Powerquest Drive Image 7
A Software Review
by Vinny La Bash
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
There are those who say I am totally paranoid and fanatical about my backups. While this may be true, I have not lost one single byte of data in over ten years. Perhaps the question should be not whether I am paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Every computer, no matter how carefully maintained, is still subject to disasters caused by viruses, corrupt files, sloppy programming, hard drive failure, and other assorted calamities. Disaster can strike at any time and without warning. Hard drive failure is as inevitable as death and taxes, yet it comes as a perpetual revelation to some souls who think that backing up is something you do only with an automobile. Those who choose to remain unprepared for disaster will suffer. Can you afford the downtime necessary to manually reinstall your operating system, and your applications? What about loss of your data? Are your hard-copy records complete? Do you even have hard-copy records? If you run a small business, does the word bankruptcy suddenly take on a new meaning?
There is no excuse for not properly backing up your data, application, and system files. Many backup solutions are offered in the marketplace. Everyone who values their time and data should give serious consideration to PowerQuest's Drive Image 7. Drive Image does not backup your drives on a file-by-file basis as do most backup programs. The utility starts by reading the entire file allocation table or master file table into memory. Then it scans the drive, imaging only those sectors that have data allocated to them. This process significantly reduces any slowdown that may occur during the copying process if the hard drive is fragmented. If you decide to use compression along with its sector-based imaging process, Drive Image can be up to three to five times faster than conventional file-based copying methods.
Drive Image is supplied with Wizards that will walk you through the backup process, eliminating the need for any advanced knowledge on your part. Even a novice can use this program effectively and successfully.
Start the program and you will see the initial dialog box where you pick the task you want to perform. Choosing the "Back Up Drives" option brings up the Drive Backup Wizard. The Wizard takes you through the process where you select the drive or drives you wish to backup, the location of the backup image, and several other steps. Full explanations and help are available all through the process. It doesn't get any easier than this. When the backup portion starts, an image file of an entire hard disk or individual partitions of a hard drive are created. If you need to restore an image, all your Windows and application settings and optimizations are preserved. The program runs on Windows XP Home and Professional, and Windows 2000 Professional Desktop Version.
Drive Image 7 runs on Windows XP Home and Professional, as well as Windows 2000 Professional Desktop Version.
Drive Image 7, $69.95. PowerQuest, Inc., www.powerquest.com
Editor's Comment: I have also used Drive Image for quite a few years now and have found it extremely quick and easy to use. It offers two methods of creating a backup from one hard drive to another. The first method, as indicated in this review, is by making an image from drive #1 to drive#1. The image is a compressed file, but Drive Image provides an "Image Explorer" which permits you to view the image and its files uncompressed.
The second method is by copying drive #1 completely and directly to drive #2. This "copy drive" method is widely used and creates an exact duplicate of the original drive. The resulting drive #2 looks and operates exactly as drive #1, which it can completely replace in emergency. Furthermore, all the backed up files are individually visible and can replace those on drive #1 merely by copying them.
I have used this second method exclusively myself previously without problem. Drive Image 7 unfortunately balks at using the "copy drive" method, requiring that you first delete the partition on drive #2 to which you want to copy. Previously, Drive Image automatically cleared the partition on drive #2 all by itself. This is a recognized glitch that Powerquest is currently working on to resolve. Until that resolution is effected, if you use the "copy drive" feature, you are best off sticking with the previous version, Drive Image 2002, which is also included in the same box along with Drive Image 7.
Copyright 2003. This article is from the September 2003 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
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