Disk Imaging/Cloning Query

[dj_faithless]

Hi guys,

I have a set of stupid queries wch I hope you'll can figure it out. Here it goes

I want to install Windows 7 on my pc. But currently my C drive partition is only 20gb. WinXP is using 17gb of it already.

1. Now wat I wanna do is 1st install a disk imaging software like Norton Ghost 10/14 or Acronis True Image.

2. Make a backup of my entire C drive with XP on it.

3. Use Partition Magic to increase the size of my C drive as I got loads of space on the other drives

4. Install windows 7 on C drive.

QUESTIONS

1. Anybody has had issues with partition magic? If yes, what types.

2. If I don't like Win7 or want to revert to WinXP with my C drive space being increased from 20gb to say 50gb....will that create a problem if I restore my XP from either Ghost or TrueImage?

3. Does Norton Ghost work successfully & fast ? I want to make the image of my XP on an external drive. Is that advisable?

4. Any other better reliable Disk Imaging softwares other then these 2?

PLEASE HELP GUYS ASAP...SUGGESTIONS & FEEDBACK ARE WELCOME

 

[haraakiri]

With XP partition magic shouldnot create problems. I personally have used Paragon parition manager and it had never gave me any problems.Acronis trueimage has been the preferred one for me over the past few years. Acronis is fast, reliable.You could actually download a limited version of it from seagate site but might not be enought for your purpose. Different sized drive doesn't create a problem for acronis.
Increasing the size of a partition would take some time, so have patience. That depends on the size of your disk though.

 

[dj_faithless]

any idea if norton ghost would have difficulties if the size of the partition of the C drive is different before & after recovery?

 

[dj_faithless]

plz help ppl it's sad so few TE members want to help me im gona cry

 

[thexfactor]

QUESTIONS

1. Anybody has had issues with partition magic? If yes, what types.

Never had an issue with partition magic, however Acronis True Image is said to work faster and is also more reliable.


2. If I don't like Win7 or want to revert to WinXP with my C drive space being increased from 20gb to say 50gb....will that create a problem if I restore my XP from either Ghost or TrueImage?

Naa it won't create any problems, even if it resizes to 20gb you could resize it back to 50gb.

3. Does Norton Ghost work successfully & fast ? I want to make the image of my XP on an external drive. Is that advisable?

Havn't used Ghost recently so no idea

please note that while resizing the partition it would be much easier if it has to take up space from the adjacent partition only, since fetching space from multiple partitions would involve a lot of moving of data and could take up lot of time depending on the size of the data.

 

[dj_faithless]

thanks for the replies guys...appreciate it

 

[broadway]

1. Anybody has had issues with partition magic? If yes, what types.

I lost 25gb of data once - entire e drive. I had formatted c drive with partition magic and when i installed winxp and looked at my 25gb e:, it only showed it as 2gb and nothing was in there. I booted my computer in partition magic again and my e: was showing a type 06 file system. I tried searching for answers online and i found that my e drive was still a NTFS partition but it's label had changed to Type 06: fat32 - ntfs filesystem. Eventually i couldn't managed to recover that drive and all data was lost.

2. If I don't like Win7 or want to revert to WinXP with my C drive space being increased from 20gb to say 50gb....will that create a problem if I restore my XP from either Ghost or TrueImage?

I have used acronis true image for a long time and still do. You will face no problems as long as you follow the instructions correctly.
IMP: After you paste back your old xp *.tib image in C: and go back to partition magic from boot, you will get a error that goes "logical/Xtended error... fix, Yes or No?"
I don't know why it happens but i always click yes and it says "error fixed".

3. Does Norton Ghost work successfully & fast ? I want to make the image of my XP on an external drive. Is that advisable?

I have never used norton ghost. I have a bootable version of it but the look was enough to switch back to acronis.

4. Any other better reliable Disk Imaging softwares other then these 2?

I can only recommend acronis. But like most softwares, it is not perfect either and sometimes the errors you receive will be so unique that will never get a solution for it online.