Didn't know where to put this inquiry, so I'll just post it here.


First, a bit of background information. I work at a small company that has chemical testing equipment that is ran off of perhaps 13 different computers(almost all of them different hardware and software.) The problem that I am posed with is that if one of these computers fails, it is incredibly hard to find the correct drivers and programs to get the machines working properly. It is very time consuming, and expensive depending on what happens.

This is the question I pose to you...

Is there a way that I can make disk images of each of them, whether it be on an external hard drive or discs, in case of failure, that I can just pop in and boot right into a recovery console or boot menu and select to restore to the image I make?

I have been looking for several different ways to do this, I have looked at clonezilla, GHOST, paragon, and several others disk imaging software titles.

What would be a good option for doing this? Would Using Ghost v14, creating a backup and then using a WINPE cd to load ghost from and trying to restore it that way? (If that will even work?)

I would like this to be efficient as possible because our machines must be running throughout the entire work day. I would like something like a bootable DVD/USB/External HDD that I can just pop in, and whether using scripts or batch files, have it automated. If not automated, at least as simple as possible for the convenience factor because I do not always have a lot of time to do things like this.


I am trying to be as cost effective as possible. Little to no out of pocket expenses.

@ thompskGx5


thompskGx5 wrote on Jul 15^th, 2013 at 1:51pm:

The problem that I am posed with is that if one of these computers fails, it is incredibly hard to find the correct drivers and programs to get the machines working properly. It is very time consuming, and expensive depending on what happens.

You need reliability. Have a look at Image for Windows. There is a 30 day trial.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

Restores can be done manually or automated via a script. If a HD fails you should be up and running in "minutes".

Store your images on external HDs. Optical media is unreliable.

I used norton ghost 14 and backed up to a portable hardddrive, did the recovery and then tried to boot up and nothing. it says please insert a boot disk and press any key?

am i mistaken that norton ghost is to image disks so you can just use the ghost image and if your harddrive fails and you replace it with another that that you can just use the system recovery disc and use the backups you've made to restore windows to a state from your backups?

im confused. help anyone?

@ thompskGx5

Ghost always works for me. Never fails whether restoring to the same or to a new HD. So can you tell me in detail what you did? Did you restore to the same or to a new HD? Were any hidden partitions on the original HD? Which OS?

windows 7, 3 partitions on the old one, a system recovery, hidden, and main partition where windows is located. tried to use the symantec recovery disc to backup to a new drive with no partitions and it says "insert boot disc and then restart"

i ran the MBR wizard on the recovery disc as well. so i dunno

@ thompskGx5

OK. Did you restore the three images in the correct order? Did you set the Win7 partition Active?