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Backing up the system
What is the recommend approach to system backup for XP to include system
setup, program files and data? Or is it more or less backup the data and format, reload the programs? |
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#2
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Each person has their favorite way/program to backup
I use Acronis True Image.....it images your while HD onto another HD or CD/DVD(more than one). It lets you perform incremental backup.It creates a TrueImage Boot disk that lets you access that image and restore it. A one shot back...no piece by piece.........and it works.I just restored an image Last Saturday when I was not watching too carefully and deleted a file XP needed to boot...........40min later I was back up and running. peterk -- It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem "Ron Z" wrote in message ... What is the recommend approach to system backup for XP to include system setup, program files and data? Or is it more or less backup the data and format, reload the programs? |
#3
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"Ron Z" wrote in message ... What is the recommend approach to system backup for XP to include system setup, program files and data? Or is it more or less backup the data and format, reload the programs? While personal preference plays a large part in how you choose to backup your system the principle that the data you create is unique and needs to be protected at all cost whereas programs and the like can be reloaded from their original sources applies. Having said that my preference is a three shot approach 1. an imaging program (True Image, Ghost at al) to image program and OS to an external HDD, a backup program, in my case 2. WinBackup, to backup data files and other files that change regularly (Favorites, OE address book, email, Office Files etc) and 3. ERUNT to backup Registry Files. The reason for the three shot approach is your System (Program Files) change relatively infrequently and it is far quicker to recover the system from an 'image' than by installing from original discs. Data files are unique and will change daily, hence a dedicated program to backup those files (daily incremental backup, weekly full backup of all data files) is more eficient than imaghing the complete system (programs plus data). ERUNT is set to automatically backup Registry files daily at start up. I do not use System Restore to backup the Registry as in my experience SR is totally unreliable. I have heard good reports of GoBack and that maybe worth considering. |
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"peterk" wrote:
Each person has their favorite way/program to backup I use Acronis True Image.....it images your while HD onto another HD or CD/DVD(more than one). It lets you perform incremental backup.It creates a TrueImage Boot disk that lets you access that image and restore it. A one shot back...no piece by piece.........and it works.I just restored an image Last Saturday when I was not watching too carefully and deleted a file XP needed to boot...........40min later I was back up and running. Why did you even have to take 40 minutes - for doing what? If you had a clone of the system on another HD, just connect up that HD as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) HD and boot it up. (You will have to put it 1st in the boot order in the BIOS, though.) Then drag 'n drop the needed file back to the system partition (which will be seen as just another Local Disk in the system) on the primary HD. That's the beauty of a bootable clone - you don't have to copy it back or "restore an image" - you just boot it up to have a working system again in a couple minutes. I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. *TimDaniels* .. |
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"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... "peterk" wrote: Each person has their favorite way/program to backup I use Acronis True Image.....it images your while HD onto another HD or CD/DVD(more than one). It lets you perform incremental backup.It creates a TrueImage Boot disk that lets you access that image and restore it. A one shot back...no piece by piece.........and it works.I just restored an image Last Saturday when I was not watching too carefully and deleted a file XP needed to boot...........40min later I was back up and running. "Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... Why did you even have to take 40 minutes - for doing what? If you had a clone of the system on another HD, just connect up that HD as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) HD and boot it up. (You will have to put it 1st in the boot order in the BIOS, though.) Then drag 'n drop the needed file back to the system partition (which will be seen as just another Local Disk in the system) on the primary HD. That's the beauty of a bootable clone - you don't have to copy it back or "restore an image" - you just boot it up to have a working system again in a couple minutes. I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. *TimDaniels* I would hope that the OP and those reading this thread who are interested in creating & maintaining a relatively simple & effective means for backing up their systems will pay special heed to Timothy's recommendation as it applies to equipping one's desktop computer with removable hard drives and using that hardware configuration in a disk-to-disk "cloning" environment. Let me add my thoughts on the subject... One of the most frequent topics on any newsgroup dealing with operating systems like this one is what's the best strategy for backing up one's hard drive. There's not a day that goes by where you don't come across literally