Powerquest Drive Image 7 Reviews

• Excellent backup software

  
  By A12DGMEUT0QO15 on 2003-08-06
  This is about the 4th version of Drive Image that I've run over the last few years and it is easily the most impressive.

  I upgraded from Drive Image 5 to DI 7 a few weeks ago and have been steadily wowed by the new version.

  Backups I've made with this software have now saved me twice -- once when I got a little too zealous with some file cleanup efforts, and once when an major software update failed in the middle. In both cases, I simply restored my previously saved backup image and within minutes everything was fine again.

  The single most important new feature is the ability to backup and restore while XP is active so you have easy access to network drives, USB drives, SCSI drives, full DMA support, etc -- all items that used to be problematic when backing up under DOS in previous versions.

  The DMA support (under Windows) and the new version boosted my backup speeds from one hard drive to another from 140MB/min to about 750MB/min. It's astonishing -- a 4 gigabyte backup takes 3 minutes on my 1.7ghz P4 machine with 2 IDE hard drives!

  DI7 now has the ultimate backup feature that I've been lusting after for many years -- unattended scheduling of backups. Previous versions allowed for backups to be scheduled but they had to be done when Windows wasn't active, or they couldn't include the system drive. Both restrictions are gone with this version -- simply set up a backup schedule and the Drive Image service will "wake up" and perform your backup with the OS active, whether you are logged in or not. All you have to do is clear off some hard drive space on another drive, sit back, and your drive will just automatically back itself up! Fabulous!

  Some of the other posters have touched on the downsides to the software -- DI is sensitive to the type of drives you are using -- it has limits with size and type (no Serial ATA yet, according to another poster). Previous versions were limited to 120GB drives, this one is limited to 160GB drives (I believe). Plenty big enough for me but it's something to be aware of.

  I was a little surprised initially when I went to restore my backed up system drive because I had to restart the system and boot off the DI 7 CD -- but this makes sense as you wouldn't want to wipe out the disk image of your currently running system drive. That would be a bit like sawing off the tree limb that you're standing on -- it's hard to fault PowerQuest for this.

  I also encountered a minor bug when backing up a drive to a CD after turning on the "maximum compression" setting -- it got to the final stages of burning the CD and then reported that an "unknown exception" had occurred. The problem vanished when I repeated this at the "default compression" setting.

  I highly recommend this software. This has been the most exciting software upgrade for me for the last year -- way to go PowerQuest!
  
  

• A great program, a terrible upgrade

  
  By A3A876E4S6LT4C on 2003-10-07
  First let me say I have used the Drive Image product for a number of years (since version 2 I believe). It has been a great program and has saved me countless hours when I have experienced hard drive failures and loaded software that corrupted my machine. It is highly recommended, but beware of version 7.

  There is a bug out there in version 7 waiting for Windows XP users. I received my version 7. Upon loading I promptly received an error message when requested to reboot that I had an unmountable drive. I tried to use normal "last good confirguration". Na da. Basically, I had to rebuild my operating system to save my data and then used Drive Image 2002 (version 6) to reimage my system. It was not pretty, but it worked. When I informed the folks who produce Drive Image (Powerquest) I was told after two weeks that my problem had been encountered by others and that they were working on a patch. Last time I checked the problem and the patch still were unloaded. I cannot afford to have a machine that is not backed up completely. I live in Florida the lightening capital of the world. Powerquest did refund my money and I have gone back to using version 6 with my Windows XP operating system.

  FYI - Version 6 comes bundled with Version 7. I wonder why. So... if your are upgrading from version 6 to 7 beware. If you don't have version 6 or 7 you can't lose. One is sure to work for you. Again, basically a great program, better than Norton Ghost.
  
  

• This is Beta software

  
  By on 2003-08-26
  PowerQuest DriveImage 2000 was a decent disk image backup program. It helped me recover from crashes several times, and I was able to clone my boot drive on a new computer with it. Also, the file editor allows you to pick out individual files to recover--great if you accidentally delete something. Given the usefulness of its predecessor, I had high hopes for version 7.0. Regrettably, DI 7.0 is not a reliable product. It has some very nice features, such as (allegedly) better Windows integration than the previous version, but it seems more than a bit buggy.

