2nd Hard Drive as a backup

[Tom Vought]

Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation of a
new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C: bootable
etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
system files) over to D: regularly.

Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1 (from
dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going to be
that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if you
have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you somehow
mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD when
the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?

The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set up?'
Thanks for any and all advice.

Tom

[Michael A. McKenney]

Get a 3 Ware IDE RAID controller and do RAID 1.


"Tom Vought" > wrote in message
...
> Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation of
a
> new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C: bootable
> etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
> backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
> partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
> system files) over to D: regularly.
>
> Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
> unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1 (from
> dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going to
be
> that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
> Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if
you
> have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you
somehow
> mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD when
> the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?
>
> The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set up?'
> Thanks for any and all advice.
>
> Tom
>
>

[R. C. White]

Hi, Tom.

When I added a second HD, I installed a second copy of WinXP onto it so that
I could dual-boot into it from my opening menu. Later, like your Dad, I
decided to add some insurance, just in case my first HD died. I disabled
the first HD so that the second one became Drive 0 (zero). Then I booted
from my WinXP CD-ROM and "repaired" WinXP on the second HD. This time,
since the second HD was Drive 0, WinXP Setup wrote the "system files"
(ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini) into the first partition of that drive.
Then I moved the second HD back to primary slave and plugged in the first HD
again as primary master.

Now, I have two copies of WinXP installed and I can boot to either by
choosing from the opening menu. If I like, I can disable or remove my first
HD and boot to my second copy.

Actually, my system is more complex than that. My first HD is a SCSI drive
on an Adaptec SCSI host adapter. The second and third drives are IDE,
running off a built-in RAID controller. Each HD has a single primary
partition (for booting) and an extended partition holding one or more
logical drives. I like to keep each "system partition" as small and simple
as possible, holding only the "system files" and not much else. Each copy
of WinXP is in its own "boot volume" with as little else as WinXP will let
me get by with, just in case I have to reformat the boot volume for some
reason. All my applications, data, storage, etc., are in other volumes for
similar reasons. I've probably overdone the separate volume thing, but I do
think it is a very good thing to isolate WinXP in its own volume, separate
from apps and data.

Your Dad doesn't have to make it that complex. First, boot from the WinXP
CD-ROM and install WinXP again, this time putting it on D:, letting Setup
create the boot menu on Drive C:. Then move the primary ribbon cable
connector to his new drive and boot from the WinXP CD-ROM again. This time,
choose only to Repair the only WinXP installation connected at that point -
the one on the new HD. The Repair operation will write the boot sector and
system files into the first partition of what will be the only HD at that
point. When finished, he could put the primary cable connector back onto
Drive 0.

From then on, when he boots normally, he'll get a choice of whether to boot
from WinXP on C: or WinXP on D:. In an emergency, he can pull the plug on
C: and boot from the second drive, which will boot to the only copy of WinXP
it knows about.

Just watch out when adding or removing HDs; "drive" letters can get tricky
each time the HD lineup changes!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

"Tom Vought" > wrote in message
...
> Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation of
a
> new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C: bootable
> etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
> backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
> partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
> system files) over to D: regularly.
>
> Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
> unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1 (from
> dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going to
be
> that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
> Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if
you
> have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you
somehow
> mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD when
> the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?
>
> The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set up?'
> Thanks for any and all advice.
>
> Tom

[Tom Vought]

R.C.

Thanks! That was just what I was looking for. Thought it was possible,
just wanted to be sure, and to know what to do if we had to swap out.

As to multiple partitions, I found them useful on my first 60 megabyte
Seagate RLL. Programs on C: and data on D:, then only had to back up the D:
drive to the 1/4 inch tape cartridge. Backing up 60 megabytes all the time
on a sequential tape cartridge was too much time (3 hours) on a second
generation PC at 4.77mhz. Me thinks I'm showing my age.

