Thanks Mubs, looks like a goodie. Bozo, I've recommended Acronis to people from time to time, entirely on the strength of what people like you and Merc say about it, but never actually tried it for myself.
I used to use LapLink a lot, years ago in the days of serial cables and 20MB hard drives (that's MB, not GB), and then a parallel cable and newer versions of Laplink, followed by a cross-platform one the name of which escapes me now.
Then I switched to another OS/2 native one which was ported to various other operating systems after a while, this was Drive Image, which was excellent in its day, but (alas) was swallowed up by Symantec or some other serial software wrecking concern and ceased to be useful.
I never really cottoned onto Ghost, certainly not after the early versions which I used a bit, and ever since then I haven't used anything.
Instead of imaging, I started doing it by hand again. With DOS and all versions of DOS-flavoured Windows (3.1, 95, 98, etc.), you never needed any software, you just copied the correct files across in the correct order and that was that.
I suppose at the root of this distaste I have for imaging software is the feeling that such a simple, basic function ought to be a part of any standard operating system, or if external to the OS, it ought to be simple and not require any fancy tools. It's very simple operation, after all: copy all these zeros and ones over here.
So, from time to time, I look at the available products, and see that they appear to be reasonably priced, and some of them come well-recommended. So I start the process of buying one or another, and read the fine print. Every one I've looked at is fenced about with a zillion restrictions, and (for what I do) the full-blown technician or workshop licence is the one I need - I'd want to use it regularly or not bother buying it at all - and these are not reasonably priced. They are bloody dear, not to put too fine a point on it.
And finally, I ponder the likley realities: whatever I buy is going to be fenced about with secret codes and registration and activation and all the rest of the crap the lawyers dreamed up. At that point, I throw the whole mess out the window and think of another way to do the job I have in mind.
From time to time I decide that such a simple, basic function really must be available in an open source package somewhere and look for it. The last couple of times, I've wound up with PING, which is workable and not half bad, except that I'd rather it worked direct instead of requiring a network. PING does have the huge advantage, however, of not requiring any BS registration - there are no artifical hoops to jump through, you just have to figure out how to install it and use it.
) so the current $4k price of a 128GB SSD, may drop dramatically by the time Samsung gets their 120/100MB's R/W, 1/10th the access times of a 15k rpm drive, newest generation SSD's out on the market.