  First of all, DI 7 _does_ work on 2 of the 3 PCs I "administer" at my home. One of these is an older P3 box with a couple of IDE drives, the other is a Shuttle with a P4 Celeron and 1 100G SATA drive. However, DI does _not_ work on my main PC--a 2400mhz P4 with 2 SATA drives and 2 IDE drives. The problem is that DI refuses to recognize my boot drive--the one I really need to back up. I've corresponded with PowerQuest about this, and all they would say is that they do not support SATA and cannot say when or if they ever will.

  There are some other issues--the V2i service complains about "missing" disks when Windows starts up, and the GUI windows behave strangely, making the product difficult to use.

  I really wish PQ would get their act together--this _could_ be a really good backup option. I would expect defects like this in beta software--it's not right to release it in this condition, and provide no recourse for customers. As another reviewer noted, PQ does not have a "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" policy--it's more like "We've got your money, so sod off!" Caveat emptor.
  
  

• Drive Image 7 puts Ghost to Shame

  
  By A2NTPPYMD0Z0HG on 2004-01-08
  I've used Norton Ghost PE for several years on a Win 2k system. I can never be sure if I have a good Ghost backup or not. Often, I've had to rebuild my system from scratch after a disk crash when I discovered my Ghost backup was corrupted.

  Overall, I've been very pleased with Drive Image 7. It makes a perfect backup of Windows 2k when Windows is running. Each time I've needed to restore, it has worked flawlessly. I am backing up to an external USB drive. When restoring, Drive Image 7 has no difficulty recognizing and restoring from the USB hard drive.

  The negatives:
  1) Have been unable to create a DVD-RW backup. It will run for over 24 hours trying to backup 7 gigs of data. I've never been successful doing this. I have come to the conclusion this software is incapable of backup to DVD.

  2) It could just be my setup, but when booting from the Drive Image disk I am unable to see any other PC's on my local network. I've not spent much time troubleshooting this aspect, but from my limited experience so far, networking after bootup from the Drive Image CD will not work.

  However, if you want to backup your data to a locally connected hard drive I don't think you can beat this software.

  Hopefully future releases will fix the DVD and networking problems. When these problems are fixed, I don't think you could find a better solution to automated backups than Drive Image 7.
  
  

• Dangerous, poor quality software. Be careful.

  
  By A2GNKL18K6EGHV on 2004-02-25
  Drive Image 7 is potentially excellent software with at least two absolutely show-stopping bugs that make it impossible for me to recommend.

  1. Under some circumstances, DI7 makes an un-readable backup. Attempt to open your backup in the Backup Image Browser (DI7's image reader) and get the message "Invalid Backup Format." This situation does not become obvious until you attempt to read your backup, something you normally don't do until you try to restore information you thought you had backed up. The knowledge base articles for the error indicate that turning on a backup verification switch in the software will cause the backups to be unreadable. The solution they recommend is to make another backup with the switch turned off. Obviously this is not an option unless you know about the problem before you need to use the backup.

  2. If DI7 encounters an error during a regularly scheduled backup, it aborts the backup and remains silent. The only way to know that something has gone wrong is to look at the date of the last backup image, or to view the log information buried deep in the DI7 console. Errors that abort the backup occur more often than you might think. One common scenario is to run out of storage space on the target volume. What this means is that a periodic backup that has been working for a while can one day stop working, and Drive Image 7 will never tell you that this has happened. For a product that sells itself on convenient peace-of-mind, this is unacceptable.

  3. Symantic tech support is non-responsive. I have waited more than a month for a response to my questions about the Invalid Backup Format problem. I have received nothing but an automated acknowledgement that I submitted the question.

  Based on these fundamental problems, I cannot recommend the regular use of this software.
  
  

• the best disaster recovery software
  By on 2003-07-02
  a great upgrade from drive image 2002
  under the last version, a backup would take hours and had to be done in a DOS environment. Now it can be done in 15 min and in windows. WOW!! This is the software I've wanted for a long time. I"ve used norton ghost too, and this is better than that. save yourself any hassles and just get this. it ships with drive image 7 (windows xp users only) and also the 2002 version for those people who don't use windowsxp

  You need the CD to do any restoring of images.
  
  

• Drive Image 7 is a DOWNGRADE from Drive Image 2002
  By A2T8GIRKDMO420 on 2004-03-07
  I've used Drive Image 2002 for 18 months and was very impressed with it. So much so that when my son bought a PC loaded with XP, I insisted on getting a copy of Drive Image 7 on it straight away. Other Dads (and Mums) who want to upgrade - beware!
  