"R. C. White" > wrote in message
...
> Hi, Tom.
>
> When I added a second HD, I installed a second copy of WinXP onto it so
that
> I could dual-boot into it from my opening menu. Later, like your Dad, I
> decided to add some insurance, just in case my first HD died. I disabled
> the first HD so that the second one became Drive 0 (zero). Then I booted
> from my WinXP CD-ROM and "repaired" WinXP on the second HD. This time,
> since the second HD was Drive 0, WinXP Setup wrote the "system files"
> (ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini) into the first partition of that drive.
> Then I moved the second HD back to primary slave and plugged in the first
HD
> again as primary master.
>
> Now, I have two copies of WinXP installed and I can boot to either by
> choosing from the opening menu. If I like, I can disable or remove my
first
> HD and boot to my second copy.
>
> Actually, my system is more complex than that. My first HD is a SCSI
drive
> on an Adaptec SCSI host adapter. The second and third drives are IDE,
> running off a built-in RAID controller. Each HD has a single primary
> partition (for booting) and an extended partition holding one or more
> logical drives. I like to keep each "system partition" as small and
simple
> as possible, holding only the "system files" and not much else. Each copy
> of WinXP is in its own "boot volume" with as little else as WinXP will let
> me get by with, just in case I have to reformat the boot volume for some
> reason. All my applications, data, storage, etc., are in other volumes
for
> similar reasons. I've probably overdone the separate volume thing, but I
do
> think it is a very good thing to isolate WinXP in its own volume, separate
> from apps and data.
>
> Your Dad doesn't have to make it that complex. First, boot from the WinXP
> CD-ROM and install WinXP again, this time putting it on D:, letting Setup
> create the boot menu on Drive C:. Then move the primary ribbon cable
> connector to his new drive and boot from the WinXP CD-ROM again. This
time,
> choose only to Repair the only WinXP installation connected at that
point -
> the one on the new HD. The Repair operation will write the boot sector
and
> system files into the first partition of what will be the only HD at that
> point. When finished, he could put the primary cable connector back onto
> Drive 0.
>
> From then on, when he boots normally, he'll get a choice of whether to
boot
> from WinXP on C: or WinXP on D:. In an emergency, he can pull the plug on
> C: and boot from the second drive, which will boot to the only copy of
WinXP
> it knows about.
>
> Just watch out when adding or removing HDs; "drive" letters can get tricky
> each time the HD lineup changes!
>
> RC
> --
> R. C. White, CPA
> San Marcos, TX
>
> Microsoft Windows MVP
>
> "Tom Vought" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation
of
> a
> > new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C:
bootable
> > etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
> > backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
> > partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
> > system files) over to D: regularly.
> >
> > Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
> > unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1
(from
> > dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going
to
> be
> > that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
> > Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if
> you
> > have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you
> somehow
> > mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD
when
> > the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?
> >
> > The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set
up?'
> > Thanks for any and all advice.
> >
> > Tom
>
>

[Roy Rogers]

I agree with Michael...what you need to do is set your Dad up with a simple
RAID 1 array. That way, no backup programs at all to worry about...it's all
done for you under the covers in hardware. If a disk goes bad, the good one
takes over automatically, and the user is informed of the disk failure. The
user simply replaces the bad drive at his earliest convenience, and RAID
will take care of mirroring the primary drive. It really doesn't get any
easier.

"Tom Vought" > wrote in message
...
> Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation of
a
> new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C: bootable
> etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
> backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
> partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
> system files) over to D: regularly.
>
> Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
> unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1 (from
> dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going to
be
> that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
> Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if
you
> have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you
somehow
> mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD when
> the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?
>
> The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set up?'
> Thanks for any and all advice.
>
> Tom
>
>

[David Shorthouse]

True, but you can't go back in time with a RAID1 array. If a system file
somehow gets corrupt, it'll be corrupt on the other disk as well, making
both XP installations a mess. Might I suggest just a simple Ghost clone
every once in a while?

Dave

"Roy Rogers" > wrote in message
...
> I agree with Michael...what you need to do is set your Dad up with a
simple
> RAID 1 array. That way, no backup programs at all to worry about...it's
all
> done for you under the covers in hardware. If a disk goes bad, the good
one
> takes over automatically, and the user is informed of the disk failure.
The
> user simply replaces the bad drive at his earliest convenience, and RAID
> will take care of mirroring the primary drive. It really doesn't get any
> easier.

