Using SATA-II drives for backup purposes?

[M. B.]

I am currently running Windows XP SP2 on a one partition hard drive (WD
Caviar SATA-II), which is 250 gigabytes. My curent backup unit is a HP
SureStor DAT 40 tape drive using DDS4.

Since it is now taking me like 5 tapes to backup my system, would the
following solution work for me better? Buy another INTERNAL 250 gig drive
SATA-II (around $120). Use the drive only to make "identical clone copies"
from the C: drive around about once a week using progrtam such as Norton
Ghost or Acronis True Image. So the 2nd drive would be only used for cloning
of the first. In other words in case my C: ever gets corrupted or dies, all
I do is enable the D: drive, which in essence becomes my new C:

The reason I don't want to buy an EXTERNAL drive (such as Maxtor OneTouch II
or alike) is that it takes up space, the data transfer will be slower even
on FireWire and it costs more.

My question is this:

Since I am dealing with SATA-II drives, I need to use the latest True Image
/ Norton Ghost versions. Both require that you run the program directly
from Windows XP. What will happen when I enable the D: drive for the
system boot, as since it's a clone of the C: drive, it also has a boot
sector. Will Windows boot off the correct drive? I assume that I can
disable the D: drive from within the BIOS of my motherboard (ASUS P4C800
Deluxe) for all other computer usage, but somehow I need to start the system
with both drives on in order for the cloning program to work correcly.

Can someone please enlighten me?

 

[fj]

I am currently running Windows XP SP2 on a one partition hard drive (WD
Caviar SATA-II), which is 250 gigabytes. My curent backup unit is a HP
SureStor DAT 40 tape drive using DDS4.

Since it is now taking me like 5 tapes to backup my system, would the
following solution work for me better? Buy another INTERNAL 250 gig drive
SATA-II (around $120). Use the drive only to make "identical clone
copies" from the C: drive around about once a week using progrtam such as
Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. So the 2nd drive would be only used
for cloning of the first. In other words in case my C: ever gets
corrupted or dies, all I do is enable the D: drive, which in essence
becomes my new C:

Haven't used Acronis, but if you clone the second drive to be just like the
C:, I don't think you can have the second drive in the system with Windows
booted at the same time as the original. A key feature of cloning is to
make the cloned drive appear as the original [in this case C:].
Usually, cloning is used when you want to 'upgrade' your current hard
drive - so you would clone C: to the new drive - but this is done in DOS
mode.

If I understand the features in Acronis, you could take a backup strategy
with the second drive as follows:
Partition the second drive into two parts. Use Acronis to create an image
on the second partition on this second drive. Use Acronis' file backup
capability to regularly backup your user created files.

If your C: drive fails, you would move the second drive to the same position
as the C:, then restore the image on the second partition to the first
partition. Then restore your user created files.

Whatever backup strategy/disaster recovery you do take, it is critical that
you test it. With very few exceptions, every backup strategy/disaster
recovery approach I've taken has had some problem the first time I tested
it.

Lastly, I'd recommend you take a look at Dantz's Retrospect. Very flexible.
Includes a Disaster Recovery CD that will boot your PC and enable a full
system restore from a Retrospect Backup Set. In Retrospect's case, you
wouldn't need to partition the second drive.

It takes ~ 15 minutes from the time I put in the Disaster Recovery CD until
Retrospect has finished restoring my system.

HTH

 

[Jan Alter]

Hi,
What you would like to do using Acronis is essentially viable. I've used
Acronis and it is a literally a very easy program to work with and has shown
itself to be very reliable in the 6 months I've used it.
I've tested it a couple ways.
1.Cloned my XP drive to a second hard drive and substituted the second
drive. Everything worked, except I had to re-register Photoshop CS.

2. Imaged the working XP drive to an external USB drive. Took out my
working XP drive and installed a new drive with nothing on it, which
actually happened to be smaller than the current working XP drive. Used the
Acronis emergency boot CD, that I made with the Acronis program, and booted
up to the Acronis restore program. It found the external USB drive and the
image that was made to restore it to the new hard drive in the computer. XP
worked with all programs.

This is using Acronis True Image 8.0 I believe it is now up to version
9.0

One of the nice things about the program is that one can schedule image
updates each day at any specific time every day, or every certain number of
days. I've used Ghost and it will pretty much do the same thing as Acronis,
but the Acronis interface is easier to work with and more straightforward.
You could accomplish this on an installed second internal drive or external
drive.

--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us

I am currently running Windows XP SP2 on a one partition hard drive (WD
Caviar SATA-II), which is 250 gigabytes. My curent backup unit is a HP
SureStor DAT 40 tape drive using DDS4.

Since it is now taking me like 5 tapes to backup my system, would the
following solution work for me better? Buy another INTERNAL 250 gig
drive SATA-II (around $120). Use the drive only to make "identical clone
copies" from the C: drive around about once a week using progrtam such as
Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. So the 2nd drive would be only used
for cloning of the first. In other words in case my C: ever gets
corrupted or dies, all I do is enable the D: drive, which in essence
becomes my new C:

Haven't used Acronis, but if you clone the second drive to be just like
the C:, I don't think you can have the second drive in the system with
Windows booted at the same time as the original. A key feature of cloning
is to make the cloned drive appear as the original [in this case C:].
Usually, cloning is used when you want to 'upgrade' your current hard
drive - so you would clone C: to the new drive - but this is done in DOS
mode.

If I understand the features in Acronis, you could take a backup strategy
with the second drive as follows:
Partition the second drive into two parts. Use Acronis to create an image
on the second partition on this second drive. Use Acronis' file backup
capability to regularly backup your user created files.

If your C: drive fails, you would move the second drive to the same
position as the C:, then restore the image on the second partition to the
first partition. Then restore your user created files.

Whatever backup strategy/disaster recovery you do take, it is critical
that you test it. With very few exceptions, every backup
strategy/disaster recovery approach I've taken has had some problem the
first time I tested it.

Lastly, I'd recommend you take a look at Dantz's Retrospect. Very
flexible. Includes a Disaster Recovery CD that will boot your PC and
enable a full system restore from a Retrospect Backup Set. In
Retrospect's case, you wouldn't need to partition the second drive.

It takes ~ 15 minutes from the time I put in the Disaster Recovery CD
until Retrospect has finished restoring my system.

HTH

The reason I don't want to buy an EXTERNAL drive (such as Maxtor OneTouch
II or alike) is that it takes up space, the data transfer will be slower
even on FireWire and it costs more.

My question is this:

Since I am dealing with SATA-II drives, I need to use the latest True
Image / Norton Ghost versions. Both require that you run the program
directly from Windows XP. What will happen when I enable the D: drive
for the system boot, as since it's a clone of the C: drive, it also has a
boot sector. Will Windows boot off the correct drive? I assume that
I can disable the D: drive from within the BIOS of my motherboard (ASUS
P4C800 Deluxe) for all other computer usage, but somehow I need to start
the system with both drives on in order for the cloning program to work
correcly.

Can someone please enlighten me?