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#1
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USB Voodoo?
How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive.
There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim |
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#2
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USB Voodoo?
"jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#3
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USB Voodoo?
"jim" wrote in message news "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim Just in case you are looking for that missing driver that I spoke of in the original post, I found it at http://xpefiles.com/cs/files/folders.../entry616.aspx . jim |
#4
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USB Voodoo?
Why don't you SIMPLY get another USB drive, and copy it to the other?
OR copy the entire drive to a directory on your hard disk? What's the big deal? You're making too much out of this. jim wrote: "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#5
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USB Voodoo?
Not really Billster. I want to make an image of a drive with multiple
partitions for easy restoration in case I screw up the first, lose it or just want to give a copy to a friend. I don't see why apps like Acronis True Image Home 11 refuse to see or image drives with multiple partitions. They work on internal hard drives with multiple partitions. It just doesn;t make sense, or make my life any easier. But, screw ease of use. I'll try ANY software that will make an image of my USB drives. Got bits? jim "Bill in Co." wrote in message ... Why don't you SIMPLY get another USB drive, and copy it to the other? OR copy the entire drive to a directory on your hard disk? What's the big deal? You're making too much out of this. jim wrote: "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#6
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USB Voodoo?
jim wrote:
Not really Billster. I want to make an image of a drive with multiple partitions for easy restoration in case I screw up the first, lose it or just want to give a copy to a friend. What's so difficult about what I suggested? If you copy the USB drive (including all folders) to a folder on the hard drive (or another USB flash drive), you can *easily* copy that back to another USB drive should the need arise in windows explorer. I mean, like for USB flash drives, which are often 4 GB or less, big deal! I don't see why apps like Acronis True Image Home 11 refuse to see or image drives with multiple partitions. They work on internal hard drives with multiple partitions. Exactly - work on INTERNAL hard drives (which are HUGE) with multiple partitions. In contrast, the external USB flash drives are small and easily copied (including their subdirectories) in windows explorer. It just doesn;t make sense, or make my life any easier. But, screw ease of use. I'll try ANY software that will make an image of my USB drives. Got bits? jim "Bill in Co." wrote in message ... Why don't you SIMPLY get another USB drive, and copy it to the other? OR copy the entire drive to a directory on your hard disk? What's the big deal? You're making too much out of this. jim wrote: "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#7
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USB Voodoo?
"Bill in Co." wrote in message ... jim wrote: Not really Billster. I want to make an image of a drive with multiple partitions for easy restoration in case I screw up the first, lose it or just want to give a copy to a friend. What's so difficult about what I suggested? If you copy the USB drive (including all folders) to a folder on the hard drive (or another USB flash drive), you can *easily* copy that back to another USB drive should the need arise in windows explorer. I mean, like for USB flash drives, which are often 4 GB or less, big deal! I really appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to contribute. But, copying folders and copying partitioins are 2 different things. If you don't beleive me, just make a copy of all your files on your hard drive and use those to restore your hard drive if it fails. I want to replicate the whole USB drive, including the Linux partitions. I don't see why apps like Acronis True Image Home 11 refuse to see or image drives with multiple partitions. They work on internal hard drives with multiple partitions. Exactly - work on INTERNAL hard drives (which are HUGE) with multiple partitions. In contrast, the external USB flash drives are small and easily copied (including their subdirectories) in windows explorer. Subdirectories are not partitions Bill. It just doesn;t make sense, or make my life any easier. But, screw ease of use. I'll try ANY software that will make an image of my USB drives. Got bits? jim "Bill in Co." wrote in message ... Why don't you SIMPLY get another USB drive, and copy it to the other? OR copy the entire drive to a directory on your hard disk? What's the big deal? You're making too much out of this. jim wrote: "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#8
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USB Voodoo?
