Background
I have spent many (many!) hours studying backup strategies, and of course there are many depending on one's needs.
The most elusive of all however (detailed by hundreds of posts from myself and others on these forums) has always been the simplest of all - the Bootable HDD Clone Disk (BCD henceforth).
The objective is simple - when you boot/OS disk catastrophically fails, you take it out of the machine, discard it, replace it with your BCD, boot that drive WITHOUT PROPRIETARY MEDIA OR THE OPERATING SYSTEM DISK, and you boot back into the computer the way it was when the BCD was created. (you then restore the files missing since then from your incremental backup system whatever that might be).
This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the creation of an HDD IMAGE (Image != Clone, despite what people say). An Image is a file format (like .vhd or .bkf) which is essentially a transformed/compressed version of a HDD's data - it can then be RESTORED and written to a new HDD. A CLONE however, is the exact filesystem, MBR, and inaccessible portions of the HDD copied bit for bit onto a volume of the exact same size; it is NOT a file.
But this is actually very difficult to do. Virtually ALL (I should just say ALL, since I haven't found software that does what I want yet) of the backup software available that does create clone disks have a massive problem (for me).
They require the use (e.g. Acronis) of proprietary media/formats or the OS install disk to boot the clone drive. I do NOT want an additional layer of anything standing between me and my BCD. Obviously the reasons revolve around the MBR, and the offset, etc., but not relevant to my problem.
I want to literally plug my BCD in, push the power button, and boot straight into Windows like nothing happened (with just the incremental data since the last BCD clone was made missing). I do NOT want to get involved with a boot loader of any kind, or a 'recovery environment' (I absolutely despise these due to previous issues, and the general belief that they are technologically inferior).
I should be able to just boot the BCD with no issues.
Windows
Now... the only software I've been able to surmise that performs this function SOMEWHAT for Windows, is Handy Backup by Novosoft. Apparently (I don't want to purchase it until they make this clear to me) the software creates bootable clones on a SCHEDULE (which is important to me - it's the ONLY software I've found that automatically creates clones on a schedule).
But it DOES also seem to have it's own recovery environment/boot loader which is required to boot the clone disk.
Mac
Just recently then, I discovered this software called Carbon Copy Cloner, which APPARENTLY is for Mac only... http://
According to their website, this program does exactly what I want - it creates a BCD which is bootable without any media or disks or recovery environments - the example they use is perfect - they use an external HDD as a BCD, and when the primary drive fails, they restart the machine and just select the external to boot from, straight back into the OS (minus the lost incremental data of course).
BUT there is a huge problem - this apparently is only for Mac.
Is there an equivalent for Windows? I have not found it.
Please help!?
I have spent many (many!) hours studying backup strategies, and of course there are many depending on one's needs.
The most elusive of all however (detailed by hundreds of posts from myself and others on these forums) has always been the simplest of all - the Bootable HDD Clone Disk (BCD henceforth).
The objective is simple - when you boot/OS disk catastrophically fails, you take it out of the machine, discard it, replace it with your BCD, boot that drive WITHOUT PROPRIETARY MEDIA OR THE OPERATING SYSTEM DISK, and you boot back into the computer the way it was when the BCD was created. (you then restore the files missing since then from your incremental backup system whatever that might be).
This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the creation of an HDD IMAGE (Image != Clone, despite what people say). An Image is a file format (like .vhd or .bkf) which is essentially a transformed/compressed version of a HDD's data - it can then be RESTORED and written to a new HDD. A CLONE however, is the exact filesystem, MBR, and inaccessible portions of the HDD copied bit for bit onto a volume of the exact same size; it is NOT a file.
But this is actually very difficult to do. Virtually ALL (I should just say ALL, since I haven't found software that does what I want yet) of the backup software available that does create clone disks have a massive problem (for me).
They require the use (e.g. Acronis) of proprietary media/formats or the OS install disk to boot the clone drive. I do NOT want an additional layer of anything standing between me and my BCD. Obviously the reasons revolve around the MBR, and the offset, etc., but not relevant to my problem.
I want to literally plug my BCD in, push the power button, and boot straight into Windows like nothing happened (with just the incremental data since the last BCD clone was made missing). I do NOT want to get involved with a boot loader of any kind, or a 'recovery environment' (I absolutely despise these due to previous issues, and the general belief that they are technologically inferior).
I should be able to just boot the BCD with no issues.
Windows
Now... the only software I've been able to surmise that performs this function SOMEWHAT for Windows, is Handy Backup by Novosoft. Apparently (I don't want to purchase it until they make this clear to me) the software creates bootable clones on a SCHEDULE (which is important to me - it's the ONLY software I've found that automatically creates clones on a schedule).
But it DOES also seem to have it's own recovery environment/boot loader which is required to boot the clone disk.
Mac
Just recently then, I discovered this software called Carbon Copy Cloner, which APPARENTLY is for Mac only... http://
According to their website, this program does exactly what I want - it creates a BCD which is bootable without any media or disks or recovery environments - the example they use is perfect - they use an external HDD as a BCD, and when the primary drive fails, they restart the machine and just select the external to boot from, straight back into the OS (minus the lost incremental data of course).
BUT there is a huge problem - this apparently is only for Mac.
Is there an equivalent for Windows? I have not found it.
Please help!?