Best External Hdd

[Citizen Bob]

No, but their Disk Director Suite will.

I will have a look.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Citizen Bob]

XP doesnt BSOD in that situation.

That's good to know.

It doesnt have separate drivers either.

If I use the Windows Defrag utility, I get two entries per partition.
One has the drive identifier plus the disk label I assigned, and the
other just has the drive identifier. Thus I get these two entries for
the boot disk:

C: System
C:

This also happens in a third party defragger called Perfect Disk. In
that utility I can query the "volume GUID" and it is different for
each of the entries. That seems to imply that Win2K is attaching 2
device drivers to the partition, one the normal device driver with its
disk label and another one which does not include the disk label.

What is going on?


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Citizen Bob]

Please don't top-post. Your answer belongs after, or possibly
intermixed with, the material you quote. After snipping whatever
is not germane to your reply.

I gave up on my crusade to stomp out top posting. It's hopeless.

There is no accounting for the incredible stupidity of most of the
human race except to assume the great apes messed around with sheep.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Rod Speed]

The cloning procedure requires the use of removable drive bays.

No it doesnt.

Therefore I put the label on the front of the disk tray.

I dont bother with disk trays.

I am sure it is. But I do not trust it.

Your choice.

I was unable to get Acronis to operate in that mode.

Works fine for me.

I did not spend the time to chase it down,
since I wanted to do cloning instead.

More fool you. It makes a lot more sense to use incremental images instead
for a variety of reasons, so you should have worked out how to do that.

I thought Acronis TI would do LAN disk clones.

Nope, the clone has to be local.

I prefer keeping the disks in a location away from the computer.
If I do imaging with disks permanently mounted in the computer,
I take the risk that something could happen to them.

Not if the disks are on other PC on the lan. You
can have that in a fireproof safe etc if you want to.

 

[Rod Speed]

That's good to know.

If I use the Windows Defrag utility, I get two entries per partition.
One has the drive identifier plus the disk label I assigned, and the
other just has the drive identifier. Thus I get these two entries for
the boot disk:

C: System
C:

Something is seriously screwed, presumably you produced that
result by molesting the signatures and by cloning instead of imaging.

This also happens in a third party defragger called Perfect Disk.

Thats not surprising, the OS has got it radically wrong.

In that utility I can query the "volume GUID" and it is
different for each of the entries. That seems to imply
that Win2K is attaching 2 device drivers to the partition,

There are no separate drivers.

one the normal device driver with its disk label and
another one which does not include the disk label.

What is going on?

You've stuffed things up by molesting the signatures and by cloning.

 

[CBFalconer]

I gave up on my crusade to stomp out top posting. It's hopeless.

There is no accounting for the incredible stupidity of most of the
human race except to assume the great apes messed around with sheep.

With some. Others are just ill-informed, or seduced by the silly
actions of Outhouse Excess and/or googoogroups. Those can be
taught, for example by the links below. However I agree that the
supply of top posters is unending.

--
Some informative links:
<<http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/>
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>

 

[Citizen Bob]

No it doesnt.

I meant to say "the cloning procedure *I use* involves removable drive
bays." I want the backup clones out of the computer so they will be
safe.

I dont bother with disk trays.

Then you run the risk, however small, that something can happen to the
backup images.

Works fine for me.

That's because you are running XP and I am running 2K.

I remember once trying an eval copy of an application which the
developers claimed ran on 2K. It crashed immediately. I wrote them and
they replied that they had to do some work on it and would get back to
me if I was willing to do beta test. Three months later they sent me a
new version, which I binned because I had given up on them. Three
months to get it running on 2K.

There are problems with using XP apps on 2K.

More fool you.

I don't think it is foolish. I am certainly not the only one using
removable drives to do archive clones. I could say it is foolish to
leave your backups in the computer where something can destroy them.

It makes a lot more sense to use incremental images instead
for a variety of reasons, so you should have worked out how to do that.

Incremental images make you fish around too much. I use differential
since only a small number of files get changed after I do a clone -
something like about 177 files. That's trivial for NTBackup.

Between clones I use NTBackup to make differential images each morning
at 4:00 am and lay the backup file on D: drive. That way I can recover
if I have to go back to a previous disk. In fact I had to do that this
morning since Acronis Disk Director has a very serious bug and I lost
my boot disk.

