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  • #2240249

    Best system recovery method

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    by cookieorc ·

    Well when ever I lost my machine I love my tool kit consisting of:
    BartPE
    SystemRescue (linux Distro)
    The Ultimate Boot CD

    I have also wanted to try LogMeIn.com’s system rescue… But not willing to pay just yet… I really just want to know what other IT folk out there use…

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    • #2469109

      Recovery Method

      by ebouza ·

      In reply to Best system recovery method

      I use Symantec Ghost and also Symantec Livestate Recovery. Livestate recovery can be setup to replicate the system every minute to everyday or whatever schedule you would like to set up, basically it does a backup of the sytem bit by bit. So if you have it scheduled to back up every hour and your system goes down you would only lose an hours worth of work. Symantec Ghost works well also but I use that more for setting up systems rather then a recovery method. Hope this info helps you.

      Erick

    • #2469102

      Data recovery

      by mdhealy ·

      In reply to Best system recovery method

      Well, for data recovery I believe in combining multiple methods. I use Acronis True Image to make image backups — and also a recovery CD. In between full image backups I often backup critical files to a USB keydrive. In the past I’ve used various other backup tools.

      For getting data off a system that won’t boot my preference is a Linux “LiveCD” such as Knoppix or Puppy Linux.

      However, the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is get actual PRACTICE using your recovery method BEFORE you need it. Here’s a simple way to do that which I’ve done a number of times:

      1. Buy two disk drives: one internal drive and one external USB drive.

      2. Make a full backup, by your preferred method, onto the external drive.

      3. Take the internal drive out of the computer and put it in a safe place. If all goes well, that drive will never again spin.

      4. Install the new internal drive in the computer.

      5. Perform a full restore.

      If, at the end of these steps, you have working system then you have TWO known-good full backups of your system — the old internal disk that you have replaced and the external disk onto which you did the full backup. You also have gained practice doing a full restore under non-emergency conditions.

      If you run into difficulties during the restore, then you can put the old disk back into the computer and you have not lost anything — but you have learned that your backup method is NOT working properly and you had therefore better find a reliable method BEFORE you have problems!

      As a bonus, unless the computer is very new the chances are the new disk you have just installed is faster and more capacious than the one it replaced, so you should get a performance improvement along with the data integrity protection.

      • #2469101

        Data recovery

        by mdhealy ·

        In reply to Data recovery

        PS to my previous post: another major advantage of my procedure is that the old internal disk becomes an emergency boot disk with a full working system on it.

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