Partitioning for better management of computer

Its does indeed write over - Before it does anything it deletes everything on the partition - and then it restores.

It has been years since I had a bad restore so things may be different today.
when I last had a bad restore I had to use Disk Director to create a new partition in the empty space left by Acronis. I then restored another image without any difficulty.

So are you stuffed if it goes wrong ? well perhaps not if you have other images saved to different devices. Very often when people say my image verified ok but would not restore they are using a crap USB cable or device - with the same image restoring fine if first copied to another internal drive or partition.

It sounds as though you have never actually restored ? if this is the case how do you really know if restore will work in an emergency ? I would make several
system images to different devices ( USB, other partition, network) and then
hold my breath and restore. I must have restored more than a thousand images since by last bad restore ( USB cable problem) but I always have numerous images archived just in case.

 

Syncback
This thing mirrors folders/drives/partitions...etcc.

and this is how mine looks:

 

what if a restore fails ........ yes you may have wiped out a perfectly good system but so what ? I have several machines using Acronis 10, 9, 9.1 and even 8 and not one of them takes more than 10 minutes to restore the OS and Program partition. Presumably you restored because something was wrong with C ?

Well, I'm sure I will get another "F" grade but so what I'm here to learn.

My question was poorly put. I was going to restore as a TEST not because something was wrong with C drive.

I get the point about backing up unchanging photos and games and stuff, why do that? I was going to dump data into 2 sets. 1 for frequently changing data and then do weekly incremental s on that partition but then just do monthly images of photos and games and music.

But you all have convinced me to just use 1 data partition with folders for photos etc... no advantage to separate partitions. The folder idea lends itself to a file by file backup system like retrospect. I use a partition backup system.

I terms of wilbertnl test well, all I can say is if every restore craps out and I can't do squat then I will take my cd software packages and my off site financial and photos images buy a new desktop and start clean.

I already know I have one image that worked so I would start with the most recent one and keep restoring til at the worst I'm back to that one.

Hey wilbertnl, here's a test for you, the answer is 42, what was the question?

Happy 2007 to all who help others and to those who don't!

 

Becareful relying on past images. I know I know you've used it over and over. What ever causes it, these things degrade in integrity over time. I've had that happen to me on more than one occasion. Further, I would argue that spending the time to back up your system and data is such a pain that the most surefire of ways has been, for me, to just clone drives, stuff the clone in to make sure it works, and then take it out. Partition or no partition, your things are safe. The only thing about doing that is that you might, like me, be too lazy to open the case and swap the drive. This then would lead to mobile HDD racks. which is what I 've devolutionized to.

 

Hello,

This time I won't get confused and post in the wrong thread.

As to partitioning, given sufficient space, I like the following setups:

First hard disk (usually):

Windows OS partition that will include all programs save virtualization software.
Games partition.
P2P partition.
Data partition, mostly likely FAT to allow easy Linux access.
Linux partitions, usually 3 per OS (usually one or two distros per comp).

Second (and sometimes third) hard disk:

Linux partitions - if not on first.
Partition with pagefile and virtualization software.
Partition for rarely accessed and changed files like .isos or music.
Dedicated backup storage partition.
One or two FAT partitions more for sharing with Linux and/or other evil purposes.

I like to keep partitions under 50% occupied space.

I have this setup on 3 comps that permit enough space. Other machines are Linux only or Windows with just 2 partitions (plus Linux).

Mrk

P.S. The most heavily abused machine has:
10 Windows partitions
6 Linux partitions
11 virtual machines with a total of 37 partitions

 

Has anyone tried restoring an image of an OS to hardware that has changed (especially important on hardware which lasts 3/4 years), what if your cpu and or motherboard expires, will your OS function correctly afterwards ?

I've have had win2k server fail to run (stop error) when restoring the OS image to new hardware... different cpu generations and SCSI devices (on scsi only hardware).

Just something to ponder over.