In the forst place Disk Director won't convert NTFS to FAT32. When it
found I had NTFS it greyed out the Convert. So I decided to uninstall
it and when I rebooted it, the OS Director that got installed fussed
about not having the proper files. Obviously the uninstall did not
remove the OS Director call. It said to push the "OK" button to
continue, but when I did, it shut the computer off. ****ing idiots.

So I got a clone I had made yesterday and restored all the files that
had been backed up to D: at 4:00 am. The clone disk was now like new.

If I am in the middle of the day and plan a major undertaking that
could result in an unusable disk, I make a clone if it has been a
while or I force a backup so I can use the clone I made recently.

Nope, the clone has to be local.

That is not an issue for me. Both my children have graduated and are
now living in their own houses, so there is only my wife and me with
computers. I have no need to backup her machine.

Not if the disks are on other PC on the lan. You
can have that in a fireproof safe etc if you want to.

I am not worried about that kind of disaster. I am more concerned with
either something happening with the computer to corrupt the disks. By
keeping the archive clones out of the machine, I circumvent that
possibility. Plus I want to keep three disks and rotate them. If I
mounted them internally I would only have one IDE channel left which I
would use for the DVD burner - so I would be maxed out. Then I would
not have a channel for the backup disk - the one I keep the
differential archive on. I suppose I could use one of the clone disks
but then I can't keep a copy outside the machine.

I just feel better having the clones out of the computer. I have close
to 100 applications installed over a 10 year period (I started with
NT4 in 1996 and used IPU to migrate to Win2K). I do not want to
rebuild that boot disk from scratch, even though I have carefully
archived every application I ever loaded so I could if forced to.

There are numerous UNIX machines that still have the original install
of the operating system. It is absurd to have to rebuild an OS from
scratch every year or two. Even VAX/VMS - from which NT was stolen -
did not need periodic reinstalls.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Citizen Bob]

Something is seriously screwed, presumably you produced that
result by molesting the signatures and by cloning instead of imaging.

The problem arose before I discovered the signature alteration
technique with Win98. And cloning should not cause Win2K to go beserk
or else Acronis needs to remove TI from the 2K market.

Thats not surprising, the OS has got it radically wrong.

That's because it is Windows.

You've stuffed things up by molesting the signatures and by cloning.

Signature molesting came after the OS was corrupted. I once tested
RAID 0 and I suspect the installation software was what corrupted the
OS. I have scoured the Registry looking for any evidence of the old
code but have not found any. I have also removed all hard disk device
drivers and their references in the Registry.

Is it possible that the RAID install buggered the BIOS? Is there a
RAID key in the BIOS?

What amazes me is no one can figure out what is wrong here, not even
Microsoft MVP types. Apparently it is a problem no one has confronted
before. I have been fighting it for over a year and I am determined to
find out what is causing it.

I am hoping that by converting to FAT32 I may see some very
significant change, which will give a clue what is going on. It's
definitely the NTFS files that are corrupted because CHKDSK reports
problems with security files and the USN Journal, and empty space in
the MFT.

I have been successful in recovering a corrupt disk, even one that
BSODs, by mounting it as D: and running CHKDSK.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Citizen Bob]

However I agree that the
supply of top posters is unending.

Most people use email, where ongoing correspondence is best dealt with
by top posting. Then they bring that habit to Usenet under the false
assumption that everyone is their correspondent.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[CBFalconer]

Most people use email, where ongoing correspondence is best dealt
with by top posting. Then they bring that habit to Usenet under
the false assumption that everyone is their correspondent.

I disagree with "best dealt with". The same considerations apply.

 

[Rod Speed]

Most people use email, where ongoing correspondence is best
dealt with by top posting. Then they bring that habit to Usenet
under the false assumption that everyone is their correspondent.

Plenty choose to top post just because the most recent addition
to the thread is most easily visible at the top and the context is
still there below that if the reader needs that.

 

[Rod Speed]

I meant to say "the cloning procedure *I use* involves removable drive
bays." I want the backup clones out of the computer so they will be safe.

They can be just as safe when not in removable drive bays
and that has the massive advantage of not requiring any
human action, so backups can be completely automated
and only require a decent system for signalling backup failure.