  Powerquest make a big play on DI7's ability to perform hot backups as an improvement on DI2002's use of DOS (meaning Windows can't be used during a backup). That's not the problem that Powerquest (and many reviewers) imply. With DI2002, it's easy to start a backup at the end of your day, which is a pretty sensible time to do it anyway. After the backup is complete, DI2002 can shut the PC down automatically. Those who use that trick will know that there is nothing simpler. Completely painless, reliable, 'cold' backups; capturing your latest work; with no inconvenience to you (you've gone to bed!).
  
  In contrast, DI7 takes hot backups - i.e. while you're working on the PC. That's a bigger challenge, but DI7's fancy technology still gets a single-point snapshot of the system, even though your activity will change files between the start-time and end-time of the backup. Well that's fine, except that the PC seems to lock-up occasionally while running a backup. I imagine that's the clever technology working out how to deal with modified files but it IS annoying, all too similar to a dreaded system hang - albeit for only several seconds at a time.

  So, here's where DI7 loses its first 'star' - backing up your system while working is NOT as safe as after you've finished, because (doh!) your completed work will not be on the backup.
  And I'll take off another star for the loss of the automatic shutdown facility. Now I can't leave the PC until the backup has finished. No more 'unattended' backups. :-(

  Next on my moan list is the loss of another feature - the ability to create and resize disk partitions. I'm not talking about multiple boot modes - just the ability to keep certain files on different logical drives, so that I can backup different types of data (on drives d:, e:, f: etc.) at different frequencies. Zip goes another star.

  With DI2002, you were forced to keep backup files on a different logical drive to the one being backed-up. Why? Simple: you don't want to back up your backup files! Let me explain. Having one backup is better than none, but it's more secure to take (say) one-per-week, overwriting each when it's a month old. That's five backup 'cycles' in total. It means that if you delete a file and don't realise for three weeks, you can still recover it from a backup taken four weeks ago. That's exactly what I did with DI2002 - it works a treat!

  Now, suppose you have 10gb of data and you keep your backup files on drive c: - as you must with DI7 if you don't buy their separate 'Partition Magic' product or have a second physical disk. Ignoring compression, your first backup will double the use of your hard disk (10+10), your second will quadruple it (10+10+20) and so on. After week 5, your backup files alone will require 310gb of space! By keeping them in a separate partition which you do NOT back up, your five backups take just 50gb. That's still a lot, but is not unrealistic with 120gb drives becoming common now. Compression does reduce the exponential effect, but the daft problem still exists - minus another star.
  
  Oh... and Powerquest have failed to take the simple solution - get DI7 to just ignore backup files when doing a backup. Another star bites the dust for stupidity.

  So that's it, one star left out of five. I suppose those without DI2002 will not realise what they're missing and will still get some benefit from the product. If you have Partition Magic or two physical drives, some of these problems will not apply anyway but for me, it's a very disappointing thumbs down.

  PS. Amazon won't let me take away another star but I will anyway. The box that DI7 comes in boasts of the awards that DI2002 has apparently received, rightly so. As DI7 has - in my opinion - a cut down set of features, I consider Powerquest's mention of DI2002's awards misleading to the point of dishonesty.
  
  

• Disappointed!
  By A1O5MH8ZZ0HBOL on 2004-05-18
  I purchased DI 7 because of the accolades it supposedly received. I knew I was going to need it since I was going to be getting a new hard drive for my failing hard-drive in my Dell laptop. At first, I was impressed how easy it was to backup my C:/ drive from my laptop to an external firewire hard drive. I even tested the Recovery Environment as it suggested, and that seemed to work without a hitch.

  Then the day came that I replaced my old hard drive with a new hard drive. I started out doing a bare metal recovery as it touts it can do effortlessly.... It didn't work. It gave me an error that my hard drive was not readable. So, I thought, I could just reinstall XP and then restore everything after I had the basic OS up and running. I tried it that way, and same result. Nothing.

  I consider myself an advanced computer user.... I know how to partition, reformat drives, etc etc.... All I wanted was an application that would make my life easier as the software said it would. It turns out I wasted $69.00 on this usless software. I guess I'll keep looking for another drive imaging application, because Drive Image 7 isn't worth squat. Good luck.
  
  

• Could be useful...unless your hardware is new
  By on 2003-07-27
  I've used the predecessor of this product--DriveImage 2000, and had pretty good luck with it. In fact, it has saved my bacon more than once. DI 2000 had its problems though--for example, I could never make it work by scheduling a backup from Windows 2000 and then rebooting, though the documentation (and their support people) said this should work. I always had to boot DI from floppies to make disk backups. So I bought the new Drive Image 7.0, figuring that PowerQuest was bound to get it right this time around. I was wrong.

