Free Disk Image Tool like Norton Ghost?

[Andaho]

I'm starting out self-employed as a pc engineer and until now I've always used the bootable version of norton ghost for disk imaging...

I'd like to be able to provide customers with full image backups for some jobs, to make my life easier, so I don't have to manually copy files. Of course I can't give them a norton ghost image and a copy of ghost explorer because well, this is my new business and I can't be giving out free copies of software you're meant to buy!

I'd also like to be able to make a restore image disk that would be simple to use like all the big manufacturers have.

Any recommendations?

[Moby-Dick]

have a look at Drive Snapshot - Disk Image Backup

Its not particularly expensive

A lot of the freeware Imaging tools are only freeware for Personal Use anyhow.

If you are making money using their tools , why shouldn't they get a licence ?

[ikonia]

if your doing this as a career and unable to search for an evaluate tools for your self your going to be a rubbish PC engineer.

You don't give your customers free software, you either

a.) charge them for the software as an option
b.) if its you that wants to use it - you buy it and include it in your cost.


I hate this "I want it free" just pay for products that you need

[directhex]

powerquest used to do a restore-only app for just this purpose, costing about a quid a box. i forget the name though, and since the symantec buyout, i'm not sure what the options are

looks like there's acronis oem products - Acronis True Image OEM for PC vendors creates the hidden partition and stores the complete disk image on it

[Steve]

I swear by True Image.

Although you could do it with some clever Linux/GRUB/shell scripting for free, but that requires time and knowledge, unless somebody's already put together exactly what you want.

[0iD]

Get a job lot of OEM ghost disks. You can probably pick them up for next-to-nothing.
But Acronis is teh daddeh fo sho

[Andaho]

if your doing this as a career and unable to search for an evaluate tools for your self your going to be a rubbish PC engineer.

You don't give your customers free software, you either

a.) charge them for the software as an option
b.) if its you that wants to use it - you buy it and include it in your cost.


I hate this "I want it free" just pay for products that you need

Thank you for your insults. FYI I am already a PC engineer by profession.

I have worked in a local rip-off computer shop for 15 months. I quit that job several months ago inspired to start my own business in competition with them. I hold MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional), A+ and Network+ certifications for the last 3 years. I don't think it's polite for you to say I am rubbish at my career when you know nothing about me other than I want a recommendation for some software I haven't had the time to test out.

This is the start of me searching for and evaluating new tools - what better way than asking for recommendations? - Why would I want to waste hours trying out programs I've never used before?

As i originally said, I personally use ghost, but it is too expensive to sell to customers for the simple jobs I'd want to use it on...

Here is an example of when I would want to use very basic freeware disc image software;

A customer knows their hard drive is dying, and want me to backup and clean install on a new hd... Lets imagine they are the kind of customer that has random crap saved all over the hard drive and all their files are in several locations outside the documents and settings folder - I've seen this many times before, especially when they use software that saves user documents in it's program files folder - a common example of software that does that is some MP3 music downloader or digital camera suite.

Anyway... I could spend ages searching for and copying all their files, but to speed the job up for me, it would be handy to just take an image of the drive. I would copy the documents, favorites and any email files over on to the new hd, but for the files that they had saved in strange places, I could put the image file of their old drive on their new drive so they can help themselfs to anything they had saved in strange places.

so... in answer to your a.) and b.)...

I want to offer my customers very competitive rates which means I don't want to sell them software they don't 'need'.

Your attitude of "I hate this "I want it free" just pay for products" means you must have more money than sense.

Thank you to everyone else for your suggestions, I like the sound of "a restore-only app for just this purpose, costing about a quid a box". - that's what I'm searching for! - and I could sell it for a tenner a box

[0iD]

What about Self Image - The FREE (and open source) hard drive imaging utility for Windows it's free & open source. Maybe worth a bash?

Plus oem stuff BigPockets.co.uk - Software All - Blank Media - Discs - UK cheapest - Free Delivery I know not particularly relevant, but nero & power dvd @ 99p a pop, bound to impress the punters?

[Andaho]

What about Self Image - The FREE (and open source) hard drive imaging utility for Windows it's free & open source. Maybe worth a bash?

Plus oem stuff BigPockets.co.uk - Software All - Blank Media - Discs - UK cheapest - Free Delivery I know not particularly relevant, but nero & power dvd @ 99p a pop, bound to impress the punters?

Oh yes, I like the look of that Self Image And thanks for the cheap OEM software links, I always like stuff like that brought to my attention although, most OEM RW-drives do come with nero... and media player is just fine for playing DVDs when you install something like CCCP - my favorite codec pack, very light-weight.

[UltraMagnus]

some of you should be a little ashamed of yourself... we want more techies embracing FOSS rather than ripping their customers off with software from giants that spend 99% of their development budget on advertising.

[directhex]

some of you should be a little ashamed of yourself... we want more techies embracing FOSS rather than ripping their customers off with software from giants that spend 99% of their development budget on advertising.

end-users need solutions. dd isn't a solution for most people.

[dangel]

I like True Image a lot - but i will warn you that Version 11 of True Image Home is a rather imature product. I'd stick with 10 for now until they patch it.

[peterb]

some of you should be a little ashamed of yourself... we want more techies embracing FOSS rather than ripping their customers off with software from giants that spend 99% of their development budget on advertising.

I don't think anyone was criticising andaho for wanting to use OS software, it was an implication that he was looking for something free and then charging his customers for it. While that is allowed under some OS licence conditions, each case needs to be looked at, and I hope that as a resonsible IT professional, Andaho would abide by the terms of any OS licnse which he was using for commercial gain.

It is the service he is selling, not the software product.

[Andaho]

end-users need solutions. dd isn't a solution for most people.

Sorry, I sometimes apologise for my ignorance when I feel I shouldn't be asking the question, but I'm a big hater of what I call 'geek speak' abbreviations, especially in forum threads that are for help and advice; In what context are you referring "dd" to? As in the unix copying tool?, data dump?, data device? - I haven't got any better guess than that.

I'm not asking for a solution so much for the end user... I'm looking for a solution to make some of my jobs easier (like the example job I detailed above).

As for...

Its not particularly expensive

If you are making money using their tools , why shouldn't they get a licence ?

...

It is the service he is selling, not the software product.

exactly... I want to provide the service cheap as possible to my customers - so I don't want to be having to add the cost of expensive software to the bill. - Some might say "its not particularly expensive" but it all adds up! I want to do jobs as efficiantly as possible; I don't want to be doing things the long way if there's free tools out there that will speed things up. Time is money when you're working for yourself.

[directhex]

Sorry, I sometimes apologise for my ignorance when I feel I shouldn't be asking the question, but I'm a big hater of what I call 'geek speak' abbreviations, especially in forum threads that are for help and advice; In what context are you referring "dd" to? As in the unix copying tool?, data dump?, data device? - I haven't got any better guess than that.

dd(1): convert/copy file - Linux man page

I've used it before for disk cloning, but it's not exactly a user-friendly tool designed for the task

[Andaho]

dd(1): convert/copy file - Linux man page

I've used it before for disk cloning, but it's not exactly a user-friendly tool designed for the task

Yeah, that was my best guess... and I'm in no way asking for a tool like that - there's pleanty of free open source tools that are easy to use, or can be customized with a little work to do an automated specific job with a simple click for the end-user

One great example of a tool I use is UltraVNC: Remote Support Software, Remote Support tool, Remote Desktop Control, Remote Access Software, PC Remote Control - still hoping there's a nice free program out there somewhere for disk imaging.