Disk image situation

[agibby5]

I have a brand new PC with Vista Home Basic. I want to clear all the partitions from the HD and install Ubuntu. Before I do that, I want to image the drive so that I can revert back to Windows (in case I get crazy and need a Windows PC, sell the PC to someone expecting windows, etc). I don't have a Vista disk and don't want to go through a reinstallation process.

I've tried to use partimage utility (following these steps) from the Ubuntu LiveCD. I've backed up all the data from all three partitions (utility, restore, and OS). In order to restore these images, will I have to recreate the partitions as they were originally? I'm assuming yes, since there doesn't seem to be anything backing up the partition data. My resulting files are three images of each of the original partitions. I'd rather have a one stop shop to restore the partitions and the data in them.

I've tried DriveImage Xml (link) running from a BartPE disk. I'm running this as a test on a virtual machine that I have. I backed up an entire C:/ drive of one of my XP VMs that I use. At this point, I have only one image, of C:/. In regards to the real disk I need to image, I'd assume I'd only get a resulting C:/ image and not images for the utility and restore partitions. I want to test on the machine, but every disk of BartPE that I burn crashes with the XP blue screen.

I tried to restore the DriveImage XML image of the test C:/ from the VM disk (previously mentioned), but it won't boot in a new VM. However, when I mount the VM disk on another VM and I'm able to see the data, which is good.

Any ideas? I'd like to stick to using some free software to create this image.

Thanks.

 

[Linflas]

If it is a Seagate drive you can try to use their version of Acronis. I tried DriveXML a while back as well and never had much luck with it.

 

[xSauronx]

with partimage you just need a partition big enough to hold the data. ive used PING which uses partimage and had no issues (though the ping interface was about as lazily designed as you can fucking get...its terrible, but it works)

 

[jaytone1]

Paragon offers a free, fully working version of thier backup and recovery software which works in either VM or by using thier fully working recovery disk. Works great for creating an image and restoring either from VM or from the rescue disk. I dont see it on thier website anymore (the free version) but you can get it at www.download.com Their is a 32 bit version and a 64 bit version. I will try here to post the links to each.

32 bit
http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Ba...on-32-bit/3000-2242_4-10972187.html?tag=mncol

64 bit
http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Ba...on-64-bit/3000-2242_4-10904675.html?tag=mncol

I have used it and was so impressed, I bought a full paid version of thier Backup Professional 10 which has some addtional features such as support for Dynamic hard drives and scheduled backups
Hope this helps

 

[agibby5]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm gonna try some of them out.

I have used it and was so impressed, I bought a full paid version of thier Backup Professional 10 which has some addtional features such as support for Dynamic hard drives and scheduled backups
Hope this helps

I don't know if I'll be doing that, but I'll give the free version a try.

 

[SimMike2]

Whatever software you use for imaging, I highly recommend you create a bootable CD and run the program from your CD drive on bootup.