Backing up Vista for FREE

TheShadowFl · 06-29-2008, 10:53 AM

The subject of making a clone of a Vista hard drive has come up on many internet forums.
I've been involved in several such discussions myself.
Attempts to use the older versions of Ghost, for instance, that will run from a boot floppy or CD have so far failed.

In my own quest for a workable, FREE, solution, I hit upon something that I had not previously considered.

With every Seagate or Maxtor hard drive I've bought in the last couple of years, there was a MaxBlast CD.
I've always just tossed them in a drawer and forgot about them.

While reading about FREE HD backup solutions on a web site, I was reminded about Maxblast.
So I dug out one of the newest CD's (Version 5) and loaded it (Installed) into my PC.

One of the options I found was to make a Maxblast Bootable CD, from which I could do disk to disk cloning of any OS or drive format.

I made that boot CD and took it to the computer that I'm using to test Vista Ultimate.
It has two Maxtor 160gig SATA2 drives, as C: and D: .

I booted the Vista PC with the Maxblast Boot CD and selected to do a disk clone.
As with Ghost and many cloning programs, Maxblast asked me to designate which drive would be the source and which drive would be the Target of the Cloning (Disk Copy) operation.
That was easy and I was quickly in the process of doing a clone from C: to D:.

The most amazing part of this story is that the clone was able to boot my Vista PC with NO problems.
And, did I mention that Maxblast is FREE?

Looking around the WWW, I found this site where you can download the Maxblast install program:
http://www.softwarepatch.com/utiliti...curity-dl.html
Your download should start shortly after you go to this page.

The file to download is: MaxBlastSetup.en.exe

It's a 104 megabyte file, so a broadband connection is best for this download.
Of course it would be easier to just borrow the Maxblast install CD from a friend or local computer shop.

Once installed on your PC, you can use it to make the Maxblast boot CD.

Good Luck and Happy Computing,

The Shadow

06-29-2008, 10:53 AM	#1 (permalink)
TheShadowFl Retired PC Builder Tech Hardware Team Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Central Florida Posts: 267 OS: XP-SP3, Vista Ult.	Backing up Vista for FREE The subject of making a clone of a Vista hard drive has come up on many internet forums. I've been involved in several such discussions myself. Attempts to use the older versions of Ghost, for instance, that will run from a boot floppy or CD have so far failed. In my own quest for a workable, FREE, solution, I hit upon something that I had not previously considered. With every Seagate or Maxtor hard drive I've bought in the last couple of years, there was a MaxBlast CD. I've always just tossed them in a drawer and forgot about them. While reading about FREE HD backup solutions on a web site, I was reminded about Maxblast. So I dug out one of the newest CD's (Version 5) and loaded it (Installed) into my PC. One of the options I found was to make a Maxblast Bootable CD, from which I could do disk to disk cloning of any OS or drive format. I made that boot CD and took it to the computer that I'm using to test Vista Ultimate. It has two Maxtor 160gig SATA2 drives, as C: and D: . I booted the Vista PC with the Maxblast Boot CD and selected to do a disk clone. As with Ghost and many cloning programs, Maxblast asked me to designate which drive would be the source and which drive would be the Target of the Cloning (Disk Copy) operation. That was easy and I was quickly in the process of doing a clone from C: to D:. The most amazing part of this story is that the clone was able to boot my Vista PC with NO problems. And, did I mention that Maxblast is FREE? Looking around the WWW, I found this site where you can download the Maxblast install program: http://www.softwarepatch.com/utiliti...curity-dl.html Your download should start shortly after you go to this page. The file to download is: MaxBlastSetup.en.exe It's a 104 megabyte file, so a broadband connection is best for this download. Of course it would be easier to just borrow the Maxblast install CD from a friend or local computer shop. Once installed on your PC, you can use it to make the Maxblast boot CD. Good Luck and Happy Computing, The Shadow __________________ A person with experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument. Last edited by TheShadowFl : 06-29-2008 at 11:14 AM.