Video Tutorial: Backup And Restore System With PING

Find a tools to save and restore all Operating Systems and also suitable to use with all kind of media is a hard exercice. PING, not “echo request” ICMP message, but Partimage Is Not Ghost, is a bloc level backup tool that may help achieve this goal.

We saw in a previous article how to save and restore a Windows 2003 system by using ASR. This is a particular method available in Windows 2003 but not in Windows 2000 and older versions.

Based on a live linux 22Mb image, PING offers all needed commands to map a Windows share, mount an NFS partition, and maybe make an FTP image. The included automated dhcp client makes it easy for people not used to linux systems to use PING without any problem.

In the officiel Website we can read more details about its advantages; those I find interesting :

• Backup and Restore the BIOS data as well;
• Either burn a bootable CD / DVD, either integrate within a PXE / RIS environment;
• Possibility to Blank local admin’s password;
• Create your own restoration bootable DVD

and if we compare PING to DOS or Ghost tools :

• Most network cards automatically recognized by the Kernel;
• Most CD/DVD readers automatically recognized by the Kernel;
• You don’t have to run a Ghostcast server to receive images over the network;
• More supported filesystems;
• You can store an image on several CD/DVD (CD/DVD-spanning);
• You can backup and restore BIOS settings too;
• Much much smaller than WinPE / BartPE;

Basic linux commands are also available to run in the text mode. In fact, PING starts a text based assistant to guide the user step by step. It is always possible, if the assistant exits, to start it by using

/etc/init.d/rc.ping

script.

In the example I expose in this video, I start by making an image of a Windows 2003 server to a network share. Then I destroy the existant disk and create a new blank one. Then I restore the saved image to the new disk. Note that source and destination disks may be of different sizes, but necessary the source larger than the destination.

An evident remark is that the tool may be used for any kind of operating system, as it does not look at files level but in blocs one.

Enjoy seeing this video, and I hope it will help!

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PING is available to download in the offcial Web Site.