product would be an excellent thing to have
Do you mean imaging for backups or cloning for multiple deployment?
If you just want to make a single image of an installation or move to a larger disk, boot from ANY cd based linux distro and use dd. If you need to resize partitions, use QTParted. It’s already simple enough.
As for backing up to dvd… It has been years since that was feasible for me. Even a dual layer dvd won’t store the stuff installed on my machines. Much quicker to spend a hundred bucks on a new high capacity SATA drive and backup to that. Less error prone too.
I use for backup purposes only but I believe that will be users interested in multiple deployment to. I don’t know Linux but probably this ‘dd’ utility will copy all files on partition but Norton Ghost can exclude swap file and this is a desirable feature. In my case, the Windows swap file have 1.5 GB and make no sense include it in the backup. Can ‘dd’ exclude some selected files? By the way, as I said, my Linux knowledge is very poor and I will be more confortable on using Windows applications due my familiarity with this environment.
Anyway, thanks for your tips. It’s always good to know another way to do some task.
dd = disk dump: literally… can create a image of a partition or the whole drive. It works at the disk/partition level only rather than within the file system so, no, it cannot exclude certain files.
Syntax is very simple though for clonig an entire drive (see man dd).
“dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb” will copy the entire 1st ATAPI drive (/dev/hda) to the 2nd ATAPI drive (/dev/hdb). If you want a partition, select the one you want (hda1, hda2, hdb1, hdb2etc…).
Avanquest (former V-COM) had a nice software called DriveWorks that was very simple to use (much better than Paragon, Acronis or Partition Magic, IMHO). It could create a partition (Fat, Fat32, NTFS, Linux and much others), resize it (with data relocation and very safe!), copy one partition to another, copy one HD to another, hide or unhide partitions, make a partition active and make imaging from full HD or partitions only. The software still can be bought on their site but there was no updates for a very long time and I suppose that it will be discontinued, unfortunately. It had a very few limitations (for example, the image file cannot be saved on a NTFS partition, only Fat or Fat32. But I really love it. I still use it some times.
And better yet: all this operations are very simple to execute, and very safe! I believe that it would be an excellent reference if Comodo intend to create a similar application.
Well I have Norton Partition Magic 8.0 but they haven’t made a new version in a long time so it is getting out dated but it does work, but I would go for a new partition program that could do the same with an updated interface that is more attractive to the eye, oh and of course is faster at doing the job.