  PowerQuest cleaned up the interface nicely, and it does look glitzy. It probably works pretty well too, like its predecessor, though I haven't been able to try it out myself. You see, this version has a defect I haven't found a workaround for: it won't recognize my boot drive. That's right, when the DI interface comes up, it lists every drive on my PC except for the boot drive (C:). And of course that's the one I really want to back up.

  I've got an Abit IS7E motherboard, and am running 3 hard drives: 2 of them are Serial ATA (SATA), including the boot drive, and one is IDE. Drive Image can only find D: and E:, but not C:

  I emailed PowerQuest support (I only got the support email by complaining to a sales person, by the way) with my problem, and was told that DI does not support SATA, and that they cannot say when or if the product will ever do so. Since SATA is catching on rapidly (no more ribbon cables! Yeah!), this seems like a pretty major defect to me--one that prospective buyers should be warned against.

  So this might be a really useful product for you--unless you have the very newest hardware or intend to buy some in the future. PowerQuest has a "no money back" policy, by the way. Caveat Emptor.
  
  

• Huge amount of problems
  By A31SP52NSX7G39 on 2004-03-21
  I have used various versions of Drive Image for 4 years. All have had problems but version 7 has more problems than previous versions. I have encountered a number of the problems I have seen mentioned here. I just put on the upgrade to 7.3 (on a very stable Windows 2000 system), hoping it would fix some of the problems, and it instantly crashed my system and made my system unbootable!!! What an atrocious disgrace. And now that Symantec (Norton) has taken over the product and its support, there is virtually no support or help. The support on the web site is terribly lacking and almost useless. The error messages the product gives are often undocumented.

  Particularly bad, as mentioned by someone else, is that DI can create a backup image and say it is successful. But when it later views the image it says the image is invalid. That's as bad as it gets with backup software. The reason I still use Drive Image (I am back to using DI 5 as it is less error-prone than DI 7)is that I have had even bigger problems with Norton Ghost. I wish there was a good and reliable software product for making image backups, but haven't found one yet.
  
  

• Please dont buy this garbage.
  By on 2004-06-24
  So you have lost some data due to hard drive failure or accidentally messing something up. That was me 10 months ago.
  I started my "PowerQuest" for backup software. TahDah! Powerquest Drive Image 7, from a reputable online retailer. I read all the reviews and although hesitant plunked my $70 bucks down and got it. After reading all the info I could based on the amazon reviews here and the symantec support website, I proceded to install. All went well and I updated to the latest patch and made my first image. Great! Then I got the bright idea of trying out the backup. So I deleted a couple things and proceded to reboot to the backup cd set (cd-r spanning 5 disks.) All went fine and 25 min later I was rebooting, well I tried to reboot. Ended up wiping out what I set out to protect. After the 3hr rebuild process I decided not to try again. Symantec promises a 60 day satifaction guarentee so I asked for my money back following proper procedure as outlined on their support site. It's been 16 weeks and now support has forwarded my refund inquires to corporate (promised 48 hrs response time) its been a week and still no response to my refund inquiries. Glad I photocopied all materials I sent for the refund. Buyer beware.
  
  Update. 9.5 months finally got my $20 rebate. Still absolutely no response on the refund request. I refuse to call long distance to work this out. Get a 1-800 number like a real company.
  
  
• Beware and listen to the warnings
  By AQKMF4VSNQZAS on 2005-02-02
  I ignored the warnings of others that I read here and ordered this. The Drive Image 7 product that I received from the Amazon.com seller had a big problem (old version perhaps?).
  It created drive backups OK but when I tried to boot the product disk to load the "Power Quest Recovery Environment" to do a system restore it failed solid with TXTSETUP.OEM error 18.
  Turns out that the product disk was burned with a directory that had its name truncated on the CDROM. Unbeliveable but true.
  After editting a copy of the disk's image to correct things, and reburning it I have it working, but I now no longer feel I can trust this product to do the backup tasks that I bought it for.
  Symantec web site wants money before helping you, so forget that option your all on your own.
  
