whether it makes life easier in restoring hard drives
I use two Hardrives. Most of my stuff is on the secondry slave drive D: It's 20 GB and has Win XP on it. I use NTFS file system on all drives which means you can have files as big as you like. Most of the D: drive is empty, which is appropriate as this makes defragmentation faster and easier. NTFS needs more frequent defragmentation according to the info I read.
The other drive is 40 GB and is the secondry master. it has a 20 GB partition on it with Windows 2000 on the partition called drive C: The other partition is called drive E: which I now use for all back up images of the other two drives. Any other big files are also kept on it. I still use Windows 2000, as that is the OS that I bought with the system made by a local boxmaker. I had bought many bells and whistles with the system, and much of the software would have cost money and time to upgrade to Win XP. I am happy with the dual boot OS startup. Broad division is Win 2K is for office stuff, Win XP is for recreational stuff. XP gets used a lot.
The advantage of an image backup to a Hard Drive is that it is fast, reliable (typically more so then external media before integrity check) and convenient. I have also found if I defragement the images, restore and image checking occurs at a whopping 2GB per minute rate. Very handy when you are experimenting in N-dimensional Window XP backup space, attempting to undo unrecoverable patch updates.
I have completed my tasks I set myself btw. i.e. I painted the garage and have not got any paint marks on the computer keys. I also went to my local boxmaker to buy some media to perform the imaged backups of my drives. I of course threw caution to the wind (again -g-) and bought el cheapo media on the understanding and assurance "it was definitly OK for backups". I'm just a sucker when offered a deal on 100 "top quality" 80 min 40X blank discs for next to nothing. So, sure enough, 30 minutes into the first backup and integrity check, the first disk craps out as a failure (meaning the other 5 discs are garbage too) Mind you all the other backups have passed intergrity testing, so maybe my local boxmaker lives another day -g-
Sooo, I found my earliest copy of images for the Win XP drive D: and restored it from Norton Ghost. Hey presto it worked and I had all my old XP restore points too!!!! I then went back and restored XP to an earlier time before I did any patch upgrades, and even before I loaded Ghost DOH !!!! Actually it's no problemo. A testiment to the rugged utility of ghost software running on DOS. I placed a Ghost floppy into drive A: and made ghost image saves of the unspoilt earlier version on windows XP pre Ghost purchase. I made copies both on my Hard Drive E: and backed up onto CDROMS, integrity checked too of course. I can now take my time and restore to any of the many versions of Windows XP in my own time with whatever patches I carefully screen and choose to include. If I can successfully use Ghost, and make such a controlled recovery, I think it says a lot for the software.
200 GB sounds like a lot of data. Note: You cannot image save to the same partition you are saving. I would put 4 or more partitions on it, just in case something gets corrupted, limit potential damage too. In fact even a 5 GB hard drive restore off external media seems like an incredible technological achievement to me. That is one amazing amount of 0's and 1's to get in the correct order error free. Five thousand million bits of data without an error! Makes you wonder why they can't get OS software a little more error free -g-
Final point for newbies using Windows. I talked to my boxmaker about some of the issues I faced. He didn't want to hear any of it. "Well... what if one of your customers has a problem"? I asked. The point he plainly made is this....
He sells you a box with software on it. If it breaks down within warranty he fixes it for free. If you download a patch, no matter who from, including Microsoft, it's now your problem but he will fix it, and charge you for fixing it. Not sure of his view on automatic updates, but suspect he would charge for undoing those too. Even if his warranty fix is to download a patch, he will still do this free of charge, provided you have not dinkered with the operating system software.
His prices are the best in town, and he has loads of work. he knows why and what he is doing.
The windows XP learnings for the newbie are (as I see it)...
(1) If it ain't broke don't fix it.
(2) Don't go to the Windows Update site and download upgrades unless you are absolutely sure they are needed.
(3)Turn off automatic updates, and keep an open eye to see if any of them are actually important, and (more to the point) do they cause havoc? Be one of the last guys to make updates, not the "bleeding edge".
just my own opinion, seek proper advice etc,
rgds, |