dozens, if not scores, of postings on this and similar newsgroups relating to this subject. The queries (and responses) frequently focus on the problems the user has encountered in using this or that software backup program - either some third-party program or whatever built-in backup program is included with the user's operating system. In my opinion, the best backup system for the average home user and even small business owner in most cases is having his or her desktop computer equipped with two removable hard drives and using a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to "clone" the contents of their working hard drive to another removable hard drive. There are other advantages in having two removable hard drives on one's desktop computer but the most significant one is providing a near fail-safe backup system. The speed, flexibility and peace of mind you get with this arrangement far outweighs (for most users) the relatively small additional cost of equipping one's desktop computer with this hardware configuration. Note that the removable hard drive mobile racks we are discussing are designed to be installed in desktop computers and not laptop or notebook computers. The size, weight, and design considerations of laptops/notebooks do not allow for this hardware configuration. Using this setup, backing up your hard drive is simple, straightforward, fast, and most important of all -- effective. By easily and relatively quickly making a clone of your hard drive, using a software program like Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, programs which are specifically designed for this purpose, you get, what seems to me, the ultimate backup solution given the present state of personal desktop computer technology. Unlike backup programs that merely back up your data files - that is, the files you've created in the various programs and applications you use - by cloning your hard drive, you're backing up your operating system, your registry, all your programs and applications, your configuration settings, your data files - in short, everything on the hard drive from which you're making (for all practical purposes) a bit for bit copy. And you're doing all this in one fell swoop, the result of which is the creation of an exact duplicate of your working hard drive. And for *added* safety you can remove this newly-cloned hard drive from the premises, not to mention making *another* clone, if desired, for near-absolute security. While it is true that backup software programs can backup the files you have created in your various programs, they are unable to backup your operating system and (for the most part) the programs installed on your computer. As Bruce Chambers has pointed out a number of times, many, if not most, computer users have invested substantial time and effort in customizing Windows and configuring their applications to work the way they want to and putting all of that back the way it was can be a difficult, frustrating, and time-consuming effort. So when the day comes - as it *surely* will - that your hard drive fails because of some mechanical or electrical defect, it's a wonderful feeling to know that you have a perfectly good copy of that failed hard drive that you simply shove in the computer, boot up, and you're off and running. Or if you ever get some miserable computer virus that plays havoc with your system, or for some unknown reason this or that system file is missing or becomes corrupt resulting in an inoperable computer, isn't it nice to know that you have at hand a perfectly good virus-free clone of your hard drive? And then simply clone that "good" previously cloned hard drive to the virus-infected one so that once again you now have two perfectly good hard drives. And in the case where the hard drive is kaput because of some mechanical/electronic failure, you purchase a new hard drive, simply remove the defective drive from the removable tray, plop in the new one, make two simple connections, shove it in the computer and then clone your good hard drive to the new one. And the added beauty of this arrangement is that you do all this from the comfort of your computer chair. There's no need to open your computer case and get into the "guts" of your computer to make complicated cable disconnects/connects. Everything is done outside of your computer because each hard drive resides in a tray (caddy) that you simply slide into the computer's mobile rack. There's *no* need to partition and format the new drive; *no* need to reinstall your operating system on the new drive; *no* need to reinstall your programs and data files. None of this is necessary. By simply cloning the previously-cloned hard drive to the new drive you once again have two functioning hard drives at your disposal. As previously indicated, these mobile rack devices are two-part affairs - the rack itself and the inner tray (caddy) in which the hard drive resides that slides into the rack. They come in all-aluminum models or a combination of aluminum-plastic ranging in price from about $15 to $50. Naturally, your desktop computer case will need two 5¼" bays that are available to house the mobile racks. Mobile racks come in various versions, depending upon whether the hard drive to be housed is an IDE/ATA, SATA, or SCSI device. A Google search for “removable hard drive mobile racks” will result in a wealth of information on these products and their vendors. I'm aware of many users who have been using inexpensive plastic mobile racks without any problems whatsoever. Unfortunately, there is no industry standard involving the design and construction of the racks nor the inner trays that contain the hard drive.Consequently, there is (usually) no interchangeability of these trays among the various manufacturers of mobile racks. Indeed, there