[Tracy Lee]

>Actually, my system is more complex than that. My first
>HD is a SCSI drive on an Adaptec SCSI host adapter. The
>second and third drives are IDE, running off a built-in
>RAID controller. Each HD has a single primary partition
>(for booting) and an extended partition holding one or
>more logical drives. I like to keep each "system
>partition" as small and simple as possible, holding only
>the "system files" and not much else. Each copy of
>WinXP is in its own "boot volume" with as little else as
>WinXP will let me get by with, just in case I have to
>reformat the boot volume for some reason. All my
>applications, data, storage, etc., are in other volumes
>for similar reasons. I've probably overdone the
>separate volume thing, but I do think it is a very good
>thing to isolate WinXP in its own volume, separate from
>apps and data.

This sounds along the lines of what I was trying to do.
I've got a 14 GB dynamic NTFS drive with 2 partitions C:,
6 GB, for the OS, system files, and utilities, and E:, 8
GB, for "Entertainment." (Supposed to be for mp3s,
games, etc...most of what we use the computer for at this
point. I also have several cds with NETg courses for
studing for various Microsoft certifications.) (I was
going to have C: as a 3 MB partition and D: as 3 MB for
the courseware, but C: grew so large so fast I had to
change plans.) However, I have trouble getting my
husband, A+ certified but wants the computer world to
stay at Win98 technology and moving out of the IT field,
to co-operate with this. He doesn't like XP, as it's too
slow, (well, we have a Celeron ii runing at 333...the
computer was *given* to us for free...we're going to
upgrade when we can afford to), and various programs can
only be accessed from "my" profile, so he would just use
mine, complaining about having two profiles. (I wound up
switching the two profiles simply to get him to stop
whining. With a 10 month old, my time is at a premium
for trying to get the system to where it "works" the way
he wants it to.)

Any ideas on how to make it so things automatically
install to E:/Program Files/ ? And any way to move
things installed to C: to E:, or do I just have to
reinstall them? At some point, we need to get new
drives, (I've also got a 4 GB drive for backup, and a 1.5
GB drive). My 14 GB drive is giving me errors about
outdated atapi firmware. (Warning ID 26: "The driver has
detected that device \Device\Ide\IdePort0 has old or out-
of-date firmware. Reduced performance may result.") Any
way to update this? I've already checked for drivers,
and lowlevel formated the drive. Would I be best just
waiting until I can afford a new drive?

[Bob Willard]

Michael A. McKenney wrote:
> Get a 3 Ware IDE RAID controller and do RAID 1.
>

RAID-1 gives protection against HD failure, but offers no help
for problems caused by bad software, bad environment (esp. A.C.
power), or -- the number one cause of requests to restore --
fumble fingers. Since modern HDs have MTBFs on the order of
100 years, using RAID-1 in lieu of backup software is (if you'll
pardon my use of a technical term) nuts.
--
Cheers, Bob

[Roy Rogers]

Agreed that for critical files, you should still back them up, and for
greatest security, to some other media, like tape, CDR, or even some
network/internet service. But for OS boot disks, SW installations, and most
common things people do at home, RAID 1, along with System Restore, Recycle
Bin, and Recovery Console should provide fine protection while being
unintrusive and easy to manage. Another point, I personally have
experienced 2 HD failures in the last couple of years, and most all HD
vendors have dropped their warranty periods to 1 year...

Regards, the other Bob

"Bob Willard" > wrote in message
...
> Michael A. McKenney wrote:
> > Get a 3 Ware IDE RAID controller and do RAID 1.
> >
>
> RAID-1 gives protection against HD failure, but offers no help
> for problems caused by bad software, bad environment (esp. A.C.
> power), or -- the number one cause of requests to restore --
> fumble fingers. Since modern HDs have MTBFs on the order of
> 100 years, using RAID-1 in lieu of backup software is (if you'll
> pardon my use of a technical term) nuts.
> --
> Cheers, Bob
>

[Roy Rogers]

The base XP System Restore utility gives you the ability to go back in time,
and works really well. Ghost is certainly an option, but you'd have to
reboot the system in what amounts to DOS in order to ghost the OS
partition...hardly unintrusive, and not something you could just set up in
Task Scheduler.

"David Shorthouse" > wrote in message
a...
> True, but you can't go back in time with a RAID1 array. If a system file
> somehow gets corrupt, it'll be corrupt on the other disk as well, making
> both XP installations a mess. Might I suggest just a simple Ghost clone
> every once in a while?
>
> Dave
>
> "Roy Rogers" > wrote in message
> ...
> > I agree with Michael...what you need to do is set your Dad up with a
> simple
> > RAID 1 array. That way, no backup programs at all to worry about...it's
> all
> > done for you under the covers in hardware. If a disk goes bad, the good
> one
> > takes over automatically, and the user is informed of the disk failure.
> The
> > user simply replaces the bad drive at his earliest convenience, and RAID
> > will take care of mirroring the primary drive. It really doesn't get
any
> > easier.
>
>

[R. C. White]

Hi, Tracy.

