I found this today when I strolled around in my new shiny Mozilla. Like a tip from another forum. Sounds kinda interestening - it's supposed to handle partitions formatted in ReiserFS... Anybody tried it?
Some other interestening tools too.

Interestening. You can make a FAT12-partition if you want to...:)

I used it to make an image of my new shiny Xandros system partition. Now I havne't tried to restore the partition yet using the image. It was made pretty fast and ended upp around 550 megs. The image can be placed at a free unpartitioned area of the harddrive! I also successfully repeated the imageprocess but this time I let BootIt burn the image to a CD. Worked.
Then to be safe I also made a copy of the same partition using Ghost 2003. It took twice the time. No wonder though - it was more than twice that size also totalling a less than impressing 1350 megs. Hmm.
I'm now going to try to make an image of my xp syetem partition and burning it right to a dvd and then compare to Ghost.
A lot of interestening other features for the hardcore harddrive enthusiast in this utility.

How is BootIt NG compared with Ghost...

part 1

...when it comes to backup a NTFS partition?


Environment: I have one computer running AMD XP 1600+ where the XP Pro system partition (the partition where XP is installed) has an overall size of 7.5 GB (GigaByte). I use only 2350 MB of the space. A lot of applications are installed at another partition. The systemdrive is important of course. The system, fonts, settings, office, drivers and other important utils are located here. I use to make backups of the system partition using Ghost quite frequently (for an amateur that is, every second week (at least once a month when nothing "important" happens), then always before trying something that is known or suspected to mess up the system (like a new antiviiri util, anything from Corel or Norton and so on).

Test: I decided to make two runs with BootIt NG (from now on "NG" only) and Ghost 2003 (from now on "Ghost") respectively; A first run where the system partition was backed up to a DVD and a second one but now directing the image to another hard drive. We all know this works quite well with Ghost. In fact it never let me down. NG is new to me.

Procedure: I never really installed NG. You need to install it for using the multiboot and multi-primary partitions features. For making backups it's enough with either making a bootfloppy or a bootcd. I used a bootfloppy. The floppy boots fast. When booted you can choose "Cancel" to install NG and then you are brought to a screen where you have some different options. Choosing "Work with partitions" leads you to the working area for making images (among other things). In my last post I compared the images made from ReiserFS-partitions and by NG and Ghost respectively. Here are the NTFS results.

As mentioned above 2350 MB data out of a partition totaling 7.5 GB is to be "imagined".


NG:
==

Making an image and write it to a DVD: <10 minutes
Verifying the image: >5 minutes

Making an image and write it to another harddrive: <4 minutes
Verifying the image: =1 minute

Image size: 1396 MB

Comments: Quite straightforward. I had to check the helpfile (yes, on the floppy) once. The imagefile can be placed either at a partition (FAT-formatted) or at free space of the harddrive(!). Free space is an area not formatted at all. When done the image shows as a partition of the type "image-file" in NG. Looking at it with the Disk Manager in XP is shows as an "unknown" partition. I don't know that happens when the free space of a drive gets fragmented. Verifying is mandatory but you can choose between a crc-test and a complete byte-for-byte comparision. I choosed crc-testing as that is the only option in Ghost. For some reason the DVD was filled with a total of 4.4 GB of files. There was two different images made, an extra one with the file extension "img". I have to look a little more into that.


Ghost:
=====

Making an image and write it to a DVD: <17 minutes
Verifying the image: <9 minutes

Making an image and write it to another harddrive: <7 minutes
Verifying the image: <2 minutes

Image size: 1368 MB

Comments: After having tried NG I felt Ghost is slow and that was new to me as I always thought Ghost is fast. Everything is relative. I choosed "High" as compression rate, as I laways do.As you can see from the results NG is in fact much faster, while Ghost compressed the NTFS marginally better. This as opposed to the ReiserFS partition in the last post (a file format not supported by Ghost, that will change in coming versions, I'm sure) which NG handled well and Ghost had to make a track-for-track image of. Ghost was run from the harddrive where it since long is installed in the first primary partition (C:) and run after booting into DOS 7.

Comments in general: Ghost is proven, polished and for sure better for corporate use with all the possibilites to load computers over networks (among a lot of other features. For th ehome user NG obviously is an interestening option. The most important test is yet to be done. I will for sure soon make something fatal either within XP or Xandros. The restore process will be the topic for next post. I wonder if I'll need a serial or license or something for NG then, this far I have done nothing but downloaded NG from their homesite.
Disclaimer: I may have misunderstood something from the manuals totally, or even not read it. If you think this is the case and that it affects my somewhat randomized hittings of keys here you are more than welcome to correct me.

