DarkChip Data

Painless Backup and Restore!

Historically backups for PCs have been cumbersome, expensive and not very practical.
These solutions typically required you to purchase expensive hardware (tape drives and
tapes) or required to you manage an unruly amount of backup CDs and DVDs.

In some cases the backup 'solution' provided by some software packages only took into
account the data (spreadsheets, documents, pictures,etc), but not the operating system,
resulting in people having their data, but losing all their installed programs and operating
system, because their PC no longer booted properly.

DriveImage XML to the Rescue!

I recently came into contact with a software solution which addressed these issues, and has
worked flawlessly each and every time I needed to use it. The software is called DriveImage
XML which is created by a company called Runtime Software. The software uses native
Windows snapshot technology called Volume Shadow Services to create exact backups
(online) of your PC, while it is running. In the event of a systems failure you would simply insert
a boot disk, reboot your PC, run the recovery software from the boot disk and your system will
be completely restored up until you last created a backup image. Automating and scheduling
the backup process is a simple step, by simply using the built in Task Scheduler within
Windows. Best of all, this software is FREE. I have worked with free software in the past, but
the quality of Runtime's DriveImage XML is that of an expensive commercial product.

No More Excuses.... Full Backup and Recovery Today!

My goal of this tutorial is to expose how people can use this great technology to better their
PC experience and to mitigate downtime because of systems failures or accidental deletion
of files. I also want to make a note that there are many ways you could use and configure
DriveImage XML, but I will detail how I use it, and what I think would fit well in most
environments. I have divided up this article into sections detailing each and every process for
using DriveImage XML. If you wish to jump to a different section or want to refer back to a
particular section in the future, the navigation buttons on the left will bring you straight to the
section you are interested in.

For the purposes of my tutorial, my source drive letter is C: which contains a single partition
and my operating system. My destination drive letter is E: and I have decided to use an
external hard drive for my tutorial to store the backup image(s). It is very possible that you will
have a different configuration then what I will be describing so please make note of the
differences and make the appropriate changes based on your own unique setup.

Disclaimer

As for the legal stuff, I will not be held responsible for any typos that may exist in this tutorial,
nor for any mishaps to your PC that may result by following this tutorial. Further, I will also not
be held responsible for anything that might be caused by following this tutorial, regardless of
the reason. You assume all responsibility for anything that might occur by following this
tutorial.

Now with that out of the way let's begin…