backing up windows

[skd]

I'm an architect and half of my work is done on the mac side of the computer and the other half is done on the bootcamp partition. I use time machine to back up the mac side. What's the best way to back up the windows partition. And is there a way to make a bootable image of the windows partition, so in case my hard drive fails I can get a new computer and keep on working?
thanks

 

[Nightkrawler]

winclone - if your windows partition is ntfs
works just fine, i used it without problems when i replaced my hdd

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I use disk utility to turn my windows partition into a disk image, and keep it on a spare hard drive. I don't know if it's bootable, but at least that way I know I have all my information on it

 

[sushi]

winclone - if your windows partition is ntfs
works just fine, i used it without problems when i replaced my hdd

Have you tried to do a restore with this?

In other words, backup your bootcamp partition, then delete the bootcamp partition, then recreate the bootcamp partition, and then finally backup the Window partition using winclone.

Does this work? And if so, what computer have you tried it on and what version of Windows are you using?

Thanks!

 

[JSchwage]

You may want to look into buying Norton Ghost. In my opinion, it's the best backup software for Windows. The backups you make with Norton Ghost are also bootable, so it's really easy to restore the backup image.

 

[xUKHCx]

Does this work? And if so, what computer have you tried it on and what version of Windows are you using?

Thanks!

I've done it with XP Pro on both a SRMB and an (white) iMac multiple times (15 at a guess) while changing the sizes of the partitions as well. I have a clean image that I can wipe XP with and put back the god version. It really does work well.

 

[Nightkrawler]

Yes, everything worked - including restoring

I backed up my XP partition with it in Tiger, replaced the HDD (from a 100GB/7200RPM to the new 200GB/7200RPM one),
installed Leopard and used winclone to resize the hfs+ partition, create a new ntfs partition and restore the wincloneimage on it. It even was possible to create a bigger partition than before (more space for games )

The only thing was that i had to edit my boot.ini, but that was only because i had a tripple boot system before and windows wanted to boot from the wrong partition, it was very easy to fix - anyway this only would happen when you have more than one windows partition witch is impossible with bootcamp alone.

 

[skd]

what is ntfs?

 

[skd]

and is winclone applied to the mac applications or do you download it to the bootcamp partition?

 

[Daveoc64]

and is winclone applied to the mac applications or do you download it to the bootcamp partition?

It's run in in Mac OS X on the Mac Partition


NTFS is the file format that Windows XP and Vista usually use to store files.

 

[sushi]

I've done it with XP Pro on both a SRMB and an (white) iMac multiple times (15 at a guess) while changing the sizes of the partitions as well. I have a clean image that I can wipe XP with and put back the god version. It really does work well.

Great! Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, everything worked - including restoring

I backed up my XP partition with it in Tiger, replaced the HDD (from a 100GB/7200RPM to the new 200GB/7200RPM one),
installed Leopard and used winclone to resize the hfs+ partition, create a new ntfs partition and restore the wincloneimage on it. It even was possible to create a bigger partition than before (more space for games )

The only thing was that i had to edit my boot.ini, but that was only because i had a tripple boot system before and windows wanted to boot from the wrong partition, it was very easy to fix - anyway this only would happen when you have more than one windows partition witch is impossible with bootcamp alone.

Cool. Going to give it a try.

Sure beats the other way that I was doing it.

what is ntfs?

With Windows, you can format your partition two ways:

FAT32 --> File Allocation Table 32 system

NTFS --> New Technology file System, or NT File System

Mac OS X can read and write to FAT32 formatted partitions. However, Mac OS X can only read from NTFS.

NTFS is a newer more secure file system, and most commonly used for Windows XP or Vista installations.

 

[skd]

i think i did something wrong........
i downloaded winclone and made an image of my windows HD from the bootcamp partition -
the windows HD partition was 8.74 GB
the winclone image turned out to be 644KB
this doesn't seem right...
any ideas?
thanks