A short update; I have tried restoring a Windows XP system partition using BootIt NG.

Once again it happened, my system Windows XP system partition and registry was hit by an evil Norton product. I should haveknown better ofcourse than loading it (Systemworks 2004) but I wanted to help a friend who had problems with the settings and so installed it to see what it looks like. The uninstall procedure left me with a barely working PC with a lot of poopie left in the system and registry.

Ok.

First I restored the system partition (the same as mentioned in the posts above, data size 2350 meg) using Ghost 2003. The procedure is well known, went flawless with Ghost run from a FAT partition at C:. Ghost got my good and working XP back in 157 seconds.

Then I deliberately messed things up once again, rebooted using my NG boot floppy. The procedure isn't guided step by step as in Ghost, for a moment I wasn't shure what image file I had choosen. The problem was solved by clicking Help and I got it. NG got my good and working XP back in 114 seconds.

The only important difference between the two applications here is that Ghost needs close to 40% more time to restore a partition this size. For a home user with a relatively small partition to restore this doesn't really matter. It might be that most people have bigger system partitions than me, then save some more time with NG - a small advantage this far.

Noted, I still haven't have to use my $25 serial number for NG.

I have a feeling that I pretty soon will have my Xandros installation messed up, I'll get back here then I tell you how things went.

Very interesting; very helpful. Thank you. :)

I installed BootitNG some time ago, forgot about it, and finally uninstalled it when I saw the trial time was about up. It left me a little something - a scan by NOD32 now tells me that it can't any longer read the boot sector on any of my 4 hard drives. It's clearly something tiny and technical because the system continues to work well.

Having read your posts here, I'm going back for a proper look at NG. :)

freezer121: Bootit NG does change the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the harddrive to something they call EMBR - I would guess that means Extended ditto. No worries so far. The EMBR, and now I'm guessing, contains the extended information needed for NG when keeping track of up to 200 primary partitions and so on. I haven't investigated this as I'm not intended to try the multiboot feature of NG and so haven't installed it.

When booting with NG boot floppy I click cancel and by doing so one is taken to something called "Maintenance mood" (instead of actually installing NG on the HDD).

To be continued.

It took some time my friends, I finally had to deliberately mess up my Xandros Desktop Install... And ok, I forgot the whole thing for a while too, I admit that...

How is BootIt NG compared with Ghost...

part 2

...when it comes to backup a ReiserFS partition?

Do you remember my ReiserFS partition I backed up using first BootIt NG and then Ghost 2003? Not?! Ok, I take it again - At HDD0 (the first harddrive in the box), partition 10 is formatted ReiserFS and there is my Xandros Desktop v2 installed and running. The partition is around 6.5 GB (GigaBytes). I made images of this partition using first BootIt NG and then Ghost 2003. The images are both placed at HDD1. I load Ghost from HDD0 and BootIt NG from FD0 (the floppy drive that is).

BootIt NG 1.60E:

Restore time: 70 seconds, Operation successfull

Ghost 2003

Restore time: 308 seconds, Operation succesfull

After each restore I rebooted into Xandros and checked that everything worked. The result isn't that surprising. As allready stated in the posts above Ghost doesn't support RaiserFS and therefore has to do a sector by sector backup.

So much for restoring after a viiri or a human has messed with important system and ini-files. What happens when the partition is totally lost?

Part 3

What happens when the partition is totally lost?

Some of you allready figured that out too...

Ghost 2003 will save you. By building the partition using the sector by sector method it doesn't matter whatever happened to it as long as the size of the free space at the harddrive is the same as before. After a little less than 6 minutes I was ready to use my Xandros Desktop again. With BootIt NG it isn't that easy. It gives you an error message (something like "Unable to mount partition") and you are stuck. Is everything lost now? No, there are workarounds of course. What that came first to my mind was to reformat the partition into ReiserFS again. Now I'm not sure I have a tool for that operation so I skipped that. The other way is to insert the Xandros setup CD again and make a minimal install, or start an install and then abort as soon you are sure the format process is finished. Then reboot using the BootIt NG floppy and now restore your partition from the back up image. This method might sound somewhat tedious. In practise it's not a big problem, and frankly; How often is it a partition is totally whiped out by mistake?

