Quick, Easy, Free, way to make a bootable backup of a Windows 2003 Server?

[Paul F.]

OK.. despite it having been my nominal "spring break week off" last week, I have been here at work for the last 9 days setting up a new Windows 2003 Server as a "one trick pony" for a new School Information System.

I have managed to throw the SIS vendor " a new one" - a problem that stumped them for the last week.
Fortunately, it's FINALLY resolved and I can proceed with "Step 3" in the manual.

However, after going through the "Tech Support Hell" for the last week - I really want to make a backup of this particular point in time, before I install any of the 57 Windows Updates..

Can anyone put me onto a software that (conceptually, at least) will make a backup "disk image" that I can keep safe in case I fubar the Server (again...)? I have drive space (3 extra HD's in the server to eventually be used for multiple daily backups). But I do not have backup SOFTWARE yet...

Some day soon I'm going to write a long ranting post about how Windows make every single simple operation complicated... but not today.

[ztirffritz]

Ghost or Acronis.True Image will create a restorable image. I prefer Ghost because that is what I know, but others swear by Acronis. I'll probably look into it someday.

With Ghost you save the drive image to another partition or an external drive. Then, after you screw up the computer, you boot using the restore CD which is just a Linux Live CD more or less which guides you through selecting the backup image, selecting the restore location, and then multiple warnings 'that restoring the image will permanently remove any changes made to the drive since the image was created blah blah blah...' Just takes a few minutes depending on the size of the image.

[Paul F.]

Sounds good to me...

I'll find an educational retailer and see if I can beg a signature on a purchase order...

Unless someone else has a "free" alternative, of course.

[Gilbert]

Though I have never used it on Windows Server 2003, I have recently used a free program called Macrium Reflect to back up both XP and Vista. It doesn't specifically state support for Windows Server 2003 on their website.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

Could be a possibility as this website states compatibility with Server 2003:

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/backup-a...e-edition/

Good luck!