Review of:
Drive Image 1.02 
by Linda Puryear

 This drive imaging utility will allow you to copy your exact installation of Win95, NT, or other operating system and accompanying files in an efficient manner. Make note, it handles entire drives or partitions. Drive Image can copy partitions directly from one drive to another and resize the partition as it copies. For the person who desires the conventional task of selectively backing up files, you are out of luck. But there are other ways to do that effectively. 

 What makes Drive Image efficient? Instead of straight file-by-file or sector-by-sector methods, it only copies used sectors. SmartSector technology speeds up the copy process and saves disk space. 
 
 

Recommended System Requirements

Installing

 Once setup is initiated, Name, Company, and Serial # are to be entered. It is mandatory to enter information in all three fields. With most programs, an individual can leave the Company field blank, but not this one. The program will not proceed until the field has an entry. 

 You will be allowed to install the program in the drive/folder of your choice. One recommendation: make the bootable floppy disk /rescue disk when you are given that option. This is required for NT and OS/2 environments, but it will also be necessary if you do not have a true DOS environment on your computer. I found that out when I installed the program on the computer I regularly use and tried to run it. When I installed it on my backup computer with different configurations, it worked exceptionally well from the hard drive. 

Once installed, it loaded quickly from Program Manager. It shut Win95 down and ran in the DOS mode. I was able to use the mouse to move about in the program with its graphical interface. When exiting the program, it returned just as quickly to the Win95 desktop. 

 A pre-requisite to using Drive Image includes having some understanding of what a hard drive is. Knowing what terms such FDISK, FAT, primary, extended, and logical partitions means helps in deciphering the technical language. Understanding how drive letters are assigned will be essential if one is archiving and then restoring multiple partitions on multiple drives. Fortunately, I partition all hard drives to maximize their usage. My current practice is to let Win95 reside alone on its own partition. 
 
 

Features of the Program

• Drive Image provides three options: creating image files, restoring image files, and copying disk-to-disk.

 

 

• It performs file system error and bad sector checking to prevent copying problems.

 

 

• Context sensitive help is at your fingertips by pressing (F1).

 

 

• It can create a compressed hard drive image, if enabled. Standard compression is 2:1. In advanced options, one is offered the option of low, medium, or high compression level. The higher the compression level, the greater the length of time it takes. An 800 MB partition with 547 MB of data imaged in the default setting (no compression) in about 6 minutes on a 200 megahertz system. The standard compression reduced the image in about 21 minutes.

 

 

• One utility contained on the CD that I went back and installed is called MagicMover. It is a useful and efficient tool for moving applications along with their related files and operating system settings from one drive (local, removable, or network) to another. It also can move applications to a new folder other than the folder the application was installed in originally. Both a 32-bit version for Win95 and NT and a 16-bit version for Windows 3.x is included. MagicMover saves the user the time of uninstalling and reinstalling an application if one wishes to change drives, folders, etc. The program analyzes the application and moves the appropriate application files, folders, and subfolders to the new location you stipulate in two easy steps. It even updated the shortcuts on the Win95 desktop. I found this feature to be extremely efficient in reorganizing all the files/folders on each partition of my hard drives. An advantage built into the program that can prevent one from committing suicide with Windows is that it can not move any application from the Windows directory or any of its subdirectories.

 

 

• Another utility included is DriveMapper that allows one to alter drive letter assignments for partitions and the CD-ROM drive. I did not try out this feature.

 

 

• It has its own Uninstall option (I love it when programs do that.) I tested this and did not find one character of the program lying around. It cleaned the registry, shortcuts, and all. However, one quirk occurred that I intend to call Tech support about just to satisfy my curiosity. After I had installed it to my H: drive, tested the uninstall, and attempted to reinstall it to H:, it did not recognize the H: drive. I received a message saying the H: drive was unaccessible. Fortunately, all contents of H: was intact. Needless to say, I installed it successfully on I:

 

 

• It spans across multiple removable media, making floppy and Zip drives usable for archiving.

Limitations of the Program

• Drive Image is not intended to copy a hard drive that will be used in another system with different hardware configurations. It is only recommended for imaging and restoring to similar hardware configurations (motherboard, video card, etc.). The workaround would be to make sure that minimal generic drivers are installed before imaging. The company does not offer Technical Support to support the process of using different hardware configurations.

 

 

• It is a DOS-based program and must run in a DOS environment. If you can not boot to a true DOS session on your computer, then the Drive Image bootable disk will do the trick. Only by running in DOS is the hard drive completely inactive with no open files. 
• Any media that Drive Image copies to must be mapped to a drive letter using a 16-bit DOS driver.

 

 

• It cannot copy directly to tape backup systems (because they are not assigned a drive letter). One has to copy to a temporary site and them use the tape backup system's copy feature.

 

 

• The disk-to-disk copy function does not copy from an internal hard drive to a removable hard drive or over network. It will only copy from one internal hard drive to another internal drive within the same computer.

 

 

• It cannot restore individual files from compressed images.

 

 

• DriveMapper carries with it some explicit mechanisms on changing the drive order. The User Guide leads me to believe one needs to pay careful attention to the literature and to the program itself as it is being run. Otherwise, errors after restoration can result from registry misreads.

 

 

• When spanning a partition across multiple removable disks, one has to exercise caution. Never rename the span files or all your data will be zapped and unrecoverable (Tech support posted this information on the Online Forum.).

Vendor Information

 The company is user-friendly. They offer to let you try Drive Image for 60 days and if you are not convinced that it is the fastest, easiest way to backup, upgrade, or recover your hard drive, return it to PowerQuest and get your money back. This is the company that produces PartitionMagic, a program that has won a slew of awards as an excellent utility to partition and resize hard drives on the fly. 
 
 

Availability and Cost

 For those in need of replicating NT workstations, Drive Image Professional is available for cloning NT workstations. Current price for this varies from $395 for a competitive upgrade to $495 to $572.95 for a stand-alone product. 

Support Information

Year 2000 Compliance

 In summary, this program has options for making fast backups and cloning system drives to be used on the same or similar computer. It should be an efficient mechanism for replicating your system for archival purposes or emigration to another drive. The MagicMover utility almost makes it worth the cost of the program. If you have the need to create an image of a drive or a partition and wish to restore partitions, either selected ones or all, one at a time or all at once, onto another hard drive or supported removable media, then Drive Image may be what you need. I think it would be beneficial for the person with "computerese", but I would not recommend the imaging tasks for the novice computerite.