is frequently no interchangeability of the inner trays among different models from the same manufacturer. This lack of interchangeability may not be an issue if the user will be purchasing a particular model of mobile rack for a single computer, however, if the user will have access to other computers, he or she may want to settle on a specific brand and model of mobile rack that will provide for tray interchangeability amongst different computers. As I've previously indicated, the cloning process itself is easy and relatively fast. Using Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 cloning program as an example, with the two removable hard drives connected to the computer, you simply boot up your desktop computer with the bootable floppy disk that contains the Ghost program and after a few key clicks the cloning process begins. The cloning process is practically automatic and you need not be in attendance during the actual cloning operation. The size (disk capacity) or make/model of your hard drives need not be identical; all that matters is that your destination drive contains sufficient capacity to receive the contents of your source drive. Incidentally, I’ve recently been experimenting with the Acronis True Image program because of the many favorable reports I’ve come across about this program. Using a bootable ATI CD, I find the cloning speed of this program is considerably faster than that of Ghost. And so far I’ve run into no problems with the cloning process itself. Depending upon the speed of your processor and hard drives you should get cloning speeds of somewhere between 700 MB to 1.5+ GB per minute (less if cloning to a USB/Firewire external hard drive). I can virtually guarantee that once you begin working with two removable hard drives, you'll have but one regret and only one regret. And that is you didn't have this arrangement on your previous computer or computers. While the additional cost involved in configuring your desktop computer with two mobile racks together with the additional hard drive and disk imaging software is not negligible, I can assure you it's money well spent. Frankly, when you consider the enormous advantages of having two removable hard drives on your desktop computer, the additional cost of so equipping your computer in this fashion practically pales into insignificance. Timothy mentions that in using the disk-to-disk cloning process, "You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though". Insofar as the cloning process that I've described above is concerned, there is *no* need that I'm aware of to manipulate boot.ini syntax. A clone is a clone is a clone. When you clone the contents of your working drive to the destination drive (bearing in mind we're talking about removable internal drives in their mobile racks), the destination drive, being for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the source drive, is bootable and there's no need to edit its boot.ini file. If, however, I've misunderstood the thrust of Timothy's statement, I trust he will amplify his comment. Anna |
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Very nice description of cloning and a very very good argument for removable
hard drives. Until I can afford your solution I will continue to "image" my hard drives. Using a dual boot system with ME on an IDE as C and XP on a SATA drive as D I find imaging works very well for me.I use another SATA HD with Acronis Secure Zone and the time I just spend restoring the D drive is really nothing compared to the time I would have spend restoring without the image. But I will be looking at purchasing a removable hard drive tray and another HD in the very near future. thank you peterk -- It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem "Anna" wrote in message ... "Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... "peterk" wrote: Each person has their favorite way/program to backup I use Acronis True Image.....it images your while HD onto another HD or CD/DVD(more than one). It lets you perform incremental backup.It creates a TrueImage Boot disk that lets you access that image and restore it. A one shot back...no piece by piece.........and it works.I just restored an image Last Saturday when I was not watching too carefully and deleted a file XP needed to boot...........40min later I was back up and running. "Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... Why did you even have to take 40 minutes - for doing what? If you had a clone of the system on another HD, just connect up that HD as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) HD and boot it up. (You will have to put it 1st in the boot order in the BIOS, though.) Then drag 'n drop the needed file back to the system partition (which will be seen as just another Local Disk in the system) on the primary HD. That's the beauty of a bootable clone - you don't have to copy it back or "restore an image" - you just boot it up to have a working system again in a couple minutes. I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. *TimDaniels* I would hope that the OP and those reading this thread who are interested in creating & maintaining a relatively simple & effective means for backing up their systems will pay special heed to Timothy's recommendation as it applies to equipping one's desktop computer with removable hard drives and using that hardware configuration in a disk-to-disk "cloning" environment. Let me add my thoughts on the subject... One of the most frequent topics on any newsgroup dealing with operating systems like this one is what's the best strategy for backing up one's hard drive. There's not a day that goes by where you don't come across literally dozens, if not scores, of postings on this and similar newsgroups relating to this subject. The