Disk imaging software

[Iain]

I'm about to get a PC that I'll be using for lab purposes. I intent installing Windows XP Pro and then MS Virtual Machine. That will allow me to install several operating systems which I can have available almost immediately.

This process will take ages to set up so I wondered about taking time to get it right initially then take an image of the whole hard drive. If I delete/corrupt files etc. (on purpose, to see how one of the OSs responds), I can get the PC back to my "perfect" state by using the image.

So far, so good - but what would I use to create the image and then restore it? I thought about a utility running from a boot floppy or BartsPE. I know that BartsPE will copy the files correctly but will it do what I want? I'd intend reformatting before I restored the PC and it's likely that I'd want a partition on which I might save some files. I understand that professionals (in big organisations) use such imaging techniques if they have to set up a whole load of PCs or laptops so they don't have to set each one up laboriously. They have to go to each PC to change the name etc., but that's easy compared with spending hours installing and configuring each one. I don't know what they use - any ideas?

[VaKo]

Norton Ghost or dd?

[Sparda]

I really need to get my hands on some cheap computers to test all the shit I want to test with dd and drive images.

The main problems with dd is that it copies the drive bit for bit and uncompressed (compress it with bzip2). So when you try to put the image on to another computer, if the hard drive is a different size, it will either fail (if the target hard drive is smaller) or the partition on the drive will not fill the whole drive (if the target drive is bigger).

[Uncle Toxie]

If you want to go the BartsPE route, use Drive Image XML. I do it at home and have done it for my servers at work. Has worked great for me so far.

[Iain]

Does it mean that I could use one of these pieces of software without having an OS installed first? For instance, would I have to install XP, then Northon Ghost and then pull the image back onto the Hard Drive?

Ideally, what I'd want is something which will restore from the Command line or something which would be "self-installing". I know that CD access is possible having used a boot floppy so, if the image was packaged on a CD with something to copy it back to the hard drive, everythinjg could be done by simply double clicking on a file on the CD.

[Uncle Toxie]

I created a BartsPE disc that has the DIXML plug-in on it. I boot from the CD and write the image to a USB hard drive. When I restore I do the same thing. If you don't have an external drive you could make a small partition to store the image on and restore from there.

[Sparda]

Does it mean that I could use one of these pieces of software without having an OS installed first? For instance, would I have to install XP, then Northon Ghost and then pull the image back onto the Hard Drive?

Similarly, dd can be used with pretty much any live Linux distro, some are tailored just for it's use. Like in the episode Hak.5 where they installed MAC OS X on that Laptop, they booted Knoppix (I think) connected to a remoe server (the computer next to the laptop) using samba (using smbmount), and then used the dd command to put the MAC OS X HD image on the laptops HD.

You can easily leave the computer alone (obviously, it shouldn't be turned off), but just set a password on the user and lock the screen (or if its a command line only distro, back ground the dd command using screen and then logout) and then no one can actually do any thing on the network or any thing like that. Ye they can turn the computer off, that meaning you have to start the imaging process again if it didn't finish.