bikini said:
Hello...
I want to know if a Maxtor One Touch III can make an image of your disk..?
Can I restore the entire operating system (AND programs and files) if it
crashes?
Please advise....
Dale
There is one technique for this. Asus offers EZbackup on some of their
motherboards. Basically, the concept is there is a RAID controller
on the motherboard. There is one SATA port on the motherboard (that is
where your boot drive goes). There is an ESATA port on the back of the
computer. You connect an ESATA external enclosure to the ESATA port.
When you install the OS, you use a RAID 1 driver for the RAID controller.
RAID 1 forms a mirror of two drives.
If you plug in the ESATA drive, to the back of the computer, the
RAID driver can "rebuild" the mirror. That involves a sector by
sector copy of the internal hard drive, to the external one. When
the RAID status is "rebuild complete", then you know the backup
is finished. The mirroring operation has made an exact backup,
and it can even be done with the OS running. You can continue to
work while the mirror is rebuilding. (For total
consistency in the image, you could always shut down after
the rebuild is complete, as I don't know if the "Safely Remove"
icon is available with this setup or not. At shut down, all
the open files would be flushed to disk, and any system or
disk caches emptied out onto the platters.)
Then you unplug the external ESATA drive and store it in a safe place.
If, at some point, the internal drive fails, in theory it is as
simple as connecting the external ESATA again. You shouldn't even need
to change the boot order. The RAID mirror can work with only 1 of the
2 drives available (the internal one or the external one).
So, the thing is a bit of a fiddle, but it can be used to make
exact copies. One thing you have to be careful of, though, is the
exact size of drives. For example, it is possible to go to a computer
store, and buy two hard drives, and think they are exactly the same.
You get them home, and one might report 180,000,000,000 bytes, and
the other one 179,990,987,654 bytes. The reason for this, is
changes to firmware or to the layout of the info on the platters,
makes minor changes to the capacity. The problem that would come
up, is trying to mirror the 180,000,000,000 drive, to the
179,990,987,654 one. AFAIK, you can always back up to a slightly
larger disk (like a 200GB in this example). But ideally, for best
flexibility, it would help if they reported the same size - that
way they can swap roles at any time. Once the mirror rebuild is
complete, the disk cannot pull any fast ones on you, so the
size issue would only be apparent when trying to make a backup.
That is when you'd get warned about it, or stopped in your
tracks.
If you want to implement such a scheme on a motherboard without
a RAID controller, it might take the purchase of a controller
card with one internal and one external connector. The reason
for the external connector, is to make it easier to put the
drive in a safe place, after the backup/rebuild is complete.
You can also put your backup drive inside the computer, and
it is only a slight nuisance to disconnect the internal cable
on the backup volume, when you are finished.
Could you leave both disks connected all the time, and just
run in mirror mode ? The answer is yes. But the advantage
of disconnecting the backup drive, is that if the power
supply in your computer fails, it cannot burn both of
the drives out at the same time. Physically removing the
disk is intended to improve the security of the backup copy.
Makes it harder for a virus or Trojan to mess about as well
(just go get your most recent backup disk).
Not as much fun as the Maxtor OneTouch, but it is another
way to get the job done.
Paul