queries (and responses) frequently focus on the problems the user has encountered in using this or that software backup program - either some third-party program or whatever built-in backup program is included with the user's operating system. In my opinion, the best backup system for the average home user and even small business owner in most cases is having his or her desktop computer equipped with two removable hard drives and using a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to "clone" the contents of their working hard drive to another removable hard drive. There are other advantages in having two removable hard drives on one's desktop computer but the most significant one is providing a near fail-safe backup system. The speed, flexibility and peace of mind you get with this arrangement far outweighs (for most users) the relatively small additional cost of equipping one's desktop computer with this hardware configuration. Note that the removable hard drive mobile racks we are discussing are designed to be installed in desktop computers and not laptop or notebook computers. The size, weight, and design considerations of laptops/notebooks do not allow for this hardware configuration. Using this setup, backing up your hard drive is simple, straightforward, fast, and most important of all -- effective. By easily and relatively quickly making a clone of your hard drive, using a software program like Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, programs which are specifically designed for this purpose, you get, what seems to me, the ultimate backup solution given the present state of personal desktop computer technology. Unlike backup programs that merely back up your data files - that is, the files you've created in the various programs and applications you use - by cloning your hard drive, you're backing up your operating system, your registry, all your programs and applications, your configuration settings, your data files - in short, everything on the hard drive from which you're making (for all practical purposes) a bit for bit copy. And you're doing all this in one fell swoop, the result of which is the creation of an exact duplicate of your working hard drive. And for *added* safety you can remove this newly-cloned hard drive from the premises, not to mention making *another* clone, if desired, for near-absolute security. While it is true that backup software programs can backup the files you have created in your various programs, they are unable to backup your operating system and (for the most part) the programs installed on your computer. As Bruce Chambers has pointed out a number of times, many, if not most, computer users have invested substantial time and effort in customizing Windows and configuring their applications to work the way they want to and putting all of that back the way it was can be a difficult, frustrating, and time-consuming effort. So when the day comes - as it *surely* will - that your hard drive fails because of some mechanical or electrical defect, it's a wonderful feeling to know that you have a perfectly good copy of that failed hard drive that you simply shove in the computer, boot up, and you're off and running. Or if you ever get some miserable computer virus that plays havoc with your system, or for some unknown reason this or that system file is missing or becomes corrupt resulting in an inoperable computer, isn't it nice to know that you have at hand a perfectly good virus-free clone of your hard drive? And then simply clone that "good" previously cloned hard drive to the virus-infected one so that once again you now have two perfectly good hard drives. And in the case where the hard drive is kaput because of some mechanical/electronic failure, you purchase a new hard drive, simply remove the defective drive from the removable tray, plop in the new one, make two simple connections, shove it in the computer and then clone your good hard drive to the new one. And the added beauty of this arrangement is that you do all this from the comfort of your computer chair. There's no need to open your computer case and get into the "guts" of your computer to make complicated cable disconnects/connects. Everything is done outside of your computer because each hard drive resides in a tray (caddy) that you simply slide into the computer's mobile rack. There's *no* need to partition and format the new drive; *no* need to reinstall your operating system on the new drive; *no* need to reinstall your programs and data files. None of this is necessary. By simply cloning the previously-cloned hard drive to the new drive you once again have two functioning hard drives at your disposal. As previously indicated, these mobile rack devices are two-part affairs - the rack itself and the inner tray (caddy) in which the hard drive resides that slides into the rack. They come in all-aluminum models or a combination of aluminum-plastic ranging in price from about $15 to $50. Naturally, your desktop computer case will need two 5¼" bays that are available to house the mobile racks. Mobile racks come in various versions, depending upon whether the hard drive to be housed is an IDE/ATA, SATA, or SCSI device. A Google search for "removable hard drive mobile racks" will result in a wealth of information on these products and their vendors. I'm aware of many users who have been using inexpensive plastic mobile racks without any problems whatsoever. Unfortunately, there is no industry standard involving the design and construction of the racks nor the inner trays that contain the hard drive.Consequently, there is (usually) no interchangeability of these trays among the various manufacturers of mobile racks. Indeed, there is frequently no interchangeability of the inner trays among different models from the