Power Quest DriveImage and bootable drives

[snailophone]

Ok, I want to re-install my operating systems every now and then but I dont want to go through the trouble of making all the windows and Linux partitions every time I do. Since I have a dedicated boot drive, could I just set up an image of the drive, format, and restore from that image to benefit from the performance increase of a fresh install? What are the upsides/downsides to this? I'm running RH8 and win2k pro. Thanks.

 

[cleverhandle]

You could image the boot drive as you describe, but I can't see any performance benefits in doing so. The "benefit of a fresh install" (primarily a Windows phenomenon) is that you start with a clean registry and none of the leftover bits of crud from old programs and drivers. An image won't provide that - it will just restore the drive exactly as it was, crud and all. The only performance benefit you'll see is what you'd get from a defrag (assuming DI rearranges the files on restore, I know Ghost does).

That being said, taking images for backup purposes is certainly a good idea - just don't expect performance gains from it.

 

[snailophone]

Thanks for your reply. What I mean is that if I currently have a fresh install of all OS's, I already have a clean registry (I just did it yesterday). If I image the drive now, would restoring the drive from the clean image provide any benefit? Thanks.

 

[cleverhandle]

Sure. In that case, you'll be back to a clean slate. Of course, then you'll need to reinstall updates, drivers, and programs that have changed since then. If you're going to install one set of programs at the outset and pretty much stick to those forever, then that's not a big deal. Of course, in that situation you're not going to accumulate much "crud" anyway, especially with W2K/XP. Personally, I don't think such a scheme is worth the trouble. If anything, I'd rather use an extra disk for full weekly backups, so that I could get a mostly functional system and my documents back up quickly in case of a disk crash. If my computer feels sluggish because of registry/program crud, I can reinstall at my leisure, but when a disk crashes (which it has...) on a weeknight when I have work to finish, I need the system back up ASAP, regardless of its performance.