Does it exist? How to do it?

[Neo]

I keep wanting to get something like this:

Make a backup of my computers hard drive during a clean install (ie: right after Windows Update, and A/V Software, you know the basics)....

But instead of doing a backup to a DVD or CD, I want it to back up to a read-only, possible hidden partition on the hard drive -- that way you can do a clean reinstall whenever you need to.

You can take it further and install everything you currently have installed -- ie games, browsers, IM Programs, etc... So that if anything goes wrong you can pull your system back up fast and easy.

If this sounds familar to anyone, HP has a similar thing on thier computers (or did -- they got sued over it) but has been a life saver for my moms computer -- the only problem is that its almost like reinstalling windows xp, which can be annoying.

What I want to do is make it so you can restore from this partition and boot the computer up as if nothing had happened.

Did any of that make sense? >_< I cant seem to find a good program to back a drive up -- and there aren't really any good programs to do partition work (I uhm also refuse to pay 60 or 80 bucks for a program I will use maybe once on my computer).

I see similar things for Linux (I believe) but not really anything for windows -- not that has to be. The perfect way for this to be would be an OS Independent system (ie: Caldera DOS or some other rip off) that could pull info from the backup partition and restore everything without clashing.

*Rambles on*

-Neo

[RioMerc]

hm... well, I hope you have a helluvalotta spare drive space that would be the only thing apart from the program itself stopping you, but ifyou only want to backup part of your system it would be a HUGE waste of time, besides, with the new holo-drives coming up sometime this/next year you prolly should just hope that nothing happens until then, anyone else have any ideas?

[WeekendLazyness]

What you probably want is called ghosting. It takes a complete image of the drive and can be restored multiple times. I think Norton makes a product called Ghost for this purpose.

[ZeroDarkStar]

Yes, I use Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/) to back up my computer. I hope you have a large hard drive, however, as Ghost files can get extremely large (over 10 gigs for a single image).

[Toucan]

Ya use Norton Ghost Neo
I used an Abacus(a computer shop here) restore disk I removed there html and inserted my own, so it looks like my own flash company restore disk.
Though I recomend doing it with a DVD drive, that way you can have the image on the DVD as well instead of taking up space on the drive.
Even better that way, chuck it in, boot up, walk away, come back nice fresh windows, perfect for a tech junkey :)

[ZeroDarkStar]

Ya use Norton Ghost Neo
I used an Abacus(a computer shop here) restore disk I removed there html and inserted my own, so it looks like my own flash company restore disk.
Though I recomend doing it with a DVD drive, that way you can have the image on the DVD as well instead of taking up space on the drive.
Even better that way, chuck it in, boot up, walk away, come back nice fresh windows, perfect for a tech junkey :)

You must have an extremely small hard drive for your images to fit on a single DVD Disc. I recently made an image of my laptop's hard drive (40 gigs) and it ended up being over 11 gigs.

[Neo]

Uhm. Thats the point. To make an image of your drive right after you have installed and updated the OS and other essential programs (ie: a/v software/firewall whatever)

The only problem thing is that I don't want to use a burner... I want to make a partition myself and then backup my drive to it -- and then set the partition as read-only (ie: this is the important part -- so nothing can mess with it) so I can restore the drive with minimal fuss.

Now if only I can figure out why the partition copy that took ALL FUCKING NIGHT hit 100% and then didnt even format the drive right didnt work >_> So fucking lame.

Anyways, what I was aiming at was the ability to do this without the need for, well, expensive software (on top of that do it in a way so that I won't NEED special software to read the backup).

The most basic way for this to happen would be this (following me everyone?):

1: Partition and Format Drive
2: Install OS
3: Get only/Update/Etc...
4: Install AV Software, Firewall, maybe afew other essentials (ie: unzipper for pre-XP oses stuff like that) Maybe updated Internet Explorer/INstall Firefox/whatever your prefered browser is.

5: Copy your brand new fresh files to a second partition on the same hard drive, thats exactly the size youll need (ie: 2 gigs or so -- windows doesnt take that much for a fresh install).

6: FInd somewhy to Hide (not that important) the partition

- and -

7: Make it so that it is a read-only partition, this would ideally mean:

No tampering via windows in any way, no way to access the partition at all
Extreme Read-Only, ie: perhaps even protected in some way.
This is to prevent viruses, or other problems from effecting it.

8: Move on with your computer and enjoy it, and when you fuck something up, or your computer gets screwed via a virus or something, use (something since there isn't a program I guess) to restore your hard drive from your backed up hidden partition.