same manufacturer. This lack of interchangeability may not be an issue if the user will be purchasing a particular model of mobile rack for a single computer, however, if the user will have access to other computers, he or she may want to settle on a specific brand and model of mobile rack that will provide for tray interchangeability amongst different computers. As I've previously indicated, the cloning process itself is easy and relatively fast. Using Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 cloning program as an example, with the two removable hard drives connected to the computer, you simply boot up your desktop computer with the bootable floppy disk that contains the Ghost program and after a few key clicks the cloning process begins. The cloning process is practically automatic and you need not be in attendance during the actual cloning operation. The size (disk capacity) or make/model of your hard drives need not be identical; all that matters is that your destination drive contains sufficient capacity to receive the contents of your source drive. Incidentally, I've recently been experimenting with the Acronis True Image program because of the many favorable reports I've come across about this program. Using a bootable ATI CD, I find the cloning speed of this program is considerably faster than that of Ghost. And so far I've run into no problems with the cloning process itself. Depending upon the speed of your processor and hard drives you should get cloning speeds of somewhere between 700 MB to 1.5+ GB per minute (less if cloning to a USB/Firewire external hard drive). I can virtually guarantee that once you begin working with two removable hard drives, you'll have but one regret and only one regret. And that is you didn't have this arrangement on your previous computer or computers. While the additional cost involved in configuring your desktop computer with two mobile racks together with the additional hard drive and disk imaging software is not negligible, I can assure you it's money well spent. Frankly, when you consider the enormous advantages of having two removable hard drives on your desktop computer, the additional cost of so equipping your computer in this fashion practically pales into insignificance. Timothy mentions that in using the disk-to-disk cloning process, "You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though". Insofar as the cloning process that I've described above is concerned, there is *no* need that I'm aware of to manipulate boot.ini syntax. A clone is a clone is a clone. When you clone the contents of your working drive to the destination drive (bearing in mind we're talking about removable internal drives in their mobile racks), the destination drive, being for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the source drive, is bootable and there's no need to edit its boot.ini file. If, however, I've misunderstood the thrust of Timothy's statement, I trust he will amplify his comment. Anna |
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"Anna" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote: I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. Timothy mentions that in using the disk-to-disk cloning process, "You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though". Insofar as the cloning process that I've described above is concerned, there is *no* need that I'm aware of to manipulate boot.ini syntax. A clone is a clone is a clone. When you clone the contents of your working drive to the destination drive (bearing in mind we're talking about removable internal drives in their mobile racks), the destination drive, being for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the source drive, is bootable and there's no need to edit its boot.ini file. If, however, I've misunderstood the thrust of Timothy's statement, I trust he will amplify his comment. As you can see above, my mention of the boot.ini file was in the context of archiving (and accessing) several bootable partitions on the same backup drive. To be able to use the boot manager (ntldr) and the system partition selection menu (boot.ini) to choose the correct partition to boot, one must be able to understand and edit boot.ini - whether boot.ini used resides on the primary system drive or on the "active" partition of the archive drive. As it is the "active" partition that gets control at boot time, one must be aware which of the multiple system partitions on a drive has been marked "active". (Use Disk Management to see and set this flag: rt-clk on My Computer, clk Manage, clk Disk Management.) If you want to boot one of the systems on other than the primary hard drive, you must put that hard drive at the head of the hard drive boot order in the BIOS. And so, if the primary hard drive is not removed from the system, it must be moved from its position at the head of the boot order or its "active" partition will get control at boot time - just as it always does. Another caveat is that one must boot a cloned WinXP system for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", otherwise some sort of "linking" takes place which makes the clone forevermore dependent on the continued presence of it "parent". But once the clone has been booted for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", it becomes an independent system, and subsequent boot-ups can be made with its "parent" visible to it, and it merely sees the "parent" system as just another Local Disk (i.e. a file structure), and files may very conveniently be dragged 'n dropped between the two system partitions. Removing a source hard drive from view of its clone can be accomplished by physically unplugging its data cable or by unplugging its power cable. To avoid having to open the PC's case each time I boot a clone for