I have been using Ghost32 and ImageX to backup system partition (the partition where I have the OS and the programs) but these methods requires the computer to be backup to put into offline mode (normally into PE). Recently one of my superior discredited Windows, saying that in UNIX you don't have to put it offline and can back it up easily by issuing a few commands. I began to think that in MS-DOS that is also possible. I know of some technologies like the Livestate and TrueImage can do backup while online, but need to pay more for the "backup without the need to stop the server from serving". Recently I also began to look into Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007. Does anyone has experience playing with these few technologies and can provide feedback on reliabiliy and consistency?

There are freeware alternatives in windows from which you don't need to backup the partition in offline method.

Look on DriveImageXML --> http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

The FAQ should also be of help to you:
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage_faq.htm

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I use DIXML on Active Directory server machines for creating full compressed backups of the C:\ partition where the OS and programs are located to another backup partition in scheduled times. (it has command line support as well). We've stopped using Ghost, trueimage and similar a long time ago and never looked back since it's good enough for our needs.

You just install DIXML and create your backups. When necessary to restore (which is rare) then it will have to be performed in offline mode from a boot disk.


The server is completely operational while the backups are being made.


Very good to avoid losing time configuring shares, printers and such.

Thanks for your suggestion.

I have used DriveImageXML before. The reason that I asked for recommendations on online backup tools is because of Auditing requirements. Though I have been using free tools but these cannot be standardized in tha corporate environment, where the auditing requirement is that anyone, admin or otherwise will be able to work with by following the standard procedures if the engineer left the company or the engineer is on leave. If I am still working at this company I will prefer to use my own methods, but a standard methodology need to implemented, which cannot be freeware.

How strange..

Well in that case I guess that I can't help much since all other backup tools I trust are either freeware / open source.

Maybe this site also helps in your goals: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/...ery_restore.htm

Look on the left menu of the above mentioned site, it covers some good information to keep in mind.

Not really. Corporate thinking is if I pay for a product I can demand support whenever I want it and sue the product's owner if I need to recover from a mistake, which surely can't be my fault.


Inform your superior that less sophisticated OSs like Unix, and DOS, have less stringent requirements.

Yes, yelling at the support line of a commercial product should be a good relief for stress and spending some quality hours at the phone.

This reminds a friend of mine who bought the first edition that came out of Norton 360 (portuguese edition) for his small business to run on 3 machines at the office and he called me because this anti-virus refused to work.

I spent a whole afternoon from lunch to dinner time trying my best to make it work but the it just didn't.

Support line said everything should work as normal and that the problem should be the windows version but we were using the recommended retail XP PRO SP2 portuguese version and I even had reinstalled the machine from scratch to ensure that the OS wasn't an issue.

Support was really hopeless and the license wasn't cheap either - the software package was buggy and the company wouldn't admit it.

Ended up installing another security solution and that solved the matter.

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Oh well.. You can't sue DriveImageXML but it is still an excellent tool and has never let me down when it comes to backup/restore OS partitions from AD client machines.

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Good luck in finding a solution for your needs.

Maybe the good people from Altiris have something you like: http://www.altiris.com/Products/RecoverySolution.aspx

On the other hand, you CAN sue Symantec, but you will lose.

Remember Murphy's Law


and one of it's derivatives:




jaclaz

I found that DriveImageXML has one big drawback - it cannot restore image back to a partition smaller than the original partition, giving an error message "the target partition must be at least the size of the source partition". I backuped a partition of size 60GB but 12GB of occupied space and the image size is 5GB. When I tried to restore his image to a partition of size 25GB, I got the "the partition partition must be at least the size of the source partition". I went on to resize the target partition to 63GB but didn't have luck to restore, it said "partition error", too bad I didn't managed to record down the exact error message. However the patition itself is OK, I used ImageX to capture the original partition, then apply back to this new (25GB) partition, everything worked fine. This drawback needs to be resolved, until then it is not that useful. If I have known about this drawback, I could save a lot more time.

Well, you could backup the 60GB partition, then resize the partition on disk using a different utility. If the resize works then backup it up the new size.

Why do you need 60Gb for a OS targeted partition?

If you're trying to place a 60Gb image onto a 25Gb partition then I would really do as Ed_P has mentioned, this is clearly mentioned on the DriveImageXML FAQ page.



Never had a partition error while using DriveImageXML.

When transferring the OS from one machine to another I always set as default partition size around 20Gb and leaves me plenty of enough room (windows 2003 file/printer/web server is using < ~5Gb) and darn fast by nature without any modifications.

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Have you restarted your machine to let the OS properly recognize the partition changes or tried to apply the image right away?

Remember that this is a very unorthodox use and you should only stick to reliable actions, use imagex if you like it better but then I would ask if you're using Windows PE 2.x and point my finger on that direction.

Which tool did you use to repartition?

Your OS partition should only get bigger as years pass and not the other way around, so if you're mentioning this sort of things then you're likely on a testing step, likely you should only need to worry about stable results when moving to the final tests and you are absolutely sure about what you need and how your OS partition should work and expand in the future years.

I would guess that is the way the machine was set up when he bought it. And he is trying to change it.

The image size is 5GB. The original source partition is 60GB, it was setup that way. What I actually wanted to do is to swap the hard disk drives between 2 servers of Proliant DL360. The source server has 4 x 147GB SAS HDDs (setup as RAID 5) and the target server has 4x72GB SAS drive (setup as RAID 5 also). I want the source server to eventually only use 2x72GB SAS in RAID 1 and move the extra 147GB SAS HDDs to my other Proliant DL360 which I run Hyper-V. So I image the OS partition, move the 4x147GB SAS out, put in 2x72GB SAS, create a RAID 1, then tried to apply back the image.

The partition resizing tool I used is Acronis Disk Director. It always asked me to restart after resizing. Yes, that part I did as instructed (reboot the machine).

With ImageX I always need to put down the servers to do system partition imaging, not only this cause downtime, it also occupies a lot of my after-office time, doing imaging during times when other staff are sleeping (because even after office hours some staff are still access some servers remotely), and I have 20 servers. So, the 'hot-imaging' is still an important reqirement but the "target partition at least size of source partition" limitation removal is something I am looking forward to see. I think as long as the image size can fit in the target partition, that's is.