Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thecow who wrote (13238)	11/18/2000 10:20:26 AM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110652

Quite a while back, (years), a participant on this thread, Rich, posted a very complete, easy to understand, set of instructions for making a boot disk. He listed the steps for making the disk bootable, what to copy to it, and why each file was needed. He worked as a 'computer guy', had been exposed to a wide variety of machines and problems, and so had a clear vision of what was most often needed in an emergency. For months after, whenever boot disk questions appeared, I'd point to his post. Unfortunately, I can no longer find it. However, the URL you posted seems as good as Rich's post, and could easily take its place. I don't remember seeing any posts from Rich in quite a while. He was one of the most knowledegable participants on this thread and had a gift for making complex matters understandable. He also had a good nose for locating the root cause of the difficulty while others were busy dealing with the superficial symptoms. I've learned quit a bit from his posts. Cheers, PW. P.S. Concerning boot disks and backups, I use a simple standard. If my hard disk died, and a blank replacement was put on my desk, how long would it take for me to have my system running? I feel that anything beyond an hour would be unacceptable. To meet this requirement, I must maintain current backups of programs, data, and settings. As well, I must have the tools at hand to bring my system to the point where backed-up files can be restored, and this is where boot disks become important. Since I use disk images, I must also store imaging software on floppy disks so that when the time comes to restore, the tools are available. Since I also store images spread across a number of ZIP disks, I must have the software to drive the ZIP disks as well as re-join the files, available too. Again, as recent posts point out, your emergency disks must match the duty they are expected to perform or they are useless.