jim wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message ... jim wrote: Not really Billster. I want to make an image of a drive with multiple partitions for easy restoration in case I screw up the first, lose it or just want to give a copy to a friend. What's so difficult about what I suggested? If you copy the USB drive (including all folders) to a folder on the hard drive (or another USB flash drive), you can *easily* copy that back to another USB drive should the need arise in windows explorer. I mean, like for USB flash drives, which are often 4 GB or less, big deal! I really appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to contribute. But, copying folders and copying partitioins are 2 different things. I know that. Hello! If you don't beleive me, just make a copy of all your files on your hard drive and use those to restore your hard drive if it fails. I want to replicate the whole USB drive, including the Linux partitions. OH. OK, now that's a bit different. And I suppose you want bootable, too. Well, ok then! In such a case, you're right - you either need partition copying, cloning, or imaging, capability. I don't see why apps like Acronis True Image Home 11 refuse to see or image drives with multiple partitions. They work on internal hard drives with multiple partitions. Exactly - work on INTERNAL hard drives (which are HUGE) with multiple partitions. In contrast, the external USB flash drives are small and easily copied (including their subdirectories) in windows explorer. Subdirectories are not partitions Bill. Nope, and I never said they were. But I must have missed your real "need" for a partition or image copy (and not just a complete set of files, copy) It just doesn;t make sense, or make my life any easier. But, screw ease of use. I'll try ANY software that will make an image of my USB drives. Got bits? jim "Bill in Co." wrote in message ... Why don't you SIMPLY get another USB drive, and copy it to the other? OR copy the entire drive to a directory on your hard disk? What's the big deal? You're making too much out of this. jim wrote: "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim nvmd - they are showing in explorer as local hard drives, but Acronis True Image 11 Home won;t see any of my USB drives that are partitioned the way I need them to be partitioned (with FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap partitions to run Linux from a USB drive). I've spent so much time getting the USB drives the way that I want them, I just want to be able to image them to protect myself from data (or USB) loss. Any ideas? jim |
#9
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USB Voodoo?
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#10
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USB Voodoo?
"jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim Jim: Just so we have a clear idea of your situation and objective... Re the USBEHD that will serve as the "source" disk of the disk image... I take it from your query that for one reason or another you're unable to boot to your internal HDD with the USBEHD connected. Is that it? But assuming the system is bootable, is there any reason why that USBEHD would not be connected as would be the usual case? Obviously if you had a bootable system (re your internal HDD) there would be no problem using your installed disk-imaging program in creating a disk image of the connected USBEHD and storing that image on another drive (which I'm assuming is your intent). But I'm sure you're aware of this so I'm puzzled as to your situation and intent. Now if for one reason or another you do *not* have a bootable system, you could still create a disk image of the USBEHD and store it on another drive, presumably another USBEHD? If you were using a disk-imaging program such as Acronis True Image, you can create what Acronis calls its "bootable rescue media" - in effect a bootable CD containing the ATI program. (Other disk-imaging/disk-cloning programs have similar media). And you could use that media to create the disk image of one USBEHD and store it on another drive, again presumably another USBEHD if that's what you want. I'm pretty sure you can do this with the Acronis program - it's been a while since I worked with that program re the disk-imaging process. Of course I'm puzzled as to why you want or need to perform this kind of operation (unless I'm misunderstanding your intent). I know that you can do this (again, if I correctly understand what you're trying to do) with the disk-cloning program we routinely use - the Casper 4 program. But this is a disk-to-disk cloning program not a disk-imaging program. The Casper program also has a bootable "Startup Disk" which contains the program so that by connecting the two USBEHDs and using that Startup Disk a user could clone the contents of one USBEHD to another USBEHD. Again, I'm hard-pressed to understand the purpose of this. Now that I read your query I'm thinking that the USBEHD that will serve as your "source" drive is not being used (in its usual role) as the recipient of the disk-image of your internal day-to-day working HDD. Is that it? Your USBEHD contains different data from your internal HDD of one sort or another so you want to create a disk image of that data. Do I have this right? Anna |
#11
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USB Voodoo?
