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Creating a drive image (also called a disk image) can save you time, money and
frustration! Creating a drive image is VERY easy. What is a drive image? A drive
image is an exact copy of the contents (and structure) of a computer's hard drive or
partition. Like a photograph it represents a moment in time.
How can creating a "drive image" help you? Example: You use DriveImage XML to create an
"image" of your computer's hard drive when your computer is operating correctly. If
your computer develops a problem you use DriveImage XML to restore the image to your
hard drive. Your computer will work as it did at the time you created your drive image.
DriveImage XML can be a useful emergency rescue tool. Some examples of situations
where a drive image can help you include:
- You add new software to a computer and it creates undesirable side effects,
issues/problems. Uninstalling the software does not resolve the issues/problems.
- You add a Microsoft update or patch and it causes an issue/problem.
- Your computer becomes infected with a virus, Trojan or spyware has been installed.
- Your computer is not running like it used to when you first purchased it. It
seems slow or sluggish, you receive unusual error messages when you use it.
The previous four issues can often be resolved by restoring a drive image back
to your computer's hard drive. Of course you will need to have created a drive image
when your computer was operating correctly.
Many of the types of problems DriveImage XML can help you recover from are software
(operating system or application) related issues. Most computer related operational
problems are not the result of a mechanical (hardware) failure.
Drive imaging is seldom an effective tool to recover from most computer hardware
failures. The exception where DriveImage XML can help is if there has been a mechanical
failure of your computer's hard drive. If your computer's hard drive fails (it
does happen) you will need to reinstall/restore your operating system and updates
plus device drivers and any additional software titles you use. You will need to
re-configure any personal preferences, Internet and e-mail accounts. Depending on
your hardware and software configuration a new installation could take several
hours to complete. That's if everything goes well and you don't make any mistakes,
forget anything or suffer an installation failure or hardware/resource conflict
of any type. If you had a known good drive image stored for emergencies you could
copy/restore that image to a newly purchased hard drive.
Restoring a drive image to a hard drive can take as little as five
minutes. This will depend on the speed of your computer's hardware and
the size of the image file to be restored. The size of the image file is dependant
on the operating system (OS) (Example: Windows 98, 2000, XP) you have installed
and updates, plus the number of software titles you have installed. I suggest you
independently backup any important personal files (pictures, MP3, video, Word
documents, Excel spreadsheets, database files etc.) stored on the drive. The backup
application Allway Sync will work very nicely for most
people. Allway Sync can be easily configured to perform scheduled, automatic
backups. It is easy to use and FREE of charge for personal use!
DriveImage XML can be used/run in two different ways.
- Installed on the computer from which you will use/run it. The computer must
be able to start/boot and allow you to access and run DriveImage XML.
- You can also use/run DriveImage XML from a bootable BartPE or
UBCD4Win CD/DVD. Running DriveImage from a bootable
CD/DVD is the most flexible and powerful way to use it. The computer to which you
want to restore an image does not need to be able to start/boot using the installed
operating system.
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