the 1st time, I run the HD power cables through miniature DPST toggle switches that I have mounted under the front plastic bezel, reachable through the air intake vents. Before booting up a clone, I throw the toggle switch first to remove the "parent" from view of the clone. To avoid the complication of making each boot.ini file unique to the partition it resides in, I have just a large generic boot.ini file that I use which has pointers to at least 4 partitions on every hard drive. That way, any partition that gets control has a boot.ini file which can point to any other partition to boot (including itself). Of course, if you just put one clone on a backup HD, and you never use that HD unless the "parent" HD has been removed due to its failure, things are simple, and you never have to worry about the above caveats. AND.... you can use Acronis True Image (which clones an entire source HD to an entire destination HD) and you don't have to use Ghost (which can take a specific bootable partition from among several on the source HD and put it among several other partitions on the destination HD.) Obviously, for my purposes, I can't use Acronis' True Image, and I'm getting ready to give Casper XP a try in order to avoid having to use Ghost (which, in its previous life as Drive Image 7.03, has stopped working in my system). *TimDaniels* |
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"Timothy Daniels" wrote: I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. "Anna" wrote: Timothy mentions that in using the disk-to-disk cloning process, "You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though". Insofar as the cloning process that I've described above is concerned, there is *no* need that I'm aware of to manipulate boot.ini syntax. A clone is a clone is a clone. When you clone the contents of your working drive to the destination drive (bearing in mind we're talking about removable internal drives in their mobile racks), the destination drive, being for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the source drive, is bootable and there's no need to edit its boot.ini file. If, however, I've misunderstood the thrust of Timothy's statement, I trust he will amplify his comment. "Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... As you can see above, my mention of the boot.ini file was in the context of archiving (and accessing) several bootable partitions on the same backup drive. To be able to use the boot manager (ntldr) and the system partition selection menu (boot.ini) to choose the correct partition to boot, one must be able to understand and edit boot.ini - whether boot.ini used resides on the primary system drive or on the "active" partition of the archive drive. As it is the "active" partition that gets control at boot time, one must be aware which of the multiple system partitions on a drive has been marked "active". (Use Disk Management to see and set this flag: rt-clk on My Computer, clk Manage, clk Disk Management.) If you want to boot one of the systems on other than the primary hard drive, you must put that hard drive at the head of the hard drive boot order in the BIOS. And so, if the primary hard drive is not removed from the system, it must be moved from its position at the head of the boot order or its "active" partition will get control at boot time - just as it always does. Another caveat is that one must boot a cloned WinXP system for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", otherwise some sort of "linking" takes place which makes the clone forevermore dependent on the continued presence of it "parent". But once the clone has been booted for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", it becomes an independent system, and subsequent boot-ups can be made with its "parent" visible to it, and it merely sees the "parent" system as just another Local Disk (i.e. a file structure), and files may very conveniently be dragged 'n dropped between the two system partitions. Removing a source hard drive from view of its clone can be accomplished by physically unplugging its data cable or by unplugging its power cable. To avoid having to open the PC's case each time I boot a clone for the 1st time, I run the HD power cables through miniature DPST toggle switches that I have mounted under the front plastic bezel, reachable through the air intake vents. Before booting up a clone, I throw the toggle switch first to remove the "parent" from view of the clone. To avoid the complication of making each boot.ini file unique to the partition it resides in, I have just a large generic boot.ini file that I use which has pointers to at least 4 partitions on every hard drive. That way, any partition that gets control has a boot.ini file which can point to any other partition to boot (including itself). Of course, if you just put one clone on a backup HD, and you never use that HD unless the "parent" HD has been removed due to its failure, things are simple, and you never have to worry about the above caveats. AND.... you can use Acronis True Image (which clones an entire source HD to an entire destination HD) and you don't have to use Ghost (which can take a specific bootable partition from among several on the source HD and put it among several other partitions on the destination HD.) Obviously, for my purposes, I can't use Acronis' True Image, and I'm getting ready to give Casper XP a try in order to avoid having to use Ghost (which, in its previous life as Drive Image 7.03, has stopped working in my system). *TimDaniels* Tim: Thanks for your response. Just so there's no misunderstanding, let me reiterate (in summary form) my previous comments and recommendations concerning the use of removable hard drives and the disk cloning process. Using two removable hard drives in their mobile