  
• Terrible support even for telephone activation
  By A2HT3GA21S5D8J on 2004-08-23
  PowerQuest used to provide excellent support last 5 years when I used their product. Symantec is giving us almost no support. The web site won't even give you instructions for activating the Drive Image 7 or Partition Magic 8 by phone correctly. What they gave you won't work for DI7 or PM8. Telephone number they ask you to call for activation is always busy and tell you to call back later. We paid for the long distance charge too. After 15 or 30 days,(depends on which document you read) you are locked out of the software you paid for if you cannot get through to Symantec.. Other very serious problems are revealed by other customers. Read their comments before you want to pay for the software. Also if you own more than one computers, you must purchase another license.
  I'll just go back to my DI5 and PM7 for now.
  
  
• User Friendly Back up
  By AY1EQBBL2BONH on 2003-07-31
  I had an unfortunate experience with an under-warranty Gateway running XP. To make a long story short, they eventually fixed it but only after re-installing XP (which they did not have to do). I was left with no software at all (even that which came with the computer since it was destroyed by a moving company). I determined this would not happen again. I purchased Drive Image 7 and it was the easiest program I ever used. Following their step by step instructions I tested to see if it would boot off the CD (it did) and backed up in no time to an external drive. You can even schedule backups and copy the backup to a CD. I wish I had this sooner. Best thing is you don't need to be a computer genius to use it.
  
  
• This software killed my machine
  By A1FR0QXISRL15Z on 2003-09-18
  This software is hazardous. I had a perfectly good working Win XP Pro, fast, high-end machine. Now I have a machine that takes forever to boot, if it boots, and has too many NEW problems to mention that all arrived with my installation of this software. All I wanted to do was upgrade my harddrive now I am forced to re-install everything and start from scratch just to get a good configuration. I have used Ghost in the past and it was simple.

  Not only did it kill my machine but even with my machine booted with the last known good configuration the software does not work at all. I am a Systems Analyst and I have repaired, configured, tested, installed many machines and software and in all my days I have never seen such an outright piece of trash....well except for maybe the early days of Microsoft patches where you always made sure to back up your system first or face the consequences.

  Buyer beware!!!!
  
  

• Drive Image Fails
  By on 2003-12-30
  I first purchased Drive Image 6 a couple of years ago and when it failed to perform safe image copies Powerquest convinced me to upgrade to Version 2002. It has been more frustrating than V6. They make many claims but the features they promise don't always work. Backing up across a network is impossible, and accessing images after creation is not guaranteed.

  I made a backup of an XP machine prior to upgrading from Home to Professional, and when I encountered problems with the upgrade I couldn't open the backup image file. Their Knowledgebase is pathetic and doesn't even list the 2002 version as a choice. If you want reliability and good support, don't buy from Powerquest - you will be disappointed. They claim to safeguard your data but the program is unreliable so how safe is that?

  I wish I could give it a zero, but the lowest rating here is 1 star - but to me it is a real zero.
  
  

• Warning: Bug in Drive Image 7.0
  By AYX3GWN68ACLB on 2004-01-28
  Warning! An apparent bug in DI7 prevents some .PSD and .PDF files from being restored correctly from a DI7 backup. This affects only individual file restores, rendering this option useless. Full restores (of the entire drive image) work properly. Unless this bug problem is resolved, I cannot give DI7 the 5-star rating it deserves.

  I communicated with the PowerQuest DI7 product manager up until about 2 months ago, and then communications stopped. This may have been around the time Symantec acquired the product. I will assume that the bug is real and PowerQuest/Symantec has been unable to fix it. I am not sure why only some .PDF and .PSD files fail to restore correctly. File size doesn't seem to be a factor, though more large files than small ones have failed. Not every .PDF or .PSD file fails to restore.

  This effectively renders DI7 to be no different than DI5, and no better than Symantec Ghost. My advice - Don't spend your money to upgrade to or purchase DI7 until PowerQuest/Symantec provides the necessary bug fix.
  
  

• Forget Drive Image 7.0 or 7.01, minus 5 stars
  By A36MDN16VK4BGU on 2004-02-17
  I bought Drive Image 7.0 when it first became available in July 93. I did not attempt to install until mid-October due to travel and work. First few attempts to install were un-successful. Could never get the program to start up after install. Removed, re-installed many times, with no luck. Complained to PowerQuest, they sent the upgrade 7.01 disk free except for shipping charges. Replacement disk arrived with a crack across one side. Reordered, paid 7.95 shipping again. Still no luck on getting it to run. I requested another disk, again for a fee since the disk I received did not have version 7.01 anwhere on the disk or sleeve and there was no way to tell if it was 7.01 since I could never get an opening screen. Third disk did have 7.01 on the disk sleeve but the CD does not show anything other than 7.0, on any of the copies. Same story, installed o.k but will not run. No support from my last email request to support over two weeks ago. I provided all the error codes, etc. They did not even acknowledge the email. Up until the last email, they always acknowledged. None of the error codes I received,nor the FAQ's or other database codes even listed the codes or problem I was having. I have loaded, removed, reloaded DI7, many times. I have also removed/reloaded .NET Framework, upgraded that, disabled all start up programs, except Norton Internet Security and made at least 50 reboots plus hours of wasted time. I did not remove Norton Internet Security, although it was disabled on during all my installs and attempts to run the DI program. Reinstalling NIS is not a problem but getting updates downloaded requires a lot of time. Not removing NIS may have actually saved me from a hard disk wipe out based on the reviews I have read which mentions disk wipe outs and having to reload WinXP and all programs again.

