|
Norton Ghost? Who Needs It?!? Not Me! |
|
Wednesday, 22 August 2007 |
I have always had a problem with proprietary software, because it costs. I know that makes me cheap, but I primarily use Linux (Free), and generally always look for a free alternative to an overpriced piece of software. Since I recently got my laptop nearly the exact way I want it, I figure I should make an image of my Windows and Linux partitions so that I don't have to go through all of the installing, customizing, and such again.
I thought about springing for Norton Ghost, but then after some Googling, I found PING. It stands for "Partimage Is Not Ghost," and I am about ready to use it. Based on Linux, it somehow warms my heart to use it, rather than a product produced by the world's worst antivirus company. PING is able to make an image of a hard drive, or individual partitions (any partition type), and it will dump them (compressed using gzip or bzip2 as long as it is a FAT, ext3, NTFS partition) onto a partition other than the one your are imaging, or onto a network drive. Once completed, you can download a few boot files, and their boot generator (Windows only, but I will try it in WINE at some point, I figure it will probably work) to make an ISO image for CD or DVD of your image. That way, you can boot up and restore your computer in no time, compared to installing again from scratch. You may have to split the image, which adds some difficulty, but isn't too bad if you print out and follow the tutorial.
All in all, give PING a try, and backup your machine. Also, check out some of the other free software on that site, as it seems to be worth looking at, too.
I'm off to image my XP and Linux partitions now! Peace out!
|
