Need Automated Drive Imaging Program

Back in the days of good old DOS, we had tape backup programs that could be preconfigured to run a complete drive backup on a schedule without user participation.

I'm looking for something like that for Windows 2000/XP. Norton Ghost is a great imaging program; but, I don't see anything in it that will cause it drop to DOS mode at the same time every day, image a drive automatically and then return to Windows--all on its own.

Any suggestions on anything about $100 and down that you know really works well with Windows 2000/XP would be appreciated.

 

Powerquest Drive image has a built in scheduler. You can create the intitial job of what you want to image and then schedule it, deselect 'do you want to be prompted to start', select 'restart computer when finished' and that seems to give you the option you're after.

 

Here's some screenshots. This is version 2002 for ME.

 

I have my computer setup to dual-boot MS-DOS and 2K, and I use GHOST to automatically backup every Friday night at 2:00 AM. With the command line interface, it's totally automated...

 

I went to CompUSA today and saw there was a new edition of Ghost, version 9. The sales clerk swears that it can be prescheduled to drop to below Windows into its own direct-disk-access mode and back up on a schedule of my choice. He also claimed I could select how many backups to keep. So, if I wanted to keep 30 backups, it would keep thirty and then start deleting the oldest each time a new one is created.

We'll see.

I got the package today and will be testing it. If it doesn't actually do direct disk access from below Windows, it goes back.

I've seen several backup programs that claim to backup all files, locked/in-use/etc., from the Windows GUI; but, they all fail to get some files.

Again, we'll see.

Thanks, Moby, you went to a lot of trouble for me and it is appreciated.