"Anna" wrote in message ... "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim Jim: Just so we have a clear idea of your situation and objective... Re the USBEHD that will serve as the "source" disk of the disk image... I take it from your query that for one reason or another you're unable to boot to your internal HDD with the USBEHD connected. Is that it? But assuming the system is bootable, is there any reason why that USBEHD would not be connected as would be the usual case? Obviously if you had a bootable system (re your internal HDD) there would be no problem using your installed disk-imaging program in creating a disk image of the connected USBEHD and storing that image on another drive (which I'm assuming is your intent). But I'm sure you're aware of this so I'm puzzled as to your situation and intent. I am sometimes called to recover failed hard drives at small businesses. Usually, I remove the hdd, connect it to my laptop and do a recovery or I use something like Hiren's Boot cd to fix simple issues. However, I have found that using a USB drive as my boot drive, I may be able to recover files from the damaged hdd and save them directly to the USB drive. I have also found some tools in the Linux distro that I want to use that there are no (or very expensive) options for in the DOS and XP bootable CDs that I have been using. To me, the obvious solution was to use a live, bootabel Linux USB drive with the ability to save key files to the USB drive. I have that USB drive created. It boots like it should and saves the files like it should. Getting it "just right" took many hours (partially because I have such little experience with Linux) and I now wnat to image the USB drive (Linux partitions and all) to safeguard all the work that I have done to get this far. Now if for one reason or another you do *not* have a bootable system, you could still create a disk image of the USBEHD and store it on another drive, presumably another USBEHD? Yes, you could. But, you'd be losing the ability to store files that you may be trying to recover using the Live Linux USB drive. If you were using a disk-imaging program such as Acronis True Image, you can create what Acronis calls its "bootable rescue media" - in effect a bootable CD containing the ATI program. (Other disk-imaging/disk-cloning programs have similar media). And you could use that media to create the disk image of one USBEHD and store it on another drive, again presumably another USBEHD if that's what you want. I'm pretty sure you can do this with the Acronis program - it's been a while since I worked with that program re the disk-imaging process. You can't. I tried it with Acronis TI Home 11. It doesn't see the Ext2 or Linux swap partitions. It will only back up the FAT32 partition. Of course I'm puzzled as to why you want or need to perform this kind of operation (unless I'm misunderstanding your intent). (see above) I know that you can do this (again, if I correctly understand what you're trying to do) with the disk-cloning program we routinely use - the Casper 4 program. But this is a disk-to-disk cloning program not a disk-imaging program. The Casper program also has a bootable "Startup Disk" which contains the program so that by connecting the two USBEHDs and using that Startup Disk a user could clone the contents of one USBEHD to another USBEHD. Again, I'm hard-pressed to understand the purpose of this. That's better than nothing. Perhaps I'll try it tonight and see if it works. First, there is another app that does images that says it reads Linux partitions. I'll try it and let you know what it is if it works. jim |
#12
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USB Voodoo?
jim wrote:
"Anna" wrote in message ... "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim Jim: Just so we have a clear idea of your situation and objective... Re the USBEHD that will serve as the "source" disk of the disk image... I take it from your query that for one reason or another you're unable to boot to your internal HDD with the USBEHD connected. Is that it? But assuming the system is bootable, is there any reason why that USBEHD would not be connected as would be the usual case? Obviously if you had a bootable system (re your internal HDD) there would be no problem using your installed disk-imaging program in creating a disk image of the connected USBEHD and storing that image on another drive (which I'm assuming is your intent). But I'm sure you're aware of this so I'm puzzled as to your situation and intent. I am sometimes called to recover failed hard drives at small businesses. Usually, I remove the hdd, connect it to my laptop and do a recovery or I use something like Hiren's Boot cd to fix simple issues. However, I have found that using a USB drive as my boot drive, I may be able to recover files from the damaged hdd and save them directly to the USB drive. I have also found some tools in the Linux distro that I want to use that there are no (or very expensive) options for in the DOS and XP bootable CDs that I have been using. To me, the obvious solution was to use a live, bootable Linux USB drive with the ability to save key files to the USB drive. You know, it *really* would have been helpful if you had stated this a bit earlier. :-) At least I, for one, would have understood WHY you (allegedly) needed an image, partition, or clone backup of the USB drive, and that a basic file copy (including subdirectories) wasn't acceptable. (You'd be surprised at what some people say they need, but what they really want). I have that USB drive created. It boots like it should and saves the files like it should. Getting it "just right" took many hours (partially because I have such little experience with Linux) and I now wnat to image the USB drive (Linux partitions and all) to safeguard all the work that I have done to get this far. Now if for one reason or another you do *not* have a bootable system, you could still create a disk image of the USBEHD and store it on another drive, presumably another USBEHD? Yes, you could. But, you'd be losing the ability to store files that you may be trying to recover using the Live Linux USB drive. If you were using a disk-imaging program such as Acronis True Image, you can create what Acronis calls its "bootable rescue media" - in effect a bootable CD containing the ATI program. (Other disk-imaging/disk-cloning programs have similar media). And you could use that media to create the disk image of one USBEHD and store it on another drive, again presumably another USBEHD if that's what you want. I'm pretty sure you can do this with the Acronis program - it's been a while since I worked with that program re the disk-imaging process. You can't. I tried it with Acronis TI Home 11. It doesn't see the Ext2 or Linux swap partitions. It will only back up the FAT32 partition. Of course I'm puzzled as to why you want or need to perform this kind of operation (unless I'm misunderstanding your intent). So was I, Anna. You're weren't the only one. :-) (see above) I know that you can do this (again, if I correctly understand what you're trying to do) with the disk-cloning program we routinely use - the Casper 4 program. But this is a disk-to-disk cloning program not a disk-imaging program. The Casper program also has a bootable "Startup Disk" which contains the program so that by connecting the two USBEHDs and using that Startup Disk a user could clone the contents of one USBEHD to another USBEHD. Again, I'm hard-pressed to understand the purpose of this. That's better than nothing. Perhaps I'll try it tonight and see if it works. First, there is another app that does images that says it reads Linux partitions. I'll try it and let you know what it is if it works. jim |
#13
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USB Voodoo?