I know NOTHING of dynamic drives. Whenever I read about them, I'm (a)
impressed with what they can do, and (b) appalled at how many users have
reported problems with them that seem to be absolutely irrecoverable - and
happened so easily. So far, I'm afraid to even try dynamic drives.

When I remember the $1,000+ that I used to pay for FLOPPY drives, and the
$1,000+ that I paid for HDs in the 20-40 MB range just a few years ago, I
tend to think of the $140 that I paid for my $120 GB drive last year as dirt
cheap. I certainly understand budgets, and remember all too well my
less-prosperous days, but I hope it won't take you and your husband too long
to squeeze out enough for at least a 30 GB HD to allow you some elbow room
in your system. My latest Best Buy ad shows a 60 GB WD for $90, with
rebates that bring it down to $50.

My idea of a good drive/partition arrangement is:
C: - minimal size (100 MB?) - Formatted FAT12 for maximum compatibility with
MS-DOS, all versions of Windows, plus exotic systems like Linux or OS/2 if I
ever felt like exploring those. Nothing much on this partition but "system
files" (ntldr, io.sys, etc.) and a few DOS-based utilities, like Norton's
DiskEdit.

D: - 3 - 10 GB, depending on how much total disk space is available -
Formatted NTFS - my main working installation of WinXP Pro. Let \Program
Files hold some of the key utilities that I need to keep Windows running
properly, but keep as many applications and data files as possible out of
here. This "drive" might need to be reformatted from time to time, or I may
need to reinstall or "in-place upgrade" Windows, and I don't want to lose
apps or data in that process. Also, I don't want to have to shuffle those
files when I upgrade to Longhorn or whatever succeeds WinXP.

E:, F:, G:... - NTFS volumes that hold apps (MS Office, Quicken, etc.),
data, archives, music and graphics, or whatever.

Other drive letters as needed for CD/DVD drives, etc. (I don't have a
network, so I don't worry about those things.) My first CD-ROM (in 1989)
was M: for Multimedia, but that has long been superseded. I now have a
DVD-ROM (V:) and a CD-RW (W:).

X: - 5 GB - NTFS - my second installation of WinXP Pro. I can boot to here
when I need to do something to D: that can't be done to the "boot volume",
such as a thorough defrag - or even that reformat that I may need to do some
day. Obviously, D: can reciprocate when X: needs such attention. Also, X:
is a great "sandbox" to try out new software that I'm not sure I'll want to
keep, including beta versions.

Y: and Z: - more playgrounds for new stuff.

You can't do such things with 19.5 GB total space, of course, but you don't
have to go "whole hog" from the beginning, either. But, with a general
"floor plan" in mind, you can add volumes in an orderly fashion as your HD
capacity grows. By keeping the system partition small and clean, you have
flexibility to create, format, and delete other volumes as needed. By
keeping the boot volume as free as possible of non-OS stuff (Microsoft does
not make this easy!), you can repair or upgrade Windows with minimal
disruption to your apps and data. By assigning CD/DVD drives letters far
removed from HDs, you can add or remove drives without constantly
reshuffling letters.

I keep most of my \Program Files in E:. This doesn't happen automatically.
I have to tell each program to install in E:\Program Files, rather than in
C:\Program Files. I've even put a few into M:\Program Files on another HD
altogether. WinXP doesn't really care, so long as it knows how to find
them. As for moving installed apps to a different location, I've heard that
it is possible, but I usually just reinstall them, then browse to find their
data when I run the programs. Remove the apps from the old locations first,
of course, but let Add/Remove retain your settings for the app.

The page file can easily be moved to a different volume, as you probably
know, once you find where MS buried the settings page to keep newbies from
getting in trouble. Just go to System Properties | Advanced | Performance
Settings | Virtual memory | Change - whew! - then set all but one drive to
No paging file and the one you want to System managed size. If you have
room, put it on a separate HD so that the second set of read/write heads can
be working simultaneously with your main drive. Don't forget to click Set,
then OK your way out. After you reboot to use the new page file, you can
remove its attributes and delete the old one.

