External Hard Drive backups. = Acronis/Norton

Hi, All
I have a "Seagate 250gb FreeAgent" Desktop External USB Hard drive, which I use to store my Windows XP 32bit Backups created by "Norton Ghost 9".

I have now purchased a 2nd Desktop PC - "Windows Vista" 64bit - I will be using "Acronis Home 2009 " for the Backups on this PC, = Can I use the same external USB Hard drive to store Both the Ghost, And Acronis, Backup Images, or would there be a compatibility problem when I eventually restore an Image on Either PC,

I realise it would be logical to use the Acronis Software for the Backups on both PCs but I have used the Norton Ghost on this PC for the Past 5 yrs and it has proved to be very Reliable. also I have only a single use licence for the Acronis Home 2009,

I would be Grateful if anyone has had any experience of using the two system on an External HDD, Many Thanks for your esteemed replies.

Well...let's clarify a bit first. I don't have any "experience" per se, but I do use one of the precursors of today's Ghost (Powerquest Drive Image) to do my routine backups...and I've played with Acronis True Image to compare it with Drive Image. I also used Norton Ghost long ago, before it was combined with Drive Image (when Powerquest was acquired by Symantec).

A backup made with either product mentioned...can only be restored by using the software which created it. So there is no inherent conflict between the files backed up.

As for restoration or retrieval of files from either backup...again, same rules apply. Only the program which created the files...can open those specific files, no conflict at all doing restoration of a backup...just have to use the right program to restore the right files.

The one other thing I must add...saving backups to an external hard drive...does not mean that a user will be able to run Windows from that external drive. The external drive takes the place of a CD in that it is just a storage location...the files will still have to be restored to a drive which is installed directly in the system to the motherboard.

Louis

Hi, Hamluis, Thanks for your input, I will of course be restoring the backups with the software that created them, = XP 32bit = with Ghost 9 -with Bootable recovery Disk. on PC 1. and = "Vista 64bit" = with Acronis home 2009 - with Bootable Recovery Disk on PC2

The Back ups Created are complete C Drive Images, used in case of emergencies, to be Stored on the same USB Ex. Drive.

I personally cant think of any conflict with storing the both types of backup images on the same storage device, but I seem to remember reading something to the contrary some time ago regarding the way that Ghost Produces a secondary file for its backup images.

hope this Clarifies my original Query. Thanks Again.