I'm looking for good imaging/ghosting software that will run under XP and Vista.Any recomendations or suggestions welcome.Ta!

Acronis is the big dog right now. http://www.pandora.com/edit. oops . . . but that's one nice radio stationhttp://www.acronis.com/I've used their "Clone" and "Image" methods with success. Gotta get used to their lingo, though. In Acronisese, "Clone" means making an exact duplicate of a "source" HD onto a "destination" HD. This method formats the destination drive and makes it into an exact copy of the first. Different sized drives can be used, as long as the destination drive has enough room for the source drive's data. For years, I've been making a Clone of my main HD onto a 2nd HD. I then unplugg that 2nd HD and just leave it bolted into my box. I'm always playing kinda hard. If I blow-out my main HD up so badly that I can't get it back, I shut down and re-plug-in that 2nd HD. I'll stop off in the bios on the way back up and select the 2nd HD as my boot drive. It boots right up. I then clone the 2nd back to the 1st and I'm back in business.The other method is what Acronis calls is "Image." That makes a single file anywhere you want. This file can be used to restore your HD. The scary part here is this: The program used to restore this image file must be bullet proof . . . and likely to stay in business for a while. (FYI, that's why I used the "clone" method for years. Once it's done, I need Nothing to get my system back.) However Acronis appears to be a stable company that is serious about being around for a while. I've been using their Image method lately. So far, so good.With the Image method, I tell Arconis to make its image file on that same 2nd drive. If I destroy my main drive, I boot from their restore CD. The Acronis restore program starts up and I point it to the image file on HD #2. Drive #1 is formatted and restored with the image file. It had worked every time. Vista (Ultimate?) has an identical backup, Imaging feature. I've used it once, just to try it out. Worked fine. I like Acronis because it allows compression. I have three of those new rocket 250G Seagates coming that I'm gonna be raidin'-up. I'd prefer not to need a full 750 to back up that raid. Acronis' compression ratio will let me get by with a 500.Acronis will also let you image just your Documents (or any other) folder(s) once, or on a scheduled basis. It'll also do incremental backups that just add the changes. I'm still figuring that one out. Looks promising though. " Sooo, Mr. Phelps. Should you decide to accept this assignment . . ." Tell us how to get this incremental/differential backup feature to work without adding tens upon tens of googlebites for daily, (simply) amending backups.

I use Acronis TrueImage.I have never really put it to the test, though.The images I *have* made, I have verified their integrity, but never actually had the need to restore them. For example, one of my images is FSX RTM base install -- no addons, no nothing. (Just in case, you know :) ).I am sure there are many, many more facets to the program that I haven't tried yet.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Just blew out my install with a bad patch. Restored from my backup image just moments ago. Restored 150Gs to a two drive raid in about 1 hour. Darn. Lost a couple of saved flights in FSX. Want a cool slalom course? Forget Acceleration's Istanbul. Get FSGenesis US 10m mesh and Acceleration's P51. Then blast off from the Grand Canyon Airport. Head north for about a mile and dive in over the rim of the Grand Canyon. Get right down on the Colorado River. East will take you all the way to Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. There's No Way you'll make that last 10 miles. You'll be 'in the wall' for sure. West will take you to the "mouth" of Lake Mead. Get right down on the river and open 'er up. Whao, what a ride. At 400knots, there's no way to stay out of a cliff. Gotta go find the lodge at the North Rim (again). UTX has the roads dead on. That's my jump off point. I need to learn to play a bit nicer with my 'puter . . . but what fun would that be?

Thanks for the feedback - appreciated.

I use Acronis True Image 10. Awesome piece of software. I downloaded it from Compusa.com for $36.99. It's still available for that price.The lastest version of True Image is 11, but I've never used it. Im runnning Vista Ultimate 64bit and 10 works just fine.My favorite thing about True Image is it lets you create a bootable cd which lets you do backups outside of windows. I have an image of a fresh windows install with FSX SP1 and no vid drivers. I also have an incrimental backup that adds Acceleration, still with no vid drivers.TI 10 has been worth every penny. I restored a backup the other day and didn't even have to reactivate windows or FSX.I dont even keep acronis installed. I just install it once to create the bootable cd, then I unistall it. I don't like having too many system utilities installed. I like being able to do all my backups from a dos gui outside of windows.

I'm another Acronis True Image Home fan and have been so since version 6. I am now on version 10 and use the incremental backup feature all the time. Works like a charm performing backups in minutes rather than hours with a full backup (depending on the amount of data on the HD being backed up).I backup to 2 external USB 2.0 500GB Maxtors. I alternate between the 2 and when one fills up I can safely erase everything ready to start afresh knowing that I still have a fall back on the second drive.Mike

Does anyone know how cloning software copes with dual boot? I've been using Ghost for ages which has worked very well with my WinXP setup. Now I have Vista and XP installed on the same computer and I'm not sure how the MBR will be handled. A few days ago I tried re-installing XP and Vista from scratch and it became a total mess with the MBR disappearing and I got the dreaded "NTLoader not found" message.. After that I couldn't boot with the XP install CD and I had to use a work around fix by setting another hard drive as the boot drive in the BIOS.

If you have a Seagate drive go to their site and download DiscWizard, which includes a free version of what is essentially Acronis Trueimage 10. Maxtor offers a similar utility called MaxBlast. Regards, Kendall#1: [email protected]/Coolermaster HyperTX2 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 4GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC6400 Seagate 250GB 7200.10 SATA2 Gigabyte X800XT -Cat 6.12's CH Yoke/Pedals/Saitek Throttle Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. 3GB PC4200 Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X-530's

>>East will take you all the way to Glen Canyon Dam and Lake>Powell. There's No Way you'll make that last 10 miles. You'll>be 'in the wall' for sure. >Yes, but I have skillz...no way will I go into the wall. :)Actually I've crashed twice in FS lately, once on approach to MGGT in a thunderstorm, another in icing conditions in the Transylvania (Romania).Now I'm being bitten nightly by vampires while my plane is being repaired.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Acronis TrueImage is what I now use. No more Symantec products for me.

Acronis can image a partition, or it can image an entire drive including the MBR.If you image an entire drive, the MBR and all operating systems remain intact. True Image doesn't care whats on the drive, it just makes a 1 to 1 image and stores it with file compression.Like I said, I only use True Image 10 and I only use it from the bootable recovery cd. I the past I used Ghost in the same manner. I just hate having system utilities installed.It's great being able to beat my system to death trying new drivers and service packs, then do a quick system restore and not even have to reactivate anything.