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    Drive Imaging programs?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by plympton, May 12, 2011.

  1. plympton

    plympton Notebook Guru

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    Does anyone have a recommendation for drive imaging that works with the new SB ThinkPads? I've been using True Image Workstation Echo for ... well, forever, but I think it's finally time to move on, as it can't see the drives anymore, and Win7 is cranky about it.

    The new Acronis Backup & Recovery is crap, bloated, and I don't trust it. I've tried it. It's ugly.

    The Win7 restore program is a tad clunky, too.

    This link is a bit dated and has some suggestions - any votes?
    Five Best Free System Restore Tools

    Any other good alternatives? Slim, fast, and bootable from USB would be good.

    Thanks!
     
  2. bananaman

    bananaman Notebook Consultant

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    Acronis True Image has always done the job for me. You can create bootable CDs or USB memory. Intel gives away a free version of it for migration to their SSD's.
     
  3. Thors.Hammer

    Thors.Hammer Notebook Enthusiast

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    True Image Home took a step backward with 2011. I am still using 2010.
     
  4. talin

    talin Notebook Prophet

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    Why is that? It's just a couple of mouse clicks away and you're off to burning restore discs. Windows even gives you the option to create a repair disc that you boot from to initiate the restore process, or you could use a windows dvd to boot from instead.
    Literally boot from the repair disc, insert your restore disc, and a couple more clicks and you're done. Very painless and not clunky at all.
    I've used Windows backup utility many times and have never had a problem.
     
  5. Thors.Hammer

    Thors.Hammer Notebook Enthusiast

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    However, it fails if moving from a large disk to a smaller disk. The windows built-in backup tool is ok, but it isn't very flexible. I have seen it fail on several occasions in both Vista and Windows 7.

    I don't trust it.
     
  6. talin

    talin Notebook Prophet

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    I've never had any problems, but I've also known that you have to restore to a same sized or larger HDD for it to work. For me that's not a problem, but it is a shortcoming.