 

if there is a serious change in the drivers required the image will be useless for restoration purposes (but may have data\configuration recovery value on a non booting drive) some changes are far more important than others, a change of chipset spells doom, but just a new SCSI card is no big deal, just yank the card, restore to a similar setup as what you had or a temp IDE HDD install the SCSI card, update the driver and clone back from the IDE to the SCSI. That should apply to most PCI\USB\Firewire hardware, the vast majority being plug and play, disconnect before the restore then reconnect and follow the new hardware wizard.

I have upgraded a CPU without a reinstall on the same chipset before, but can't specifically say that would apply to all chipsets.

if this is really a concern you can employ sysprep to strip all the drivers
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577
if its better to get half a restore and reload all drivers than have nothing
you cannot however migrate from one HAL to another with it. (ie: P4 > Itanium)
which I suspect was the issue in your CPU upgrade failure?

to determine your current HAL
Start > Run > (type) devmgmt.msc > View > Devices by type > Dclick Computer
(example ACPI Multiprocessor PC)

How to Troubleshoot Windows 2000 Hardware Abstraction Layer Issues (lists possible HALs)
HAL options after Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Setup

excerpt of notes

 

Ice_Czar yes it was from a single core Xeon (from about 3 years ago) to a recent dual core Xeon.
Also we are running Win2k3 now which does handle HAL changes better than Win2k, but you know its doom, when it BSOD into safe mode :|

 

indeed

best to start over
even if an ugly hack might be possible from a parallel install

 

what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything ?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 1979

 

Rats! You answered for wilbertnl! Now we will never know if he knew!

Take care !

PS 1 I'm off to do a full backup to dvd rw's that will go off line to my safety deposit box! Will replace them 1/quarter.

PS 2 May also get second external hard drive to do the same so I have 2 different media with archives.

Buddy just told me he is got a 500GB external! Why would I ever need that much?

What brands of drive are the most reliable and proven to be so? Seagate?

 

Hard Drive reliability study:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=144072&highlight=hard drive

 

I would never backup to CD/DVD.
Aside from the reliabilty issue, I have about 43GB of used files on hard drives.
Backing up to optical media just is not practical.

You need to have at least two extrernal hard drives, alternating amongst them, and NEVER leaving ALL thedrives connected at the same time.

 

I will definitely have 2 external drives as you suggest and alternate between then that is a very good idea.

However, on CD/DVD's had I not had the bootable recovery cd work I would have been dead in the water! Thank... G...d for cd's reliable or not!

I only need about 19GB for OS, less once I pull out the data to a new partition so about 3-4 cd's will do it for me. These can go off site in case the robber barons steal my whole PC! Yes, it has happened in my neighborhood!

Comments welcome! Anybody put external drives in their safety box?

 

And you store that safety box in another town?

 

Hello,

Two external drives? Why not three? But I agree. For backing your personal stuff, there's no limit to precaution. I go with two hard disks on one pc, backup to a second hard disk on a second pc, multiple DVDs, and external hard disk. It's really difficult to reproduce pictures from the high-school excursion to Albania in 1983. Those are precious and must be saved. Programs, stuff you download off the Internet? Nah. Personal, self-created stuff? Precious.

As to external hard disks - place data on them in encrypted volumes or passworded archives or both. TrueCrypt will work.

Mrk

 

External HDD = mobile hard disks
Also outside storage is very important.
For me: RAID 1(local system) + NAS(centralized storage) + DVDs(safe box) + external HDDs(safe box and outside storage)
If you are more paranoid go for tape backup

 

DVD Reliability can be an issue if poor quality disks are used or not burned properly but I have just looked at a system image made with Acronis 6 in November 2003 and it is in fine shape. I certainly wouldn't use DVD as my only back up and I must admit I'm not likely to want to restore such an old image but making a copy to DVD does allow for very cheap off site protection.

Burglaries and Fires do happen and when they do on site storage is often of no value at all.

 

DVDisaster
I replace my DVD backups once every two years.

 

Direct Attached Storage suffers from a great number of things that can take them and your box at the same time.
Near-line storage in the enterprise parlance really is still relevant.

I employ both internal IDE RAID5 as well as external SCSI RAID5 arrays for storage, but natural disaster, power event, network intrusion and automated malware could all kill them.

