Help! Hard drive imaging

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Screamsalvation

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Well, fun times ahead. Here is the quick run down. We have a computer in my office that is used as a photo database basically, the bosses are way too cheap to upgrade the system to make it more networking and user friendly (plus the company that made the software that it is using went out of business 5 years ago). Now the system is an old windows NT server, and the software it uses will not run over a network or share over a network. The boss wants several other offices to be able to access the photos stored on that system without having to drive to our office and get them. The database program has no exporting features and basically it runs on that system and that system alone and prints to a SCSI printer.

Now, Is there a program that could make a perfect image of that hard drive. I would like to pull the drive out of the system, image it, and be able to put that image on another drive that could go into another system and have it boot. Basically creating multiple perfect "copies" of that one system. It's a tedious process but I have run out of ideas on how to share the information.


Can Acronis do this? Norton Ghost?
 
There are many programs that do what you want. I'm not sure of any specifically, but I think Norton Ghost might work. You could try GParted too, but I'm not sure if it can do imaging or just partition copy. I will warn you though, that if you try to change an already installed OS to a different CPU, RAM, video, etc, you may have issues. A Windows install usually gets custom fit to the hardware it's installed on (by adding drivers, setting configuration, etc). When I changed the motherboard/CPU of my Compaq, the Win2k install wouldn't boot because it expected a Celeron 500 and it was running on a Sempron 2600+. You might be able to get it running though.
 
Sadly Ghost wont. IT is not compatable with Windows NT. It only works on XP or Vista.

Norton Ghost 12.0: System Restore - PC Backup Software

Acronis is not for Window NT either. IT can at least run on Windows 2000 though. With SP4 already isntalled.

Acronis True Image backup pc software system requirements and supported storages

So the major 2 are out. This one might work since it runs on most systems from 98 on.

Drive Image and Hard Disk Backup Software

But if you have a true Window NT OS on there you still might be out of luck on this one as well. For a true Windows NT OS you might need to try this software:

R-Drive Image v.4.0 Download - Drive Image and Disk Backup tool creates disk image files on the fly.

As it is pretty much the only one i can find for a NT based system. Wait found a couple more:

Paragon Drive Backup (Personal Edition) v.7.0 Download - Drive Backup creates the backup of entire hard disk or a part of it.
Paragon Drive Backup Personal v.8.5 Download - Vista compatible solution for real-time hard disk backup, imaging and cloning!
Acronis True Image v.9.0 Download - Complete disk imaging or file backup software for home and home office users.

That last one says Acronis can do NT. But their site says they cant. Might be a little iffy on that one.

Backup Drive Image Software

Taht is the page i haev found most of them. Are you sure it is a Windows NT system not a Windows 2000 system?
 
Well, I have already slaved the drive up to another desktop and copied over the data. But the problem becomes then that I can not access the program after that. It will either give all kinds of errors. I think the issue with just copying over the data is that this old program is set to run from C:/"program name" and access it's database at D:/hin/"database" and just copying it over messes with the paths. It also seems the program is slaved to the copy of windows and the ID that is put in when installing windows. As if I try and run one part of the program it tells me that it is "not setup to run on workstation ....." Any driver issues I could hopefully bang out slightly if I can just get it running on another box.

Oh another 2 joyous parts of this system and another reason we have been begging the boss to purchase something else. The original maker of the software went out of business in 1995 (yep I thought 5 years ago, found out it was more like 12 today), that leaves no support for this stuff at all. And the second is when the system was setup by the software company that decided to lock everything down on it. You can access the user account where you can run the program, and that is it. No one knows the admin account password or how to get into an admin account on the machine. I managed to sit there one day and guess the admin account password but always get the error "You can not log on interactively".

Makaveli213 - Positive it is windows NT. Was hoping to slave the drive up to one of my xp boxes again and image it that way. Completely remove working inside of NT for the above reasons of no admin account and the user account cant do squat. ;)
 
The program is called TFP. It was made by TFP inc. Which apparently sold to a jail management agency that used it for inmate photos called Printrak. I can't find any record of what happened to Printrak though.
 
Well, I have started looking into VM as a possible solution. Vm converter is able to take a snapshot of the system and it works with Windows NT. Do we have any VMware gurus around here? If I use vm converter on that machine and then vm on another machine, since it takes an exact shot of the files and operating system it should start up EXACTLY how it the windows nt on that box starts up correct? And with vmware the program would think it was running in C: and accessing D: for the database ect. correct?
 
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