Then you run the risk, however small, that
something can happen to the backup images.

Nope. They can be secured just as well as you secure the drives in
removable drive bays, and have the massive advantage that backups
can be completely automated, no human action required at all.

And I have the irreplacable stuff backed up offsite too,
so its just a nuisance if say Al Quaeda managed to
drive a plane onto my house and it implodes ala 9/11 too.

That's because you are running XP and I am running 2K.

Nope, that works with 2K too. And it makes
much more sense to be running XP anyway.

2K has passed its useby date now.

I remember once trying an eval copy of an application which
the developers claimed ran on 2K. It crashed immediately.
I wrote them and they replied that they had to do some work
on it and would get back to me if I was willing to do beta test.
Three months later they sent me a new version, which I binned
because I had given up on them. Three months to get it running on 2K.

TI runs fine on 2K.

There are problems with using XP apps on 2K.

TI isnt an XP app. What it calls the rescue CD is actually a linux app.

I don't think it is foolish.

It is anyway for the reasons I listed.

I am certainly not the only one using removable drives to do archive clones.

Yes, but there are still some silly enough to use travan tapes too.

I could say it is foolish to leave your backups in the computer

They arent in the computer.

where something can destroy them.

No it cant.

Incremental images make you fish around too much.
Nope.

I use differential since only a small number of files get changed after I
do a clone - something like about 177 files. That's trivial for NTBackup.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to have TI do everything for you auto.

You're welcome to do a full image at whatever frequency you decide,
and do incrementals or differentials at whatever frequency you decide too.

And you can completely automate that if you dont use removable drive bays.

Between clones I use NTBackup to make differential images
each morning at 4:00 am and lay the backup file on D: drive.
That way I can recover if I have to go back to a previous disk.
In fact I had to do that this morning since Acronis Disk Director
has a very serious bug and I lost my boot disk.

You could have done that with TI incremental images too.

In the forst place Disk Director won't convert NTFS to FAT32. When
it found I had NTFS it greyed out the Convert. So I decided to uninstall
it and when I rebooted it, the OS Director that got installed fussed
about not having the proper files. Obviously the uninstall did not
remove the OS Director call. It said to push the "OK" button to
continue, but when I did, it shut the computer off. ****ing idiots.

Thats what images are for. You dont need clones for that.

And if you had the sense to use XP instead of that
dinosaur 2K, you could have done a system restore too.

So I got a clone I had made yesterday and restored all the files that
had been backed up to D: at 4:00 am. The clone disk was now like new.

True in spades of images and system restore.

If I am in the middle of the day and plan a major undertaking that
could result in an unusable disk, I make a clone if it has been a
while or I force a backup so I can use the clone I made recently.

Lot faster to do an incremental image. Which usually wont be needed when
the system restore will normally fix the problem if it goes pear shaped.

That is not an issue for me. Both my children have graduated
and are now living in their own houses, so there is only my wife
and me with computers. I have no need to backup her machine.

Irrelevant to whether images make much more sense than clones.

I am not worried about that kind of disaster. I am more concerned with
either something happening with the computer to corrupt the disks. By
keeping the archive clones out of the machine, I circumvent that possibility.

You do with the images on another system on the lan too, and that way
the backups can be completely automated with no human intervention at all.

Plus I want to keep three disks and rotate them.

You can still do that with completely automated images.

If I mounted them internally I would only have one IDE channel left
which I would use for the DVD burner - so I would be maxed out.

Irrelevant when the images are on a different system across the lan.

And when images are used, you dont need any extra physical
drives either, the multiple copys can be on any existing drives.

Then I would not have a channel for the backup disk - the one
I keep the differential archive on. I suppose I could use one of
the clone disks but then I can't keep a copy outside the machine.

I just feel better having the clones out of the computer.

You can do that without using removable drive bays.

I have close to 100 applications installed over a 10 year period (I started
with NT4 in 1996 and used IPU to migrate to Win2K). I do not want to
rebuild that boot disk from scratch, even though I have carefully
archived every application I ever loaded so I could if forced to.

Using images instead of clones doesnt change that capability.

In fact using incremental images allows you FAR more capacity
to step back in steps than your 3 level clone system does.