Ugh... Hewlett Packard has this --

Basically its the Factory CD on the hard drive -- so you cant lose it -- and it takes like 3 clicks to get the restoration to start, and about 5 more to get it working after its done. Its an extremely easy and very useful feature. Its also innaccessible from windows -- or for that matter from anything else except for HP's restore program.

They were sued over it (lol bastards just looking for money IMO) but its a novel idea.

Does that make any since now? I don't want to ghost my current drive (no thanks) and I dont want to back it up into one file that can only be restored via its specific program, and I dont want to backup my drive to DVDs.

-Neo

[bluemicrobyte]

Basically its the Factory CD on the hard drive -- so you cant lose it -- and it takes like 3 clicks to get the restoration to start, and about 5 more to get it working after its done. Its an extremely easy and very useful feature. Its also innaccessible from windows -- or for that matter from anything else except for HP's restore program.

They were sued over it (lol bastards just looking for money IMO) but its a novel idea.

Does that make any since now? I don't want to ghost my current drive (no thanks) and I dont want to back it up into one file that can only be restored via its specific program, and I dont want to backup my drive to DVDs.

-Neo

What?! They were sued over it? When? Why?

Anyways, I understand exactly what you want, Neo, but unfortunately I have no idea how to do it :P

Very basically, what you want is the ability to *snap your fingers* at any given moment and have your computer poof back to a clean state. I'd like to learn how to do that as well some time.

[TimP]

For what it's worth, if you use a Linux LiveCD that has access to your drive, you could make a one to one copy of the hard drive and store it as a flat file. Something like

dd if=/dev/hda of=harddrive.img bs=1k

which would dump a file called "harddrive.img". I'm not sure off the top of my head if it would also include all the empty space on the drive, which would be a problem because you would run out of space. :) Ideally, you could use an external USB drive so the mirror image gets stored on another device and doesn't waste space on the main drive. Then when you want to use the original image, reboot using the LiveCD and type.

dd if=/mnt/externalusbdrive/harddrive.img of=/dev/hda bs=1k

which would copy (and overwrite) the entire drive.

I'd like to add a disclaimer that I have never tried this before and it's all in theory. I have a spare computer that I'll be getting a new hard drive for next week and I might try it out. If I try it I'll report back whether or not it worked.

[Neo]

For what it's worth, if you use a Linux LiveCD that has access to your drive, you could make a one to one copy of the hard drive and store it as a flat file. Something like

dd if=/dev/hda of=harddrive.img bs=1k

which would dump a file called "harddrive.img". I'm not sure off the top of my head if it would also include all the empty space on the drive, which would be a problem because you would run out of space. :) Ideally, you could use an external USB drive so the mirror image gets stored on another device and doesn't waste space on the main drive. Then when you want to use the original image, reboot using the LiveCD and type.

dd if=/mnt/externalusbdrive/harddrive.img of=/dev/hda bs=1k

which would copy (and overwrite) the entire drive.

I'd like to add a disclaimer that I have never tried this before and it's all in theory. I have a spare computer that I'll be getting a new hard drive for next week and I might try it out. If I try it I'll report back whether or not it worked.

Thats the point though -- I dont want it to be a flat file, I want the files to be normal, and be backed up to a read-only partition. Perhaps linux is the answer, maybe I could use a live cd to adjust the drive... but then again, my understanding is that linux cant handle NTFS very well :/

I dont know, maybe I will try to research how HP did it... if its out there.

bmb: Yeah they were sued (I only know because my mom got a letter telling us she might be one who could get in on the settlement) over it -- but mainly becuase it was 'taking space on the hard drive' and/or 'it was hidden' and/or 'without consumers permission' which I think is just fucking ridiculos.

-Neo

[TimP]

Actually you would be able to mount the flat file and access the files in it.

mount -t vfat (or ntfs) -o loop /mnt/externalusbdrive/harddrive.img /mnt/windows

Linux has support for NTFS, although it isn't mainstream yet. Fedora, for example, doesn't come with native support to read NTFS although you can add it. I think LiveCDs would actually be quick to adopt it since a lot of LiveCD users are Windows users.

[Toucan]

You must have an extremely small hard drive for your images to fit on a single DVD Disc. I recently made an image of my laptop's hard drive (40 gigs) and it ended up being over 11 gigs.

Wow, what operation system are you installing?
When ever I do a fresh install (what Neo was asking for) I end up with only a couple of Gig.

Damn, what you guys are trying to do is so easey.