The error message your 14 GB drive is giving might be remedied with a new
BIOS for your motherboard.

Sorry, I'm rambling now...I tend to do that. And my post gets very long,
but maybe you can find something useful in it.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

"Tracy Lee" > wrote in message
...
> >Actually, my system is more complex than that. My first
> >HD is a SCSI drive on an Adaptec SCSI host adapter. The
> >second and third drives are IDE, running off a built-in
> >RAID controller. Each HD has a single primary partition
> >(for booting) and an extended partition holding one or
> >more logical drives. I like to keep each "system
> >partition" as small and simple as possible, holding only
> >the "system files" and not much else. Each copy of
> >WinXP is in its own "boot volume" with as little else as
> >WinXP will let me get by with, just in case I have to
> >reformat the boot volume for some reason. All my
> >applications, data, storage, etc., are in other volumes
> >for similar reasons. I've probably overdone the
> >separate volume thing, but I do think it is a very good
> >thing to isolate WinXP in its own volume, separate from
> >apps and data.
>
> This sounds along the lines of what I was trying to do.
> I've got a 14 GB dynamic NTFS drive with 2 partitions C:,
> 6 GB, for the OS, system files, and utilities, and E:, 8
> GB, for "Entertainment." (Supposed to be for mp3s,
> games, etc...most of what we use the computer for at this
> point. I also have several cds with NETg courses for
> studing for various Microsoft certifications.) (I was
> going to have C: as a 3 MB partition and D: as 3 MB for
> the courseware, but C: grew so large so fast I had to
> change plans.) However, I have trouble getting my
> husband, A+ certified but wants the computer world to
> stay at Win98 technology and moving out of the IT field,
> to co-operate with this. He doesn't like XP, as it's too
> slow, (well, we have a Celeron ii runing at 333...the
> computer was *given* to us for free...we're going to
> upgrade when we can afford to), and various programs can
> only be accessed from "my" profile, so he would just use
> mine, complaining about having two profiles. (I wound up
> switching the two profiles simply to get him to stop
> whining. With a 10 month old, my time is at a premium
> for trying to get the system to where it "works" the way
> he wants it to.)
>
> Any ideas on how to make it so things automatically
> install to E:/Program Files/ ? And any way to move
> things installed to C: to E:, or do I just have to
> reinstall them? At some point, we need to get new
> drives, (I've also got a 4 GB drive for backup, and a 1.5
> GB drive). My 14 GB drive is giving me errors about
> outdated atapi firmware. (Warning ID 26: "The driver has
> detected that device \Device\Ide\IdePort0 has old or out-
> of-date firmware. Reduced performance may result.") Any
> way to update this? I've already checked for drivers,
> and lowlevel formated the drive. Would I be best just
> waiting until I can afford a new drive?

[Tom Vought]

Don't think Dad will go for opening the box another time <g>, this was quite
an adventure for him. Failed drive BTW was 18mos old. OEM in a machine he
bought in Dec 01 because his earlier (5 yr old) machine's HD died. He's not
impressed with reliability of HDs at the moment.

Point of message (you knew I'd get to it eventually) is that I do have Dad
backing up "\Documents and Settings" to CD Rom regularly to date specific
directories on the CD, thus he can roll back to find deletes that he needs.

Maybe I'll try the Raid 1 on my machine first, and get an idea how it works
before making the trip to Florida to set his up.

Thanks for the message.

"Roy Rogers" > wrote in message
...
> I agree with Michael...what you need to do is set your Dad up with a
simple
> RAID 1 array. That way, no backup programs at all to worry about...it's
all
> done for you under the covers in hardware. If a disk goes bad, the good
one
> takes over automatically, and the user is informed of the disk failure.
The
> user simply replaces the bad drive at his earliest convenience, and RAID
> will take care of mirroring the primary drive. It really doesn't get any
> easier.
>
> "Tom Vought" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Just spent a while on the phone walking my Dad through the installation
of
> a
> > new hard drive on his XP machine. After he had the new drive (C:
bootable
> > etc) installed and running, he decided to add a second drive to use as a
> > backup. More time on the phone and we set it (D:) to a basic disk, 1
> > partition NTFS. Both working and Dad will copy C: (including hidden and
> > system files) over to D: regularly.
> >
> > Now I'm sure Dad envisions a situation where C: dies and he just has to
> > unplug it and move the primary ribbon cable connector to hard disk 1
(from
> > dead 0) and he'll be back in business. I'm aware that it's not going
to
> be
> > that easy. For one thing I assume you can't have two drives set up as
> > Primary and have both bootable, (Think the term now is "Active") but if
> you
> > have copied everything from the C: drive onto the D: drive, can you
> somehow
> > mark it as bootable from the Emergency diskette or the Windows XP CD
when
> > the time comes, without losing the data on the disk?
> >
> > The question comes down to 'Is it possible, and how should it be set
up?'
> > Thanks for any and all advice.
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
>
>

