Create Recovery Disks for customers

[ScottM]

Is there a program out there that makes it easy to create recovery disks for a customer without having to install an imaging software on their machine like ghost or acronis. Something that would create a bootable disk with an image of their current computer incase there system crashes.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Is there a program out there that makes it easy to create recovery disks for a customer without having to install an imaging software on their machine like ghost or acronis. Something that would create a bootable disk with an image of their current computer incase there system crashes.

Have a look at Easus Todo.

 

[Xander]

Have a look at Windows 7. It's built-in.

Same with a lot of Dell/HP/etc machines. After a fresh install, I'll move the icon to that to dead-center of their desktop and tell them to wait a couple of weeks until they've got all their other little programs in place and then run it.

 

[numnutz]

take a look at redo
http://redobackup.org/

 

[ScottM]

Thank you all for your help. I will take a look at all of your suggestions.

Have a look at Windows 7. It's built-in.

Same with a lot of Dell/HP/etc machines. After a fresh install, I'll move the icon to that to dead-center of their desktop and tell them to wait a couple of weeks until they've got all their other little programs in place and then run it.

This is not built into windows 7 it is however put on many new machines from the company in which is branding the computer such as asus hp or dell. If you ever install a fresh clean copy of windows 7 without bloatware and such, there is nothing including no option to make recovery disks. Or atleast i have just yet to find it in a fresh install, but i could be missing something.

 

[FoolishTech]

This is not built into windows 7 it is however put on many new machines from the company in which is branding the computer such as asus hp or dell. If you ever install a fresh clean copy of windows 7 without bloatware and such, there is nothing including no option to make recovery disks. Or atleast i have just yet to find it in a fresh install, but i could be missing something.

Check Control Panel > Backup and Restore > Create System Image

 

[ScottM]

Check Control Panel > Backup and Restore > Create System Image

Thank you! Never even seen that option in windows 7 in the entire time i have been using it. Is it also built into Vista, probably not in XP right.

 

[FoolishTech]

Thank you! Never even seen that option in windows 7 in the entire time i have been using it. Is it also built into Vista, probably not in XP right.

Definitely not in XP For Vista, honestly I didn't know it was in Vista either until just now, you made me look! (At least it's on this biz edition on my bench...)

 

[Xander]

Thanks for having my back, Nick. I guess it was easier to say it wasn't there than assume that someone might have known what they were talking about and spending 10 seconds on Google.

 

[ZenTree]

Why would you want to do this? I can understand making things easier for certain customers, maybe those who constantly re-infect themselves within a month. I feel somewhat bad for saying this but if they restore an image every couple of years you're talking yourself out of a healthcheck or fresh install yourself.

I'd be interested to hear people's views on this. There's a fine line between being helpful for your customers (here's how to keep third party apps up to date, here's some free programs to remove junk files that will NOT break your computer, here are some good websites for general maintainance) and then saying Here's how to do a fresh install again that I just charged you X for right now.

 

[Xander]

Why would you want to do this?
....

That's exactly why I don't do it for them. I will show them the manufacturer's tool that's there but most will not bother to touch it. It will be there the next time I come by. Same with the Win7 tool -- I'll tell them they can find it under "Backup" but I don't think I've ever had anyone ever tell me they've used it.

To me, that's the line. I'll let them know such a tool exists but I won't hold their hand in cutting off my line of income.

 

[1010Computers]

I am definitely going to try the other mentioned options but We use a program called Active@. Which comes as a live boot disk and serves this purpose and many others.

We mostly utilize it for commercial clients we have on service plans to make the recovery easier for the tech as oppose to using it on residential clients because it can create a world of headache if something is not done correctly by the user to keep the backup's current and functional, etc...

 

[Knightsman]

I think its def a good idea to do this and keep it in shop. At least your best customers. Saves you a lot of hassle in the future if their drive fails.

 

[ScottM]

Thanks for having my back, Nick. I guess it was easier to say it wasn't there than assume that someone might have known what they were talking about and spending 10 seconds on Google.

Ok i admit i was wrong im not looking for bad blood here.

On a completely seperate note keeping up with the forum i see the point that this may be giving the customer i little too much independence from the computer tech, but in my case i do work for all of the remax agents out of my region and i just felt like if i gave them a way to imediately recover from an absolute crash and failure then i can keep them doing business and making money for the other issues they are going to call me for when they dont want to lose everything they do past a certain point.

 

[ScottM]

I am definitely going to try the other mentioned options but We use a program called Active@. Which comes as a live boot disk and serves this purpose and many others.

We mostly utilize it for commercial clients we have on service plans to make the recovery easier for the tech as oppose to using it on residential clients because it can create a world of headache if something is not done correctly by the user to keep the backup's current and functional, etc...

When you use active@ to create an image do you need to use something special to reload the image or can the customer pop in the disk and recover to the image.