There are numerous UNIX machines that still have the
original install of the operating system. It is absurd to
have to rebuild an OS from scratch every year or two.

Yes. And that is not required with 2K or XP.

Even VAX/VMS - from which NT was stolen -

No it wasnt. Its completely different.

did not need periodic reinstalls.

Its really only Win9x that ever did.

 

[Rod Speed]

The problem arose before I discovered the
signature alteration technique with Win98.

Then you produced that result by cloning instead of imaging.

And cloning should not cause Win2K to go beserk

It clearly has unless its some other abortion
you have done to 2K that produced that.

or else Acronis needs to remove TI from the 2K market.

No it doesnt. TI was never intended to use cloning
for backup, its there for migration to different drives.

That's because it is Windows.

Nope, because of the way you used it.

Signature molesting came after the OS was corrupted.

Then you corrupted it some other way.

I once tested RAID 0 and I suspect the installation
software was what corrupted the OS.

Unlikely. And if that is true, you could have system restored with XP.

Or restored your image.

I have scoured the Registry looking for any evidence of the
old code but have not found any. I have also removed all
hard disk device drivers and their references in the Registry.

There arent multiple drivers.

Is it possible that the RAID install buggered the BIOS?

Nope.

Its possible you stuffed up the configuration
tho if it was motherboard raid.

Is there a RAID key in the BIOS?
Nope.

What amazes me is no one can figure out what
is wrong here, not even Microsoft MVP types.

Presumably no one cares enough to bother.

Apparently it is a problem no one has confronted before.

Or those that have have just restored from their backup.

I have been fighting it for over a year and I
am determined to find out what is causing it.

Shouldnt be hard to do a clean install of 2K to a spare hard
drive and compare the registry and other stuff on the drive
like the RAID metadata which is usually in the last sectors
marked as unavailable to the OS. It must be possible to
work out where that RAID you tried keeps its metadata.

I am hoping that by converting to FAT32 I may see some
very significant change, which will give a clue what is going on.

I doubt it.

It's definitely the NTFS files that are corrupted because
CHKDSK reports problems with security files and the
USN Journal, and empty space in the MFT.

Doesnt mean that those are what is producing that visible problem.

I have been successful in recovering a corrupt disk, even
one that BSODs, by mounting it as D: and running CHKDSK.

And you wouldnt have needed to do anything like this if you
had had an image of the drive before you started playing
with the RAID. You could have just restored the image.

 

[Russ - SBITS.Biz \(MCP SBS\)]

Agreed.

--
Russell Grover
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist.
MCP, MCPS, MCNPS, (MCP-SBS)
Remote Support Available
MSN Messenger
Support @ SBITS.Biz
http://www.SBITS.Biz
Search for SBS2003 answer on Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs?lnk=lr&hl=en

 

[Citizen Bob]

Agreed.

Agree to what?

Russell Grover
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist.
MCP, MCPS, MCNPS, (MCP-SBS)
Remote Support Available
MSN Messenger
Support @ SBITS.Biz
http://www.SBITS.Biz
Search for SBS2003 answer on Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs?lnk=lr&hl=en

--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge

 

[Noozer]

Agree to what?

That you should read an entire post before replying to it.

 

[Rod Speed]

The reason why some choose to top post.

Agree to what?

 

[CBFalconer]

That you should read an entire post before replying to it.

There was nothing in your post after the above lines. A sig mark
"-- " signifies the end of the article. All after that does not
make up the message. Many newsreaders automatically elide the sig
on reading.

 

[Russ - SBITS.Biz \(MCP SBS\)]

Exactly

--
Russell Grover
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist.
MCP, MCPS, MCNPS, (MCP-SBS)
Remote Support Available
MSN Messenger
Support @ SBITS.Biz
http://www.SBITS.Biz
Search for SBS2003 answer on Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs?lnk=lr&hl=en

 

[CBFalconer]

*** ugly top-posting fixed ***

Exactly

That is why $DEITY invented the delete key. You should snip all
material not relevant to your post. After which a sane order of
material can make sense to the reader. See the links below in my
sig. Top-posting is also an indication of careless sloppy
laziness.

--
Some informative links:
<<http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/>
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>