racks, the user (via a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image) can clone the contents of one drive to another drive. Assuming the user is cloning the contents of his/her working hard drive to the second removable HD, the user will now have (for all practical purposes) a bit-for-bit copy of his/her working HD. As such, that second drive, being an exact duplicate of the user's source disk, will be bootable. Under those circumstances there will be *no* need to modify the boot.ini file or any other file in order that the cloned drive be bootable. Should the working HD's operating system subsequently become corrupt for one reason or another, the user can clone the contents of his/her second HD to the working drive for restoration purposes. Again, the working drive will be bootable & functional and there will be *no* need to modify the boot.ini file or any other file in order to achieve that functionality. I trust we are agreed on the above. As you point out, it is wise to boot to the newly-cloned drive following the cloning process. For one thing, it's desirable to check that the clone "took" and that the user now has a bootable, functioning copy of his/her working HD. Both Symantec and Acronis recommend this course of action. Indeed, as a general proposition, they both recommend disconnecting one or the other drive so that both drives are not simultaneously connected during normal operations. In the hundreds of times (after having used the Ghost 2003 program to perform the cloning operation) that I've worked with both the working (source) drive and the cloned drive connected, except for a single instance that I remember, I can't recall running into any problem because both drives were connected. But having said this, we *do* recommend that only one drive be connected during normal operations. And that's another reason why having two removable hard drives is such a desirable configuration. A simple turn of the keylock and the drive residing in that mobile rack is turned off. And the user is able to boot to whichever drive he/she desires. The simplicity and effectiveness of it all is nearly breathless. So, to summarize. In my view, equipping one's desktop computer with two removable hard drives is an extraordinarily desirable configuration for many, if not most, users. Through use of the disk cloning process as previously described, the user is able to establish & maintain a near-failsafe backup system. And do so in a routine manner simply and reasonably quick. Anna |
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"Anna" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote: I keep several clones of my system partitions on large capacity IDE disks mounted in a removable trays, and each clone is bootable. It really makes for quick recoveries. You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though. "Anna" wrote: Timothy mentions that in using the disk-to-disk cloning process, "You do need to know the syntax of a boot.ini file, though". Insofar as the cloning process that I've described above is concerned, there is *no* need that I'm aware of to manipulate boot.ini syntax. A clone is a clone is a clone. When you clone the contents of your working drive to the destination drive (bearing in mind we're talking about removable internal drives in their mobile racks), the destination drive, being for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the source drive, is bootable and there's no need to edit its boot.ini file. If, however, I've misunderstood the thrust of Timothy's statement, I trust he will amplify his comment. "Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ... As you can see above, my mention of the boot.ini file was in the context of archiving (and accessing) several bootable partitions on the same backup drive. To be able to use the boot manager (ntldr) and the system partition selection menu (boot.ini) to choose the correct partition to boot, one must be able to understand and edit boot.ini - whether boot.ini used resides on the primary system drive or on the "active" partition of the archive drive. As it is the "active" partition that gets control at boot time, one must be aware which of the multiple system partitions on a drive has been marked "active". (Use Disk Management to see and set this flag: rt-clk on My Computer, clk Manage, clk Disk Management.) If you want to boot one of the systems on other than the primary hard drive, you must put that hard drive at the head of the hard drive boot order in the BIOS. And so, if the primary hard drive is not removed from the system, it must be moved from its position at the head of the boot order or its "active" partition will get control at boot time - just as it always does. Another caveat is that one must boot a cloned WinXP system for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", otherwise some sort of "linking" takes place which makes the clone forevermore dependent on the continued presence of it "parent". But once the clone has been booted for the 1st time in isolation from its "parent", it becomes an independent system, and subsequent boot-ups can be made with its "parent" visible to it, and it merely sees the "parent" system as just another Local Disk (i.e. a file structure), and files may very conveniently be dragged 'n dropped between the two system partitions. Removing a source hard drive from view of its clone can be accomplished by physically unplugging its data cable or by unplugging its power cable. To avoid having to open the PC's case each time I boot a clone for the 1st time, I run the HD power cables through miniature DPST toggle switches that I have mounted under the front plastic bezel, reachable through the air intake vents. Before booting up a clone, I throw the toggle switch first to remove the "parent" from