Sure its nice to be able to put a bullet through any one HDD in the array and not loose data, that hasnt kept me from loosing data though, once as mentioned above with system memory corruption and a failure to verify transfers

But the first time was the most common reason for data loss. Pilot Error, because I read a manual (the card would autorecognize the drives to channels, only that BIOS version had a glitch). 2 drive array you have 2 possible permutations of drives to channels AB or BA. Three drives six permutations, ABC ACB BCA BAC CAB CBA but with 6 drives you have 720 permutations.

Point is that if you do look at data reliability schemes on an enterprise level they have been through this all before. And the old "rule" was no substitute for hard backups (CD\DVD\Tape). Thats been changing with SAN strategies but generally only if they span multiple locations with all sorts of redundancy and infrastructure.

While hard media can fail, precautions in its selection, verification, storage, periodic reverification and reimaging as necessary mitigate the potential for data loss. A burglar rarely steals the DVDs under the Garlic in the back of your fridge, a near or direct lighting strike that melts your overhyped surge protector cares less. There are 101 ways to loose data, its best to employ every way you can to forestall that.

The main problem I have with external HDDs is they where never designed to by used that way. 3.5" platters flex alot more than 2.5" laptop or 1" memory disks,and regardless of how stiff the arm and how wonderful the firmware and sensors to avoid headslap (freefall, power loss ect more common and generally beter in laptop drives). A sudden impact will likely lead to headslap. The head is just 2 microns of the surface floating on an air boundary layer. Once it hits you get both the divot as well as the ejected matter. Leading to the head running over it, imagine running over a bowling ball in a go cart at mach 813. (10k rpm). If your aware of that you take precautions when you use them, but they arent sold like that. And generally are used like a laptop drive, which they arent.

When it was CDs we backed up to it was bad, but with cheap 4.3GB DVD's
its really worth it IMO.

 

Western Digital and Seagate have engineers/designers that have designed their new external hard drives addressing everything you just mentioned. These aren't just thrown together internal hard drives inside a generic enclosure. They have taken great care to use rubber inside the enclosure and are mounted down with precision techniques. They really do know what they're doing.

 

ive got one internal 160gb harddrive maxtor.
and one external maxtor one touch III USB2.0 which stores one image at a time of the 160gb drive.
so i can only store one image at a time which is a problem because during the backup ive got no backup.
should i consider buying a bigger external drive so i can have multipal images?
i am always worried when i make an image because of no backup during the process.
your right i have never tryed restoring and since it over rights the current partistion on that harddrive and i have only one image if i restored and it went wrong i would be stuffed. its not likely thou.
i saw that i can get a 320gb external drive for about £70.
when i got my maxtor 100gb external i got atm it cost £110 from amazon.
would you say seagate are the best and genraly the longest lasting harddrives?
the main point is ive had my pc two years so far and i normaly replace it after 4 years so im hoping it will last two more years then i would of got my new pc and i wont have to worry about the harddrive for a while.
what about western digital my book?
lodore

 

For some reason I can't resist buying external drives ( several Freecoms, Toshiba, and Maxtor). They all work just fine. Prices are falling all the time.

You say you have a 160gb drive. How much of that is taken up by operating system and programs ? 10-15 gb ? and how much data ? one of my work machines uses only 5.59 gb for windows XP , Office, scanning software.....
All client files, PDFs , word docs etc take up 7.65 gb.

So id your 160gb drive full ? then what about compression ? using normal compression my 5.59 gb os/programs reduces to 3.87 gb.

As the title of this thread is "partitioning for better management of computer"
I would argue that the simple solution is to have one partition for OS and programs ( 15 gb is more than enough) and another for "data".

with a 320 gb external you should be able to store multiple OS/Program
images and still have plenty of space for numerous data images.

Final question - if you really do have 160 gb of data how much of it is really important and how much old drivers, and basic junk. I would take a risk and simply copy all this old stuff to multiple CDs - just in case. I know that my 3DFX drivers and windows 3.1 junk will never be needed again but I feel happier knowing that it is stored on CD/DVD even if I can't find them.