OT?: Sunday nite

[Puddin' Man]

Back in the 80's, I was running something called MUSIC under VM, submitting
across an interface to a VS2/SVS (batch) system. Folks would caution me
not to submit tape jobs on Sunday nite, lest the operators might abend
my job to free up a tape drive for the backups they were always running
on Sunday.

How times have changed!

I have a little desktop system built around an Asus H55 board and Intel
Nahalem Clarkdale cpu and 2 identical Samsung 500gb HD's.

---------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
Disk 1 |D1P1| D1P2 | D1P3 | D1P4 |unalloc | D1P5 |
| | W7 | XP | data | | old sys |
---------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
Disk 2 |D2P1| D2P2 | D2P3 |unalloc | D2P4 |
| | W7 | XP | | old sys |
-----------------------------------------------

where DiPj is Partition j on Disk i.

All OS's are either Win7 or XP. All partitions are NTFS. The P1's are
presumably mere fragments (7.84 mb) left over from allocation, but Partition
Wizard CD lists them as partitions.

Every Sunday nite I delete D2P3 and copy D1P3 to D2P3 running a
bootable Partition Wizard CD. This effectively gives me an image copy of the
data on my primary use partition. D1P3 and D2P3 each sit on 79 gb of space.

Is D1P3 100% safe? If a file on D1P3 becomes corrupted, I can merely copy such
file from D2P3 back to D1P3. Similar for a directory/file structure.

If D1P3 became corrupted, I could copy D2P3 back to D1P3 using bootable
Partition Wizard CD in a similar fashion? Remember that the disk geometries are
identical. I'm not concerned with extremely unlikely disaster scenarios like
electrical problems that fry the entire desktop.

Safe? Unsafe?? What say you?

P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

 

[Paul]

Back in the 80's, I was running something called MUSIC under VM, submitting
across an interface to a VS2/SVS (batch) system. Folks would caution me
not to submit tape jobs on Sunday nite, lest the operators might abend
my job to free up a tape drive for the backups they were always running
on Sunday.

How times have changed!

I have a little desktop system built around an Asus H55 board and Intel
Nahalem Clarkdale cpu and 2 identical Samsung 500gb HD's.

---------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
Disk 1 |D1P1| D1P2 | D1P3 | D1P4 |unalloc | D1P5 |
| | W7 | XP | data | | old sys |
---------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
Disk 2 |D2P1| D2P2 | D2P3 |unalloc | D2P4 |
| | W7 | XP | | old sys |
-----------------------------------------------

where DiPj is Partition j on Disk i.

All OS's are either Win7 or XP. All partitions are NTFS. The P1's are
presumably mere fragments (7.84 mb) left over from allocation, but Partition
Wizard CD lists them as partitions.

Every Sunday nite I delete D2P3 and copy D1P3 to D2P3 running a
bootable Partition Wizard CD. This effectively gives me an image copy of the
data on my primary use partition. D1P3 and D2P3 each sit on 79 gb of space.

Is D1P3 100% safe? If a file on D1P3 becomes corrupted, I can merely copy such
file from D2P3 back to D1P3. Similar for a directory/file structure.

If D1P3 became corrupted, I could copy D2P3 back to D1P3 using bootable
Partition Wizard CD in a similar fashion? Remember that the disk geometries are
identical. I'm not concerned with extremely unlikely disaster scenarios like
electrical problems that fry the entire desktop.

Safe? Unsafe?? What say you?

P

Is this the tool you're using ?

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

It's hard to say how safe any tool is, without testing it for yourself.
And that takes time (and a spare blank disk). Sometimes, Googling the
product name and the word "problem", turns up all the test results you need :-(
I remember doing that for one freebie partitioning tool, and finding
a report that it couldn't even successfully copy a FAT32 partition.

Just remember, that in general, partition management tools can't combine
several commands into one operation. Say I copy a bigger partition,
into a smaller sized slot on a second disk. Most tools would do
that as:

1) Resize D1P3 (shrink it) first.
2) Copy the (now smaller) D1P3 to D2P3.

They don't like to do more complicated things, like shrink the data on the fly.

---------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
Disk 1 |D1P1| D1P2 | D1P3 | D1P4 |unalloc | D1P5 |
| | W7 | XP | data | | old sys |
---------------------------------------------------------
|
|
v
--------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
Disk 2 |D2P1| D2P2 | |unalloc | D2P4 |
| | W7 | | | old sys |
--------------------------------------------

You should test your tool of choice, with a blank disk, as that
might end up being the means of recovery anyway.