Thats all, next time some conclusions and also other comments. For example, what about the others, like Acronis...?

Great info unicorn. I have been considering giving BootIt a go myself and your information will be of great help. Thanks very much.

Thank you hamslammer.

Part 4 - some tips

For you interested in trying different imagemakers (imagemaker; here an application capable of making an image of a partition or a harddrive)...

You might run into situations where Ghost or Partition Magic or any other similar software claims that there is something wrong with your harddrive. It might be something like "Error with partition table - do you want this to be fixed?" If this happens - don't "fix" it. For reasons I am not sure of different applications react in different ways to more complicated partition tables. Maybe everything isn't that standardized as one could wish. Just leave it as everything probably is just fine.

Make use of the very good feature of BootIt NG and make a backup of your partition table(s).

The images different imagemakers produce aren't interchangeable. No surprise but anyway; Images made by Ghost can be handled by Ghost only (or Ghostexplorer by all means), images made by BootIt NG can be handled by BootIt NG only (or the native util TBIview). Never store your images at the same physical harddrive. You can save them to any partition that can be read but... If the drive brokes it doesn't help having the backup another partition...

The images should be stored at a safe place. Peferable outside the box. They can be stored at a harddrive in another machine (networking) or, preferable, be burned to either CDs (sometimes many) or DVDs (recommended). An other solution is to place them at another harddrive within the same box. Conveniant, cheap and fast - as long as not a viiri attacks the files (my method together with burning DVDs, I have never had any imagefile destroyed by a viiri - yet).

I still haven't had any use of my long complicated serial for BootIt NG. This is obviously due to the fact that I never tried to install it. I just use my floppies to boot into NG, say "Cancel" to installation and then use the imaging capabilities. This means that anyone interested can download and use NG for free as an option to pay money for Ghost, True Image, driveImage or whatever. You have to buy a license though for installing it and make use of the other features like multibooting or making a lot of primary partitions and so on.

Next: Conclusions.

Part 5 (last one)

--== Conclusions ==--

Again a lot of days passed by. I have been relocated at work... I have had to be nice to a lot of people for days now, draining my resources... :P

Another reason for beeing late with this post is my problem with Acronis True Image. I have borrowed a copy for a while, and updated it, and updated it again. Now it finally it has reached build 589.

True Image v7.0 build 589
Ghost 2003
BootIt NG 1.60

Three different ones with pros and cons.

As I still haven't managed to get Acronis True Image to run stable (100% stability that is) I ditch it for now. It's true that True Image have some nice features and probably will be the winner next time I compare theese utils. However there are a few applications that must be 100% stable and the backup utility is one of them. To be honest it hasn't let me down really but it sometimes dies, and behaves a little odd. In addition to that it starts services when using it with XP and I don't like that.

Ghost 2003 is the well known one, used by many and still has to leave anyone dissapointed (to my knowledge). I have used it for years and there has never happened anything strange. A winner? In some cases; when you need network support or want to broadcast your images, then you should go for Ghost. This will cost a nifty $70 though... It's not exactly cheap (one license, version 2003 standalone). As described above it has the ability to make a sector by sector copy of an image. Slow but efficient; the restored image will be a true copy of the partition backed up.
Ghost lost the speed battle, BootIt NG was considerably faster. If speed is of importance to you BootIt NG might be an option. The partitions I used in conjunction with this topic are quite small. The time difference will grow as the backed up partitions grows.
Ghost is sometimes conveniant; you can (still in XP environment) use GhostExplorer to open an image file and retrieve/restore single files or dirs (as mentioned above - most of this post repetitive crap)

BootIt NG is the new (to me at least) kid on the block. At the beginning Terabytesunlimited (link in the first post) aimed for a software helping people alter the partition table for multi boot purposes. Then they made it able to make images of partitions. For installing it and use it as a multiboot tool you need to buy a license. You don't need this license to boot from the setup floppy and use it for imaging work only. If it is by purpose or not - I don't know - we can benefit from this. In practise everyone cn visit their site and download a completey free imagemaker. This far it has been fast and reliable. A winner as long as you don't need network support. As noted above I have found the feature of beeing able to save and restore the partition table of the drive very valuable. The interface is ot as slick as the other ones, but when in doubt there is a help file within reach (without leaving the application). Recommended.

This must have an end. A last word: If you use BootIt NG and it doesn't work please report it here - help knowledge grow.

I can hardly imagine anyone reading all this way, but if that happened: Best regards!