view of the clone. To avoid the complication of making each boot.ini file unique to the partition it resides in, I have just a large generic boot.ini file that I use which has pointers to at least 4 partitions on every hard drive. That way, any partition that gets control has a boot.ini file which can point to any other partition to boot (including itself). Of course, if you just put one clone on a backup HD, and you never use that HD unless the "parent" HD has been removed due to its failure, things are simple, and you never have to worry about the above caveats. AND.... you can use Acronis True Image (which clones an entire source HD to an entire destination HD) and you don't have to use Ghost (which can take a specific bootable partition from among several on the source HD and put it among several other partitions on the destination HD.) Obviously, for my purposes, I can't use Acronis' True Image, and I'm getting ready to give Casper XP a try in order to avoid having to use Ghost (which, in its previous life as Drive Image 7.03, has stopped working in my system). *TimDaniels* Tim: Thanks for your response. Just so there's no misunderstanding, let me reiterate (in summary form) my previous comments and recommendations concerning the use of removable hard drives and the disk cloning process. Using two removable hard drives in their mobile racks, the user (via a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image) can clone the contents of one drive to another drive. Assuming the user is cloning the contents of his/her working hard drive to the second removable HD, the user will now have (for all practical purposes) a bit-for-bit copy of his/her working HD. As such, that second drive, being an exact duplicate of the user's source disk, will be bootable. Under those circumstances there will be *no* need to modify the boot.ini file or any other file in order that the cloned drive be bootable. That is true only if the destination HD contains only the clone of the system partition in the source HD. If it contains several bootable system partitions, the boot.ini file in each of them must know where it is relative to the other partitions, OR the boot.ini file must have enough pointers to partitions within it such that the aware user can specify which partition to boot. Should the working HD's operating system subsequently become corrupt for one reason or another, the user can clone the contents of his/her second HD to the working drive for restoration purposes. Again, the working drive will be bootable & functional and there will be *no* need to modify the boot.ini file or any other file in order to achieve that functionality. That is true only if the second HD contains only a cloned system partition which comprise the entirety of the source HD when they were copied. The difference between your and my viewpoints involves the storage of multiple versions of the primary system partition. You assume that the primary HD contains only one system partition and that the entire HD is copied to a second HD and that there are no other system partitions on the second HD. IOW, your scheme clones HDs. My scheme clones system partitions, putting several copies on the second HD (all bootable where they lie). For your system to work, the primary HD must "disappear" so that the second HD becomes "primary", that is, at the head of the BIOS' hard drive boot order. That is done by turning off the power to the primary HD or by putting the second HD in its place physically or by re-copying the clone back to the primary HD. My scheme allows for booting any one of the archived system partitions directly from the second HD even with the primary HD still visible to the BIOS. That has the advantage of speed and provides the capability of dragging 'n dropping individual files between any of the partitions on the two HDs. But it also requires an understanding of boot.ini file syntax, and it requires a cloning utility that can copy individual bootable partitions and doesn't just copy the entire HD contents. Acronis True Image cannot do this. Ghost *can* do this (and perhaps Casper XP as well). I trust we are agreed on the above. Only with the restrictions I mentioned above. As you point out, it is wise to boot to the newly-cloned drive following the cloning process. For one thing, it's desirable to check that the clone "took" and that the user now has a bootable, functioning copy of his/her working HD. Both Symantec and Acronis recommend this course of action. Indeed, as a general proposition, they both recommend disconnecting one or the other drive so that both drives are not simultaneously connected during normal operations. In the hundreds of times (after having used the Ghost 2003 program to perform the cloning operation) that I've worked with both the working (source) drive and the cloned drive connected, except for a single instance that I remember, I can't recall running into any problem because both drives were connected. But having said this, we *do* recommend that only one drive be connected during normal operations. And that's another reason why having two removable hard drives is such a desirable configuration. A simple turn of the keylock and the drive residing in that mobile rack is turned off. And the user is able to boot to whichever drive he/she desires. The simplicity and effectiveness of it all is nearly breathless. So, to summarize. In my view, equipping one's desktop computer with two removable hard drives is an extraordinarily desirable configuration for many, if not most, users. Through use of the disk cloning process as previously described, the user is able to establish & maintain a near-failsafe backup system. And do so in a routine manner simply and reasonably quick. Anna |
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