Full Volume Backup

[BobK]

I want to backup my entire C: drive. How do I make a full
volume backup of my hard drive to another hard drive? The
goal is to have a fully functional copy of my C: drive
ready to boot, if & when the primary C: drive fails.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

Use a product such as Norton Ghost.

 

[Peter Wilkins]

Use a product such as Norton Ghost.

He wants the backup HDD to be ready to boot if the boot HDD fails, so
a Ghost Image isn't the answer.

He can do a disk copy under DOS - assuming it will work for NTFS.
Programs like Drive Image should do that. But for it to work he would
have to change the backup drive to become the primary before trying to
boot, so it wouldn't be ready immediately.

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

The best case scenario would be mirroring, unfortunately software mirroring
is not available in xp, I don't know why.

However does your motherboard perhaps have an onboard RAID controller, if
not you could get a cheap add on ide raid controller and mirror the existing
disk. You get better I/O performance from a mirror aswell, and if one of the
disks goes bad, the system stays running on the remaining single image.

You also wouldn't have the hassle of keeping an offline backup, up to date.

You would probably have to reinstall xp to implement the hardware mirror.

Paul

 

[Tom Swift]

I believe that imaging software, perhaps Symantec Ghost, would be easier to
implement.

Tom Swift

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Ah, but there's no gain without pain

And hardware mirroring is a one off set it and forget it.

Paul

 

[Eugene P.]

Ah, but there's no gain without pain

And hardware mirroring is a one off set it and forget it.

Paul

Hi Paul...

If you're looking for disk mirroring, you could check out Arco's
DupliDisk IDE RAID 1 adapter at http://www.arcoide.com. It lets you
mirror up to two pairs of IDE drives on each of your existing IDE
controllers. It doesn't require any drivers and is OS independent.
These guys have been around for years.

Eugene

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Thanks Eugene

I don't see one that uses existing IDE controllers, all the ones I could
see, had there own onboard connectors. Not sure I can see how that would
work anyway, unless it was a device that was plugged in between the disks
and the ide controller on the motherboard. These look like standard ide raid
controllers, Am I missing something?

They are also a bit pricey don't you think at $289, you could get a
motherboard with onboard Raid for a lot less than that.

The first site I looked at here in the uk has a Promise 2 Channel ide Raid
card for £65, thats less than 100 US.

I'm not sure how the functionality and performance compares, but Promise
have been doing ide Raid for a long time too.

Best Wishes

Paul

 

[Tom Swift]

Look...it's your choice...but for me, Norton Ghost was free (after rebates,
naturally) and it clones a hard disk in minutes. If I was doing something
like, oh, running an airline reservation system or a bank ATM network I
would look at a RAID array.

Tom Swift

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hey Tom,

What exactly are these rebates ? Here in the UK amazon has Ghost 2003 for
£38.

I keep seeing info about them for microsoft products aswell but I've never
seen anything in the UK. Is this some marketing strategy peculiar to the US
?

Paul

 

[Tom Swift]

"Is this some marketing strategy peculiar to the US?"
I believe so, and also in Canada. And "peculiar" is the correct way to
describe it. The rebate strategy has now spread to household goods as well.
It's a most annoying way to offer a discount, since you usually have to wait
10+ weeks for the rebate check to arrive in the mail, and then the rebate
processing agencies are always coming up with reasons why you shouldn't
receive the rebate in the first place.

To be fair, it is possible to achieve some increase in performance by
setting up a RAID array. And if you're someone who likes to tinker with
hardware, you can have lots of fun setting one up. But for all the
complexity involved, not to mention the cost and the fact that most
home/small office software does not anticipate encountering a RAID setup,
one really shouldn't bother with it.

Tom Swift

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

That is a strange way of discounting, but any way is getter than none at all


As for RAID, Having started installing RAID arrays for shared bus failover
and clustering on Large Commercial Unix systems back in 95, I can't see a
simple mirrored pair on a pc could possibly be that complicated to set up,
And isn't the whole point that hardware RAID is supposed to be transparent
to the software sat on top of it. ?

Paul

 

[Tom Swift]

You are quite correct about RAID. Do bear in mind, however, that these
newsgroups are geared toward the average home/small business user.

Tom Swift

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hi Tom,

Ok enough of RAID already

Quick Sidebar on virtual memory if you don't mind spending a momement.
I'm rather frustrated with windows memory accounting.

How come, when you set set no pagefile, windows taskmanager still reports PF
usage and also reports paged kernel ?
Ok I think I actually know that one, it doesnt mean pagefile usage, its
means total commited address space, and the kernel figure is probably
pageable kernel memory, rather than "paged"
In the same way that in the process screen the VM column means pageable, not
paged.
Its not actually clear in processes exactly how shared and unshared space is
accounted, although total physical just about adds up to total committed,
wheres all the shared memory ?
Surely windows allows process working sets to overlap, and doesnt fault a
private memory page until one of the sharing process modifies it , copy
protection fault.
I cant believe xp keeps multiple copies of program code in memory does it ?
Most performance tools show process shared and unshared memory.