  The only thing that works with DI 7 on my computer is the CD will boot my computer, nothing locks up during installs or attempts to run. All I get is an error message stating: "V2I console-common lanquage runtime debugging service". "Application has generated an exception than can not be handled. process ID=0xbe0(3040, thread id=0xfb8 (4024)" (The codes change for each start-up attempt. Also on the same page "Click O.K to terminate or cancel to debug" which, if you click "Cancel" then produces another message about no debugger attached asks for a manual attachment of a debugger I do not have and would not use, shouldn't have to!

  After almost six months of ownership, I have never seen the opening screen for DI 7 and have never progressedto the point where a serial number or requested is requested.

  I am running a very stable Toshiba 2.4 MHZ system with one gig of ram, WinXP-SP1 and all updates from Microsoft. It has never locked up or glitched!!.

  I bought DI 7 to use, not test or trouble-shoot. Maybe I am truly fortunate DI 7 never gets past the error message point. Based on all the high number of error codes mentioned by PQ in the support and help documentattion plus all the negative reviews I have read, I should be glad DI 7 doesn't run on my computer.

  One should not have to pay almost 100.00 (original price + tax + upgrade to 7.01 plus shipping and tax X 2)and then have to beg for help, or worse yet be asked to pay for help on defective software. Support the product or get out of the business!!!

  I have been working with computers since before the first IBM desktop became available and have always been able to work around a problem without ever asking, even once, for help from any software developer. DI 7.0 and 7.1 is the worst piece of software I have encountered thus far. Second worst ia a tax program for 2002 tax year, name not mentioned.

  Now PowerQuest has dumped DI 7 into Symantec's lap for support, which is non-existent at the moment. I suppose DI 8 by Symantec will be out soon. Until this point I have always had good results with PowerQuest products. But PowerQuest has lost me as a customer.

  There is no "negative 5 star" rating, which is how I rate it. If it works for you, wonderful! I truly wish it worked for me since it sounded like the perfect backup solution when it first became available.
  
  I have not and will not remove any program from my computer to enable any purchased software to install or run, unless it was advertised as being non-compatible and I decided to take my chances. If it can not coexist with other normally used software-----it is not good software!

  I have now removed all traces of DI7, VI2 protector, plus .NET frame work from my computer since no longer need that. I edited my registry and WinXP files to get all traces of PowerQuest out of my computer and am finished with all PowerQuest products! I have also asked PowerQuest to take me off their mailing list for future news, upgrades, and new products.

  Hasta La Vista, PowerQuest---I won't be back
  
  

• Poor product and even worst support!
  By A2VIOAYIE09P7G on 2004-12-23
  I purchased Drive Image 7.0 to backup a 160G 3 partition hard drive on Windows 2000 pro. It only sees one partition, if you run a utility program from Power Quest it thinks the end cylinder is larger than the disk, but if you look at the data, it is the end cylinder from Power Quest that doesn't seem to support extended partitions larger than 137 GB. The main issue is that the Drive Image program doesn't report any errors, it just sees one partition. When I called for support, they were extremely un helpful, after downloading the latest version of the SW it still doesn't work. The problem is still not solved!
  
  
• Powerquest Drive Image 7 for Windows 2000 and XP
  By on 2003-09-02
  Thus far I have been happy with Drive Image 7. In the past I used Norton Ghost and it worked fine on FAT 32 hard drives on older Windows platforms. But Norton Ghost is useless for making images of hard drives formatted in NTFS, which is used in XP Pro and usually on Windows 2000. To date it has worked fine, it is easy to use (user friendly), makes images very fast, and has no limits on the size of image files. Norton Ghost would span files larger than 2 gigabytes. Considering that the NTFS filing system is becoming more common, Drive Image 7 satisfies the need to image hard drives in NTFS.
  