[Tracy Lee]

>I know NOTHING of dynamic drives. Whenever I read about
>them, I'm (a) impressed with what they can do, and (b)
>appalled at how many users have reported problems with
>them that seem to be absolutely irrecoverable - and h
>appened so easily. So far, I'm afraid to even try
>dynamic drives.

Well, I do tend to be an adventurous sort. I've had no
problenms with it, and I figure that anything that may
help the speed/space on my system is a "Good Thing"[TM]

>When I remember the $1,000+ that I used to pay for
>FLOPPY drives, and the $1,000+ that I paid for HDs in
>the 20-40 MB range just a few years ago, I tend to think
>of the $140 that I paid for my $120 GB drive last year
>as dirt cheap. I certainly understand budgets, and
>remember all too well my less-prosperous days, but I
>hope it won't take you and your husband too long to
>squeeze out enough for at least a 30 GB HD to allow you
>some elbow room in your system. My latest Best Buy ad
>shows a 60 GB WD for $90, with rebates that bring it
>down to $50.

$50 wouldn't be bad at all, unless you're working with no
income but welfare, and a 10-month-old. Working on
changing that, but the economy, especially here in
Indianapolis isn't ideal. Heck the "school" I was going
to even closed because of the economy around here!
(http://www.masterpro.net/)

>My idea of a good drive/partition arrangement is: C: -
>minimal size (100 MB?) - Formatted FAT12 for maximum
>compatibility with MS-DOS, all versions of Windows, plus
>exotic systems like Linux or OS/2 if I ever felt like
>exploring those. Nothing much on this partition
>but "system files" (ntldr, io.sys, etc.) and a few DOS-
>based utilities, like Norton's DiskEdit.

I thought FAT12 was for floppys only?

I've worked with unix. It's gonna be a *long* time 'til
I'm ready to tackle that, as it's not exactly intuitive.
(ls = DOS's dir). And as I said, I *had* C:/ as a 3 GB
partition, but suddenly couldn't perform a much needed
defrag because of lack of space. (Of course, I'm sure it
didn't help that I had tried having nearly the whole
drive compressed.) Heck, my husband was downloading an
installing a favorite little game, click-o-mania, and
asked where to put it. I told him E:/Program Files.
It's in C:/progs.

>D: - 3 - 10 GB, depending on how much total disk space
>is available - Formatted NTFS - my main working
>installation of WinXP Pro. Let \Program Files hold some
>of the key utilities that I need to keep Windows running
>properly, but keep as many applications and data files
>as possible out of here. This "drive" might need to be
>reformatted from time to time, or I may need to
>reinstall or "in-place upgrade" Windows, and I don't
>want to lose apps or data in that process. Also, I
>don't want to have to shuffle those files when I upgrade
>to Longhorn or whatever succeeds WinXP.

Unfortunately, when I did have to reformat, (see above
mentioned issue with partition size and defragmentation),
I tried to just do C:/ but wound up doing the entire
disk. (Whoops!) Then when I couldn't load off my backup
drive, I wound up trying to low-level format the 14GB
disk, (backup on a separate disk, of course), so E:/ went
bye-bye anyways. But the ranting, raving, and grumbling
because "none of this needed to be done" to begin with,
(then the grumbling because everything's so slow...can't
win for losing!), I don't know if I want to move things
off C:/ right now anyways. But when I *can* manage to
obtain a new disk, could C:/ be made read-only? could
that help keep things where they belong, --*off* the
boot/system partition(s)!

