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I need to create a bare-metal exact copy of a Windows 2000 system. I just want to duplicate the system disk to another disk and put it on a shelf in case of emergency. Unfortunately, the current version of Norton Ghost no longer supports Windows 2000. What should I use instead? Commercial software is fine.

I'm familiar with g4l and Clonezilla, but I'm concerned about their ability to work with Windows filesystems.

Hennes
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royco
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3 Answers3

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Clonezilla is an excellent choice. Not only does it support FAT and NTFS filesystems, but it works perfectly with Windows. It would be my top recommendation between the two.

The excellent guide, Windows Adjustments: Back Up your Windows Installation is a great starting point if you haven't used Clonezilla before.

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EASEUS Todo Backup, supporting Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 and Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, is potent FREE backup software providing system backup & restore, hard disk or partition backup & restore, disk clone to protect your system and disk. It can back up whole PC, including the operating system plus your data, applications, settings and everything!

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Backing up your system doesn't get much easier ...

P.S.: never mind the 'current version' of Ghost, or any other Ghost version from the consumer range, which are base on the old PowerQuest DriveImage, and, quite frankly, of no use. If you want to use Ghost, get the real deal, aka Ghost Enterprise or Ghost 2003 or Ghost v11, which supports Windows 2000 (and pretty much anything else :).

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And here's an excellent read about 'ghosting' your system:

Radified Guide to Norton Ghost

This guide presents what many consider the ultimate back-up strategy. It is based on features found in Norton Ghost, a hard drive imaging/cloning software program developed by Symantec.

Altho designed around Norton Ghost (considered the most reliable application of its kind), the strategies presented here (such as performing a test-restore, to ensure your back-up image will work when you really need it) can be applied to any disk cloning program.

Gareth
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Acronis True Image can do bare metal restores of systems. I have repl;ictaed systems on dis-similar hardware with no issues. You have the option of installing specific drivers if needed. unfortunately this is not a free product. I have reproduced an exact replica of a Windows 2000 server onto dis-similar hardware at an offsite location to perform testing. It really is to easy to describe, but the wizard that is part of the software will walk even the most unfamiliar user through the process first time.

Hope this helps.

Joe Taylor
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