  
• Works great. Easy to use.
  By on 2003-09-24
  Works as advertised. I took me 14 mins to create a image of my harddrive to an external firewire drive. The drive had 15 GB of data, and the compressed image was 8.5GB. I wanted to test it to make sure that the product actually works, so I've booted off the included recovery CD, all my controllers were recognized even thou my C: drive is all SCSI and mad up of 3 drives in RAID 0, while the D: drive is a IDE RAID 0 too. The firewire drive was recognized too, so I was able to select the backup image and strat the restore. After 20 min I was able to reboot my newly recovered drive.

  The only issue I had is that I use a new motherboard that includes the Intel 1000/100BaseT network chip-set, and the PowerQuest recovery disk did not recognize it, so would've not been able to do a restore by using a network stored image. However this should not be a issue since in the online manual there is information on how to load drivers at boot time, I haven't used the procedure for now.

  On more thing, this product is extremlly easy to use. All functions, including the recovery disk use the WindowsXP intreface, not DOS.
  
  

• Beware of DriveImage 7 : it's a trap!
  By A15K8FGMS12JTP on 2003-10-13
  PowerQuest sells you their DriveImage 7 upgrade promising you that you will be able to create a backup image of your drives on dvd.Not true in my case. I have win2k and upgraded from DI 2000 in order to have a backup of my C drive on one or two dvds instead of a dozen Cds, but ...If I backup the drive (10 GB,standard compression) on a hard disk, it takes about 7 minutes. On dvd : after seven hours (!!!) it had done about 22%. Which should mean about 30+ hours to complete the backup...
  I called PowerQuest and told them the sad news in July.In August they asked me to wait for a patch. In October, a few days ago, they told me that I could download an upgrade: Drive Image 7.01 which should solve the problem. Not true: nothing has changed.I shall ask for a refund.
  
  
• I would give zero stars if I could.
  By on 2004-01-01
  I bought it because the magazine reviews said it was great and would work with Windows XP. I'm a software engineer with a lot of PC knowledge and experience and am considered an expert by many people. In five attempts to back-up different partitions to CD-R, only one attempt succeeded (a single partition that would fit on a single CD-R disk). The first failed attempt I attributed to the screen saver kicking on during the back-up, although, technically, it should not have failed because it uses UDF format for writing to CD-R; but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It appears that, even though you can select multiple partitions for back-up, even if the multiple partitions would fit on a single CD-R, it will not let you. Neither the program nor documentation tells you this. I attributed the second failed attempt to putting in the same CD-R when backing-up the second partition. It does not verify the data until it completely finishes the back-up of the partition. By the time it realizes that a disk failed during a partition back-up, it's too late to re-write that disk. The third failure was disk three of a four CD-R back-up failing to be verified. The fourth failure had no logical reason for failing. Don't waste your money. Norton Ghost has not failed me yet. It may be more cumbersome to use in XP, but it's do-able.
  
  
• Version 7 is not stable
  By A1A6XQRRK09SZ1 on 2004-10-13
  I am using PQ products almost 5 years and agree with all previous reviewes version 7 is bad. I had problem with XP Home edition. There is no dicent support for current product. (...) Symantec blaming PQ and PQ are diluted in the Symantec - endless loop.
  
  
• Go for Acronis 6.0 or Ghost 2003 instead...
  By A3HRMSVAXLIETB on 2003-08-03
  I have last year's version, Drive Image 2002, and it was far less problematic than this version. I thought for sure the stripped down Windows environment that Drive Image 7 boots to would be worth it. I believe it's called the PQRE.

  That is pretty cool, but for me it wasn't worth it. I say that because whatever Drive Image 7 does on boot, i.e. seemingly tries to load before everything else...causing other programs and services not to load at all. My guess is that the V2i security that Drive Image 7 uses to secure back-ups might be part of the problem?! Nearly everytime I'd boot up it would boot as though everything was normal, get almost to the Windows XP loading screen, then restart again!

  After all of that restarting it would just flat out kill start-up routines initiated by some other services and programs. E.g. most of the time, in my experience, it would prevent ATI Launchpad from starting, Saitek profiler start would be killed, and finally Nero InCD wouldn't be loaded. It affected the Saitek utility so much that I'd be guaranteed of an error message when I finally got into Windows XP! The message was "Sorry, you were in the middle of something" with the option to send the error report to Microsoft. No need to send an error report to Microsoft, I've identified the problem...it's Drive Image 7!!!