"jim" wrote in message ... "Anna" wrote in message ... "jim" wrote in message ... How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive. There is an article posted at http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple...ml#entry474505 that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no longer exists. I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet. I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my backup software will image the USB drives. Thanks! jim Jim: Just so we have a clear idea of your situation and objective... Re the USBEHD that will serve as the "source" disk of the disk image... I take it from your query that for one reason or another you're unable to boot to your internal HDD with the USBEHD connected. Is that it? But assuming the system is bootable, is there any reason why that USBEHD would not be connected as would be the usual case? Obviously if you had a bootable system (re your internal HDD) there would be no problem using your installed disk-imaging program in creating a disk image of the connected USBEHD and storing that image on another drive (which I'm assuming is your intent). But I'm sure you're aware of this so I'm puzzled as to your situation and intent. I am sometimes called to recover failed hard drives at small businesses. Usually, I remove the hdd, connect it to my laptop and do a recovery or I use something like Hiren's Boot cd to fix simple issues. However, I have found that using a USB drive as my boot drive, I may be able to recover files from the damaged hdd and save them directly to the USB drive. I have also found some tools in the Linux distro that I want to use that there are no (or very expensive) options for in the DOS and XP bootable CDs that I have been using. To me, the obvious solution was to use a live, bootabel Linux USB drive with the ability to save key files to the USB drive. I have that USB drive created. It boots like it should and saves the files like it should. Getting it "just right" took many hours (partially because I have such little experience with Linux) and I now wnat to image the USB drive (Linux partitions and all) to safeguard all the work that I have done to get this far. Now if for one reason or another you do *not* have a bootable system, you could still create a disk image of the USBEHD and store it on another drive, presumably another USBEHD? Yes, you could. But, you'd be losing the ability to store files that you may be trying to recover using the Live Linux USB drive. If you were using a disk-imaging program such as Acronis True Image, you can create what Acronis calls its "bootable rescue media" - in effect a bootable CD containing the ATI program. (Other disk-imaging/disk-cloning programs have similar media). And you could use that media to create the disk image of one USBEHD and store it on another drive, again presumably another USBEHD if that's what you want. I'm pretty sure you can do this with the Acronis program - it's been a while since I worked with that program re the disk-imaging process. You can't. I tried it with Acronis TI Home 11. It doesn't see the Ext2 or Linux swap partitions. It will only back up the FAT32 partition. Of course I'm puzzled as to why you want or need to perform this kind of operation (unless I'm misunderstanding your intent). (see above) I know that you can do this (again, if I correctly understand what you're trying to do) with the disk-cloning program we routinely use - the Casper 4 program. But this is a disk-to-disk cloning program not a disk-imaging program. The Casper program also has a bootable "Startup Disk" which contains the program so that by connecting the two USBEHDs and using that Startup Disk a user could clone the contents of one USBEHD to another USBEHD. Again, I'm hard-pressed to understand the purpose of this. That's better than nothing. Perhaps I'll try it tonight and see if it works. First, there is another app that does images that says it reads Linux partitions. I'll try it and let you know what it is if it works. jim Thanks to another poster I tried Terabyte's Win Image software (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/products.htm). You have to make a bootable CD and boot into DOS to use it to image your USB drives. I'm not really sure why this isn't possiblke directly from Windows. And, it is really slow. It took almost 20 minutes to image a USB 2.0 8GB drive with FAT32, Ext2 and Linux swap partitions. It took 58 minute to restore it. Although it does require rebooting into DOs and it is slow, it is better than losing your data. jim |
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