Once again, see my inline comments...
Hi Art. Thanks for your reply.
Well, I have two hard drives installed on one IDE controller and two DVD
drives on the second IDE controller. So, I guess I could just clone to the
"D" drive. But, I have this 40 GB hard drive that is a twin to my existing
40 GB "C" drive. So, I want to clone my "C" drive to this "spare" 40 GB
hard drive then just store it for some emergency. I want to re-clone it at
some reasonable interval to keep it up to date.
So your 40 GB drive is a third drive, right? Then the most practical way to
clone your C: drive to that drive would be to install the 40 GB in a USB
external hard drive enclosure, such as the one you have, and clone the
contents of your C: drive to the EHD. Otherwise, you would have to
temporarily install that 40 GB drive in your machine (temporarily
disconnecting any one of your other three drives), clone the contents of
your C: drive to the 40 GB drive, uninstall and remove that drive and
reconnect whatever drive you previously disconnected.
I don't understand your comments about removable hard drives. Can you give
me a reference to a web site that explains this?
I'll do better than that. Here's a paper I prepared for a local computer
club on "The Joy of Removable Drives"...
One of the most frequent topics on any newsgroup dealing with operating
systems or when computer users get together, is what's the best strategy for
backing up one's hard drive. Hardly a day goes by where you don't come
across literally dozens, if not scores, of postings on the various
newsgroups relating to this subject. The queries (and responses) invariably
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. There are other advantages in
having two removable hard drives on one's 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 which is 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 a bit for bit copy.
And you're doing this in one fell swoop. So for all practical purposes you
have an exact duplicate of your 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. And note another
enormous advantage of removable drives. Because the hard drive resides in a
removable tray that slides in and out of the mobile rack (no more difficult
than opening & closing a small desk drawer!) you can have an infinite number
of hard drives at your instant disposal. A separate hard drive for a
different operating system, another hard drive to store precious photos and
videos, another hard drive that you've cloned to for backup purposes that
you can remove from the premises. The list goes on and on.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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 take apart your computer case in order to get into the
guts of your computer and make complicated cable connections. 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.
As previously indicated, these mobile rack devices are two-part affairs -
the rack itself and the inner tray that slides into the rack. In my case I
use the Lian Li RH-42 all-aluminum mobile racks which are generally
available from a number of vendors on the net. I've purchased mine from an
online vendor, Directron.com who, as of 10/04, sells them 2/$66 (plus
shipping). Another reasonable source for these and other mobile racks is
pcgate.com. see
http://www.pcgate.geomerx.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product&productID=580
Also,
http://xpcgear.com has a nice selection as well as
http://www.pimfg.com.
I'm sure mobile racks from other manufacturers will serve the purpose just
as well as the ones I use. I'm aware of many users who have been using
inexpensive (about $15 each) 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.
The installation of the mobile racks is no more difficult than installing
other IDE devices. Your case must have available two 5 ¼" bays to house the
mobile racks.
As I've previously indicated, the cloning process itself is easy and fast.
Using Symantec's Norton Ghost 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. One of my
current computers has an Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz processor, and I can clone
one hard drive to another at the rate of slightly under 1 GB per minute.
(Using a Cable Select configuration, I normally set up my hard drives as
Primary and Secondary Masters, finding that this arrangement yields the
fastest cloning speeds without any negative speed impact on the other
IDE/ATAPI devices, e.g., DVD-CD/ROM and CD-RW drives, that are connected as
Primary and Secondary Slave devices. An additional advantage is that this
arrangement allows you to boot to either of the two hard drives without the
need to reposition the removable tray that contains a hard drive). 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. The cloning
process is practically automatic and you need not be in attendance during
the actual cloning operation. Incidentally, the size 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.
I should point out that the hard drives in their mobile racks are not
"hot-swappable", i.e., you must not insert or remove the tray containing the
hard drive from the mobile rack while the computer is powered-up. It is
necessary to shut down the computer before inserting or removing trays. This
is a minor inconvenience, but necessary to prevent the possibility of data
corruption or even physical damage to the hard drive(s). Actually, there is
a keylock mechanism on the mobile rack so that you can safely (presumably)
remove the tray after turning the keylock to the "Off" position. But for
absolute safety's sake we prefer to disengage the tray from the rack (or
reinserting it into the rack) after powering off the computer. A simple
matter of just pulling on the handle of the removable tray. I am aware that
there are software products available that claim to make removable hard
drives "hot-swappable", however, while I have not worked with this type of
software, more than one user has informed me of problems with these
products.