Based on testing my old tool of choice (Partition Magic), if I copy
D1P3 (bootable) to a second blank disk, the partition table ends
up like this. They do it this way, so the boot.ini doesn't have
to be corrected. It's so the ARC path will be correct.

Slot 1
Slot 2 D2P3
Slot 3
Slot 4

Looking at the web page for partitionwizard, it's more than just
a copy of GParted with a coat of paint on it. The product proudly
shows it supporting Dynamic Disk, which is something that my
bog-standard Linux LiveCDs don't support. So it does have that
going for it (that is, if you like Dynamic Disk and are using it).
Normally, support for Dynamic Disk in a home environment, isn't
that good. It's one reason I wouldn't do any serious work with
Dynamic Disk present - I could easily be faced with a messy
data recovery if there is a problem with it.

Paul

 

[Puddin' Man]

Is this the tool you're using ?

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

Yes. Mine sez V7, but it has to be the same "product".

It's hard to say how safe any tool is, without testing it for yourself.
And that takes time (and a spare blank disk). Sometimes, Googling the
product name and the word "problem", turns up all the test results you need :-(
I remember doing that for one freebie partitioning tool, and finding
a report that it couldn't even successfully copy a FAT32 partition.

I googled and didn't see anything in the current edition that would be a
problem. I wish testing were easier, but it isn't. I can't bring myself to push
the button and delete D1P3, as it stores the code/data that I depend on from
day to day.

The object for me is to maintain a reliable image copy of a bootable primary
partition using only bootable CD software that uses basic native "copy" etc
functions, such that the potential for ****ups is minimized. The 2 free
"products" I know of that do this are:

MiniTool® Partition Wizard Bootable CD
Easeus Partition Master Pro V8 Bootable CD

If anyone knows why either of these might not be suitable for what I'm doing,
I'd like to hear from you. If not, just assume that they can reliably do basic
partition manipulations (copy, delete, etc) reliably.

Just remember, that in general, partition management tools can't combine
several commands into one operation. Say I copy a bigger partition,
into a smaller sized slot on a second disk. Most tools would do
that as:

1) Resize D1P3 (shrink it) first.
2) Copy the (now smaller) D1P3 to D2P3.

They don't like to do more complicated things, like shrink the data on the fly.

---------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
Disk 1 |D1P1| D1P2 | D1P3 | D1P4 |unalloc | D1P5 |
| | W7 | XP | data | | old sys |
---------------------------------------------------------
|
|
v
--------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
Disk 2 |D2P1| D2P2 | |unalloc | D2P4 |
| | W7 | | | old sys |
--------------------------------------------

You should test your tool of choice, with a blank disk, as that
might end up being the means of recovery anyway.

Based on testing my old tool of choice (Partition Magic), if I copy
D1P3 (bootable) to a second blank disk, the partition table ends
up like this. They do it this way, so the boot.ini doesn't have
to be corrected. It's so the ARC path will be correct.

Slot 1
Slot 2 D2P3
Slot 3
Slot 4

PM was my choice for years. It just started doing too many funny things. I had
to replace it.

My basic backup op. involves 3 functions:

1.) Delete D2P3
2.) Copy primary partition D1P3 to available space on D2P3.
3.) Relabel D2P3 to it's previous label

I no longer compress D2P3.

Looking at the web page for partitionwizard, it's more than just
a copy of GParted with a coat of paint on it. The product proudly
shows it supporting Dynamic Disk, which is something that my
bog-standard Linux LiveCDs don't support. So it does have that
going for it (that is, if you like Dynamic Disk and are using it).
Normally, support for Dynamic Disk in a home environment, isn't
that good. It's one reason I wouldn't do any serious work with
Dynamic Disk present - I could easily be faced with a messy
data recovery if there is a problem with it.

I wouldn't either. Dynamic Disk would violate my basic need to
stay with native operations, using only simple primary NTFS partitions.

A big part of the reason for my query was to check on me. Am I asking PW to do
something it cannot do? I.e. is there any reason why I couldn't use the same
bootable CD to restore D2P3 to D1P3 and have it be bootable (given identical
disc geometries)? Etc, etc.

Thanks,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."