Unfortunately the installation of a PC operating system can be a very time- consuming matter and may be necessary both when setting up new computers and reconfiguring the computer after a serious loss of data. As well as the actual operating system various additional drivers usually have to be installed for the hardware used in the PC. If the PC is also connected to a network and still more software packages have to be installed a great deal of time may be taken up with this before the PC functions correctly. If several operating systems are running on a PC the amount of time required for installation is even greater.
The best solution to these kinds of problems naturally consists of preparing a system backup and using this when needed. However it is unfortunately often the case that an operating system cannot sometimes be restored file by file. This is often because the long file name from DOS happily used as a minimal emergency system cannot be used or the file status flags (system, write protection, etc.) are not correctly set up after playback. Still more serious problems occur if several operating systems are installed on one computer. Often backup programs are unable to access external file systems (e.g. FAT32 or Linux partitions are not legible without special drivers from Windows NT 4) so that no backup can be prepared.
The approach used by Nero as a solution to the problems addressed above consists of backing up a sector of the hard disk. Here the backup contains virtually all sectors of the hard disk or of the partition backed up. Such a procedure has the advantage that operating systems of all kinds can be backed up and that they are fully capable of running and also configured after being restored. However there is the disadvantage that such backups (previously) could only be replayed in full and the desired reproduction of individual paths or files is therefore not possible.
See also:
Temporary restrictions on Nero hard disk backups