  Sadly enough, I made the mistake of not thoroughly checking to see if this software comes with a 30-day money back guarantee! I searched through the minimal manual, and all over the product box to see if they did have a guarantee printed somewhere. No luck! So if you do decide to get this product make sure it's worth the risk to you because it seems as though you won't have a chance to get your money back if it doesn't work for you.

  If you want a slick, easy-to-use, imaging utility, try Acronis 6.
  
  

• Sadly Disappointed
  By on 2003-09-18
  I recently purchased and external CD writer for the purpose of creating an "image" of my c drive in case of catastrophe recovery. About a year ago I got a computer virus and while I was able to get the computer up and running, reloading all of the software, network info, print drivers etc took at least a day. A friend recommended Ghost but I chose Powerquest because it indicates that you can write directly to an external CD writer. You can but only if you have the latest version of windows. Unfortunately the instructions do not clearly indicate that. So after several attemps to save my image to CD, I finally called tech support only to find that it will not work with WIN98. Fortunately Amazon{.com} will let me return the software. Too bad about my wasted afternoon. I do give the company credit.... instead of the usual half hour wait on the phone for tech support followed by hours of trying to explain the problem and getting no where, he answered right away, assessed my issue within seconds and immediately suggested I return the product - hence the 2 vs 0 rating for this product.
  
  
• Never works with WinXP Home or Pro, but works with Win2K
  By AKSMBO6ZBDLF0 on 2003-12-15
  I purchased Drive Image 7.0 and installed it to my Windows XP Home edition machine. After it was installed, a message asked me to reboot the machine. It couldn't boot into Windows. I was forced to reverse back to last good configuration to boot into windows. Then I found that DI7.0 didn't work at all because a critical component (v2iprotector service) couldn't be installed or the machine would not boot into windows. I tried to upgrade to DI7.01 but no luck, still the same. Before it was rebooted, the v2iprotector service was installed but the machine would refuse to boot into windows if the service was installed. I then tried that on my Windows Pro machine and found the same problem. Norton antivirus reported an attempt to delete my hard disk boot sector. I didn't grant the permission to do that. If I didn't have Norton, my hard disk could have been deleted. What a piece of junk! Then I tried to install it on my Windows 2000 machine anticipating a complete crash. To my surprise, it was installed without any problem. However, when I tried to create an image on CD using the highly compressed format, it didn't work. The program created three CDs for my 3GB data on a hard disk. However, when I tried to restore my hard disk using the CDs, the program could not see the backup file. I had to use a portable external hard drive to do the image again. This time it worked perfectly: I created an image for my 3GB data using the standard image option then cloned a few Windows 2000 machines using the image. It took about an hour to clone a machine with 3GB data, but it worked. From the reviews, we know that this software is not stable. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. Buyers: be aware! Do a complete backup or make sure your recovery CDs are around before you try this product!
  
  
• Drive Image 7 - Not the right stuff
  By on 2004-04-19
  Try Drive Image 7 and didn't work. Upgraded to 7.03 the same error message.
  Description: An error occurred creating a backup of drive C:\. The Virtual Volume Imaging driver (pqv2i.sys) is not present on the system.
  Error Description: An error occurred creating a backup of drive C:\. The Virtual Volume Imaging driver (pqv2i.sys) is not present on the system.
  Error EC8F000C: Cannot find the Virtual Volume Image driver. Error 00000002: The system cannot find the file specified.
  Details: Unspecified error: Cannot find the Virtual Volume Image driver. Error 00000002: The system cannot find the file specified.
  Details: Unspecified error
  Since I opened the software - can not return it and I'm stuck with something that doesn't work. :-(
  
  
• Does not support Win XP
  By A3ENZS3MJ07S81 on 2003-11-16
  There seems to be no way to upgrade a hard drive using Windows XP with Drive Image 7. Numerous attempts, even with attempting to reinstall XP ended in failure. I finally used Acronis True Image 6 and accomplished the upgrade on the first attemp.
  
  
• Software is a junk
  By on 2004-04-24
  Because of this software I have to rebuild my computer. Nothing works. Even the basic user interface changes size everytime I reopen this software.
  I paid to get this headache.
  
  

• Microsoft Office XP Standard Upgrade [Old Version]
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Upgrade [OLD VERSION]
• CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 11 Upgrade
• Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional Upgrade
• Digital Image Suite 9

• Drive Image 2002