>E:, F:, G:... - NTFS volumes that hold apps (MS Office,
>Quicken, etc.), data, archives, music and graphics, or
>whatever.
>
>Other drive letters as needed for CD/DVD drives, etc.
>(I don't have a network, so I don't worry about those
>things.) My first CD-ROM (in 1989) was M: for
>Multimedia, but that has long been superseded. I now
>have a DVD-ROM (V:) and a CD-RW (W:).

That's what I *tried* to do. Unfortunately, our CD drive
is read only. We have plans to get a CD-RW, but other
things keep coming up.

>X: - 5 GB - NTFS - my second installation of WinXP Pro.
>I can boot to here when I need to do something to D:
>that can't be done to the "boot volume", such as a
>thorough defrag - or even that reformat that I may need
>to do some day. Obviously, D: can reciprocate when X:
>needs such attention. Also, X: is a great "sandbox" to
>try out new software that I'm not sure I'll want to
>keep, including beta versions.

I'm not sure I really need that second installation. The
only real use our system is getting right now is
KazaaLite for mp3 downloads and Final Fantasy 2 (the
Japanese version). System usage isn't *so* much that the
drives will need that much attention for awhile. Now
once I can get to the point where I'm doing professional
system administration, (i.e., get someone to give me a
job so I can get experience, so I can get a job......),
that may be another story. But I'll probably have a
network by that point, (get a second computer and throw
Win98 on it to keep Grumpy happy), and all that could be
done via network.

>Y: and Z: - more playgrounds for new stuff.
>
>You can't do such things with 19.5 GB total space, of
>course, but you don't have to go "whole hog" from the
>beginning, either. But, with a general "floor plan" in
>mind, you can add volumes in an orderly fashion as your
>HD capacity grows. By keeping the system partition
>small and clean, you have flexibility to create, format,
>and delete other volumes as needed. By keeping the boot
>volume as free as possible of non-OS stuff (Microsoft
>does not make this easy!), you can repair or upgrade
>Windows with minimal disruption to your apps and data.
>By assigning CD/DVD drives letters far removed from HDs,
>you can add or remove drives without constantly
>reshuffling letters.


Or just deal with non-sequential drive letters. Right
now I've got:
C: most everything
D: CD-ROM
E: Entertainment (Supposed to be everything "non-
essential." I guess Kazaa and click-o-mania are
essential.)
F: backup (This is also getting low-level formatted. I
don't know what's happened to these drives before they
were given to me, so I'm going through all of them and
doing this to hopefully avoid the unexpected.)

I don't even have my tiny 1.5 GB installed. Even
the "backup" is going to need to come out, as I don't
have any extra screws at the moment, and thus no way to
secure them in. :S

>I keep most of my \Program Files in E:. This doesn't
>happen automatically. I have to tell each program to
>install in E:\Program Files, rather than in C:\Program
>Files. I've even put a few into M:\Program Files on
>another HD altogether. WinXP doesn't really care, so
>long as it knows how to find them. As for moving
>installed apps to a different location, I've heard that
>it is possible, but I usually just reinstall them, then
>browse to find their data when I run the programs.
>Remove the apps from the old locations first, of course,
>but let Add/Remove retain your settings for the app.

Well, unfortunately, I may not be able to do this for
awhile, then.

>The page file can easily be moved to a different volume,
>as you probably know, once you find where MS buried the
>settings page to keep newbies from getting in trouble.
>Just go to System Properties | Advanced | Performance
>Settings | Virtual memory | Change - whew! - then set
>all but one drive to No paging file and the one you want
>to System managed size. If you have room, put it on a
>separate HD so that the second set of read/write heads
>can be working simultaneously with your main drive.
>Don't forget to click Set, then OK your way out. After
>you reboot to use the new page file, you can remove its
>attributes and delete the old one.

Done that (before I reformated). For right now I think I
may just leave it on C:.

>The error message your 14 GB drive is giving might be
>remedied with a new BIOS for your motherboard.

There's an idea.... Hopefully I can manage to flash the
BIOS without any hang-ups so I don't have to deal with
Mr. Grouch because "everything was ok before you [xxxx]!"

>Sorry, I'm rambling now...I tend to do that. And my
>post gets very long, but maybe you can find something
>useful in it.

Maybe you missed my post above about hiding the taskbar
and the sidebar that's a hallmark of XP.

Tracy Lee