However whats really bugging me is the systeminfo command.

Running with 512MB physical memory and no page file, its reports

Total Physical Memory: 511 MB <----------------------Wheres my
stolen MB?
Available Physical Memory: 292 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size: 994 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 618 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use: 376 MB

I don't have a clue where its getting these virtual memory figures from ?

Whereas the task manager performance screen reports max commit = 494326K
which if you add the kernel 30688K isn't that far away from 512mb,

Same info comes out through msinfo32 aswell, only it throws in yet another
anomally of
Page File Space 483MB.

What page file ? This figure is atleast consistent with the ones above since
total virtual = phys ram+pagefile = 511+483=994.

My main job in the lattter half of the 90s as a senior unix performance
consultant to a hardware manufacturer, and I dont like numbers I dont
understand!

Would you happen to have any knowledge in this area, or know some reference
I could look, either a book or a url.

Paul

 

[Tom Swift]

I understand what you're getting at, but, to be honest, I'm not knowledgable
enough in that area to provide the complete answer that you deserve. You
might try TechNet on the Microsoft web site.

Tom Swift

 

[Peter Wilkins]

I understand what you're getting at, but, to be honest, I'm not knowledgable
enough in that area to provide the complete answer that you deserve. You
might try TechNet on the Microsoft web site.

Hey Tom (& Paul),

Could you use a bit of judicious snipping please?

Your last post had 3 lines of info and 315 lines of repeated repeated
repeated repeated content.

Us 3rd world people have download limits and high costs if we exceed
them.

TIA

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hey Peter,

Have you got you newsgroup reader set to download messages, if so set it to
download headers only, then you only download the messages you want to.

Paul

I understand what you're getting at, but, to be honest, I'm not knowledgable
enough in that area to provide the complete answer that you deserve. You
might try TechNet on the Microsoft web site.

Hey Tom (& Paul),

Could you use a bit of judicious snipping please?

Your last post had 3 lines of info and 315 lines of repeated repeated
repeated repeated content.

Us 3rd world people have download limits and high costs if we exceed
them.

TIA

 

[Peter Wilkins]

Hey Peter,

Have you got you newsgroup reader set to download messages, if so set itto
download headers only, then you only download the messages you want to.

Paul

No, Paul, I don't download all messages.
I have watch filters which only download bodies of posts covering
subjects in which I have an interest. One of those interests is
backup.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my request not to post 318
lines of text with only 3 new lines: a little judicious snipping makes
everyone happy and is just good netiquette.

 

[Tom Swift]

That's a fair argument. There is a tradition in newsgroups of not snipping,
to ensure that posters are not misunderstood or taken out of context.
Nevertheless, I'm all for judicious snipping and offer my apology.

Tom Swift

I understand what you're getting at, but, to be honest, I'm not knowledgable
enough in that area to provide the complete answer that you deserve. You
might try TechNet on the Microsoft web site.

Hey Tom (& Paul),

Could you use a bit of judicious snipping please?

Your last post had 3 lines of info and 315 lines of repeated repeated
repeated repeated content.

Us 3rd world people have download limits and high costs if we exceed
them.

TIA

 

[Peter Wilkins]

That's a fair argument. There is a tradition in newsgroups of not snipping,
to ensure that posters are not misunderstood or taken out of context.
Nevertheless, I'm all for judicious snipping and offer my apology.

Thanks Tom,
but if there is a tradition of not snipping developing, it's bad
netiquette, and should be stamped out!

I quote from Zen and the Art of the Internet:

4.13.7: Quoting
When following up to an article, many newsreaders provide the facility
to quote the original article with each line prefixed by > , as in

I agree, I think that basketweaving's really catching on,
particularly in Pennsylvania. Here's a list of every person
in PA that currently engages in it publicly:

.... etc ...

This is a severe example (potentially a horribly long article), but
proves a point. When you quote another person, edit out whatever isn't
directly applicable to your reply.[1] This gives the reader of the new
article a better idea of what points you were addressing. By including
the entire article, you'll only annoy those reading it. Also,
signatures in the original aren't necessary; the readers already know
who wrote it (by the attribution).

Avoid being tedious with responses---rather than pick apart an
article, address it in parts or as a whole. Addressing practically
each and every word in an article only proves that the person
responding has absolutely nothing better to do with his time.

If a ``war'' starts (insults and personal comments get thrown back and
forth), take it into email---exchange email with the person you're
arguing with. No one enjoys watching people bicker incessantly.
unquote

That's very old advice, but still good!