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. There's
perhaps one negative to this arrangement and that is the additional cost
involved in having the two mobile racks to house the hard drives, the
additional hard drive, and the software cloning program. I would estimate it
adds roughly about (U.S.)$150 (as of October, 2004) to the cost of the
computer depending upon the size of the second hard drive and the specific
make and model of the two mobile racks. As I previously mentioned, your
desktop computer case should have available two 5¼" bays to house the mobile
racks. Mobile racks come in two basic versions, depending upon whether the
hard drive to be housed is an IDE/ATA or SCSI device. In addition, mobile
racks designed to accommodate the recently introduced SATA hard drives are
now coming onto the market.
The software program I use for the cloning process is Symantec's Norton
Ghost 2003. There is a later version of the Ghost software - Ghost 9.0 which
contains the Ghost 2003 version. BTW, the Norton Ghost 2003 program is
included in Symantec's SystemWorks Professional Edition program. I've seen
the older 2003 version of this software advertised for as little as $19
(including shipping) from:
http://www.softwarenevada.com. Strangely enough,
it's sometimes cheaper to purchase Symantec's SystemWorks Professional
Edition program and extract the Ghost program from that piece of software
than purchasing a standalone copy of Ghost. Ebay is another source for
purchasing the Ghost program. Another cloning tool is the installation disk
that comes packaged with the retail boxed hard drives from several
manufactures, including Maxtor and Western Digital, among others. While
these programs can clone one hard disk to another hard disk, they are
excruciatingly slow and not suitable for day-in and day-out cloning. They're
really designed for a one-time cloning of the old disk to the newly
purchased one. There are other disk cloning programs available, e.g.,
Acronis, many of which seem to get favorable reviews, however, I've had
little or no experience with these programs so I cannot speak to them.
When you consider the enormous advantages of having two removable hard
drives on your computer, the additional cost in equipping your computer in
this fashion pales into insignificance.
Last, my Addonics USB2 external case apparently only works under DOS at
USB 1.1, much too slow to clone a 40 GB hard drive. And yes, Ghost 2003
will clone to the Addonics under DOS, but only at USB 1.1. I went through
the procedure and actually started a clone, but aborted because it would
just take too long. If I select the Ghost USB2.0 driver, the process
freezes. If I select the USB1.1 driver, everything goes OK, just way too
slow.
I really still don't understand what you're saying. If you have a USB EHD
that has USB 2.0 capability and your motherboard's BIOS supports USB 2.0
(or, you have installed a PCI USB 2.0 card), then you have USB 2.0
capability. Period. I cannot undertand your statement that your USB 2.0
enclosure "apparently works under DOS at USB 1.1". What does DOS have to do
with this? You make reference to a USB 2.0 driver. My understanding is that
your OS is Windows XP with SP1 or SP2. If so, the OS supports USB 2.0
capability. In effect, the "drivers" are built in to XP. If there is
something unique about your Addonics enclosure in that it needs special
drivers for USB 2.0 support, then you should contact the manufacturer.
Drive Image seemed like a solution because it will clone a boot drive
under WinXP, so the Addonics runs at USB2.0 and takes only 27 minutes to
complete. But Drive Image also gives options that Ghost doesn't, and I
probably made some setting that resulted in a clone that won't boot.
I haven't worked with Drive Image in a long time so I cannot comment on your
statement that "Drive Image also gives options that Ghost doesn't...". I
know only that in my experience Ghost 2003 works virtually flawlessly in
performing disk-to-disk cloning. Over the years I've probably used various
versions of Ghost more than 1,000 times to clone hard drives. And done so
with remarkably few problems that I could attribute to the Ghost program. As
I've said many times before, I only wish that every piece of software that I
use (and will use) would be as simple to use and effective in what it does
as the Ghost program.
Art