Reliable Drive Imaging Software

Finding reliable freeware to perform Disk Imaging under Windows can be a real challenge. So Jim Campbell has turned to the commercial world. After trying a few alternatives he has have found  a commercial product he considers to be an absolute gem.

Finding decent, reliable imaging software has been a bit of a problem for me. That is until now. I have tried most of the well known ones – including Ghost, Acronis True Image, Paragon and quite a few others (both free and paid). All of them have give problems (usually validation) of some sort or other.

I know many people have relied on many of them with no problems at all but I’ve tried them on XP, XP Pro, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate etc. on various machines and have always had validation problems at some stage or other. I am sure the glowing comments by other folk are true but that doesn’t help me if I want to image and/or restore my system at some stage.

But finally I've found a product that image Windows totally reliably. It's called Image for Windows version 2.2c from TerabyteUnlimited

Yes, OK, I haven’t actually done a full system restore so far but, using TBIView (the supplied viewer), I have viewed the saved files individually and restored them to anywhere I wanted with no errors. The clincher for me (as promised by TeraByte) is that, should I have to buy a new hard disk, I can just boot up and restore from the backup image disk to the new hard drive and my system will be fully restored and ready for use. Exactly what I want!

So, how does it work?  The full program containing all three elements (Image for Windows (IFW) , DOS (IFD) or Linux (IFL) can be currently bought for $38.94 but the individual IFD or IFL can cost $29.95. My system is Windows Home Premium 64 bit, and the drive to which I save my images/backups is an external USB connected Seagate 500gig.
When using Windows it is changing all the time, which is why many experts say that you cannot image Windows while it is running. Terabyte says that Windows is “frozen in a moment of time” when you image, so this restriction does not apply. Nevertheless, I prefer to use a system which images while Windows is not running, so I chose IFD.

Sometimes IFD will not recognise a USB drive. There are several suggestions on their website to get round this but the easiest is to run IFL instead. This is the system which I used with perfect results and the one I shall describe here.
On running the program you are asked to make a recovery disk. This is easily done and you can burn direct to CD or make an ISO image for burning later. You are taken through this process by a very good step-by-step wizard.
When you are ready to make an image, you first reboot your machine with the recovery disk you just created in the drive. After a lot of DOS type info (which you can ignore), in about 30 seconds or so you are presented with the opening screen:
 

Use the space bar to check the option you want (or use the highlighted letter). The default is usually acceptable. After, click Next:

You will also be presented with the option for backup to a USB drive and then will have all such drives listed and the option for where to save on the drive and what name to give the file.
The final screen for backup will look like this:

For backup you can select many options (by using the space bar). I usually select Validate Byte-for-Byte as well as the default ones shown here. This checks for validity as it is imaging (rather than you checking for validity later) and, should you being waiting for it to finish whilst imaging, you can then at least abort the backup and save time. This, however, has NEVER happened to me.

Another option, which I always use (not shown here) is Shut down on Finish. This is useful in that you can then just turn off the monitor and leave it to its own devices rather than waiting around. You can also set the compression level, a password, maximum file size, and a description to help identify it. I usually then turn the monitor off and go to bed as, on my system, it takes about three hours for a full image.

IFD gives more or less the same screens and IFW very similar ones.

There are many other options and add-ons available and all can be seen on the website http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

TerabyteUnlimited seems offer very effective and rapid support. When I emailed support, on EVERY occasion a reply came within the hour – including at weekends.

Jim Campbell.

The views expressed in this user submitted article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Gizmo's Freeware.