How to test alternatives to Rescue & Recovery (R&R)?

[Optigrab]

I've read many posts on backup alternatives to R&R, including Ken Fox's excellent and detailed post here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 324#268324
I understand that many forum members like Acronis True Image, and Norton Ghost 2003 can also successfully backup the entire disk image using the -ib switch. I own and fairly well know how to use Ghost 2003, but I am looking for something a little "slicker" than Ghost (i.e. easilty scheduled backups, incremental backups). So here are my questions:

How can I test a backup program and make certain that it images the "unique IBM boot sector", the "HPA" and all those other out-of the-way goodies I am struggling to keep straight?

If I install a trial version of Acronis, or Paragon's product or any other, then make an image, how will I know that I can completely restore and get the HPA back and boot successfully?

Clearly one way is just to try it. But what if it DOESN'T work? How can I then restore everything using R&R?

Many thanks!

[Ken Fox]

I've read many posts on backup alternatives to R&R, So here are my questions:

How can I test a backup program and make certain that it images the "unique IBM boot sector", the "HPA" and all those other out-of the-way goodies I am struggling to keep straight?

If I install a trial version of Acronis, or Paragon's product or any other, then make an image, how will I know that I can completely restore and get the HPA back and boot successfully?

Clearly one way is just to try it. But what if it DOESN'T work? How can I then restore everything using R&R?

Many thanks!

Buy another 2.5" hard disk, swap it into the drive bay of your laptop, and put the image you have obtained onto it. Then, boot up the laptop and see if the windows and the service partition work, as you would do with the original hard disk.

You will find uses for the extra hard disk. You can put it into a $10 or $15 USB2 enclosure and use it for external storage, or you can use it as a clone of your primary hard drive and take it with you on trips. That way, if your Thinkpad's hard drive dies (something that no backup program can fix, if there is physical damage), swap in the cloned drive and you are back in business.

If you combine these ideas you will have what I do, which is to travel with a cloned drive that I put into a USB2 enclosure, and which is available also for extra data backup space.

Once you become familiar with these backup programs you will know when you can trust them. For example, I always "check" the Norton Ghost 2003 image file I've made after making it. The only exception is when I use Ghost 2003 to write an image onto DVDs; it is simply too tedious under that circumstance and I take it on faith that it will work. In general this has not failed me. When I make DVD images of hard disks, they are never the only (relatively) recent ones I have for a given machine, so if they were to fail me I could fall back on an earlier (and verified) image file I'd made onto a hard disk.

One small addendum is that I had occasion to test R&R 4.0 myself yesterday, on my X60. I had a defective router I was trying to get Linksys to replace, and stupidly chose to enable "logging" in Access Connections, something I would advise against in the strongest terms. The system ground to a halt and CPU utilization hovered near 100%. If I'd had an hour to deal with it, I'm sure I could have stopped the logging and eliminated the problem, but I'm getting ready for a monthlong overseas trip and didn't have the time. Also, I'm taking that laptop with me, and wanted to test the R&R. Fortunately, the evening before I had both done an R&R base image of the Windows partition, plus a Norton Ghost image of the whole disk.

So, I booted into the recovery partition and used R&R to overwrite the disk with the backup I'd taken the evening before. In about 20 minutes I was restored back to where I'd been, and it worked like a charm.

[Optigrab]

Buy another 2.5" hard disk, swap it into the drive bay of your laptop, and put the image you have obtained onto it. Then, boot up the laptop and see if the windows and the service partition work, as you would do with the original hard disk.

Thanks Ken for quick & detailed reply. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but may I ask for a variation on your advice? I already have two spare external hard drives (3.5") with external usb enclosures. Can I do essentially the same thing with them - assuming I can set the BIOS to boot from a USB drive? Not even sure that is possible, but my way saves the cost of yet another new hard drive that would likely only be used to test backup software.

Perhaps another strategy would be to create a full R&R backup on one of my external usb drives, and use it only in the event that the new third-party backup software I'm testing fails to restore everything. Again, not sure if this is possible.

Yet another idea I have is to simply make new R&R recovery DVDs, so if the new trial software fails to restore everything, I can still get my machine back to current state. Will take hours though.

I'd be grateful if you (or anyone) could comment on any of this additional info.

P.S. Thanks also Ken for your addendum on your improved confidence in R&R 4. I have upgraded to 4 recently, and I'd like to think it will be there for me if I need to undo a catastrophe, but many posts here and the inability to verify the backups causes me concern.

[Ken Fox]

Can I do essentially the same thing with them - assuming I can set the BIOS to boot from a USB drive? Not even sure that is possible, but my way saves the cost of yet another new hard drive that would likely only be used to test backup software.

Perhaps another strategy would be to create a full R&R backup on one of my external usb drives, and use it only in the event that the new third-party backup software I'm testing fails to restore everything. Again, not sure if this is possible.

Yet another idea I have is to simply make new R&R recovery DVDs, so if the new trial software fails to restore everything, I can still get my machine back to current state. Will take hours though.

I'd be grateful if you (or anyone) could comment on any of this additional info.

P.S. Thanks also Ken for your addendum on your improved confidence in R&R 4. I have upgraded to 4 recently, and I'd like to think it will be there for me if I need to undo a catastrophe, but many posts here and the inability to verify the backups causes me concern.

I just don't know how likely it is that you could get you thinkpad to boot up from an external 3.5" enclosure, or if it would do so, whether that would tell you for sure that it would work in a 2.5" drive mounted in the drive bay.

Both Norton Ghost 2003 and Acronis True Image are reliable programs and if you use them carefully I doubt you will find that they will not restore your system later should you need them to.