TSGL: Moving to a new HD?

[Orf Bartrop]

> I do have the physical space for another HD, but somehow got the
> impression that my motherboard won't support all the hardware, even
> though there are free cable connections.  Right now I have two HDs,
> two DVDs and a floppy drive.  I have this fuzzy recollection that I
> once tried to add something, but couldn't because of some capacity
> problem.
> 
> But I like the idea, and will give it a try.  There's nothing to
> lose (except maybe the old floppy drive).
>
You would not have to lose your floppy.

If you have spare HD connections you should be able to mount 
another HD.

What I have done is install two additional HDs. One is my old "C" 
drive which I use to ghost the current "C" drive to on a weekly basis.

The other is mounted in a mobile rack in my computer. The rack
consists of a frame and a drawer that contains a hard drive (HD), 
which I have nominated as the "E" drive but it can be called what 
you like. My computer now thinks it has three HDs.

The drawer and HD can be pulled out and stored off site. I only put 
the drawer back in the computer when I want to clone or recover a 
file. It takes less than 5 seconds to install or remove the drawer 
containing the "E" drive.

I clone the "C" drive directly to the "D" drive using Norton Ghost 
(NG). If you can clone the whole of the "C" drive to another drive 
it formats that other drive as it stores a photo image of the "C".

Using this method means that if the "C" drive crashes, the other 
drive can be used as a replacement without having to do anything 
software wise. I start the operation by booting from a floppy that 
has all the programs and a .BAT file with the necessary data 
(described below) to start the cloning process.

However, when I ghost to the "E" drive I clone to a file rather 
than the drive itself so that I can retain 3 backups of "C". This 
does not affect recovering the whole of the "C" drive or individual 
files.

I use Windows XP and Norton Ghost (NG) runs as a DOS program. 
Because of the NTFS file system in XP and the need to back up to 
FAT32 (required in my old copy of NG), I use a Win98 boot-up floppy 
with a BAT file that does all the work for me.

Don't be frightened by these terms. All one has to do is insert the 
mobile rack before turning on the computer and boot up using the 
floppy. NG has instructions on how to create the floppy (a CD can 
be used instead of a floppy).

I have created 3 floppies each containing a BAT file that I call 
Clone1, Clone2 and Clone3. Once you have the process set up, it is 
only a matter of booting using one of the floppies and the cloning 
process will start and clone to files called Clone1, Clone2 or 
Clone3. It will ask if you want to overwrite the previous file. 
Answer YES and away it goes. Once finished, turn off the computer 
and remove the mobile rack and floppy.

There is a refinement that can be used to make the system work even 
better but it is not essential. Format the HD in the mobile rack 
with 3 partitions. Set up each floppy to store the backup file in a 
particular partition. In the BAT file start by deleting all files 
from that partition before it calls the Ghost program to ghost the 
"C" drive. In the process of backing up, Ghost can create more than 
one file - in my version of Ghost the stored file size seems to be 
limited to 2 GB and then Ghost creates another file. This process 
goes on until all data is stored.

It is very easy to "Restore" a file or files to their original 
folder on "C". Likewise, it is easy to restore the whole of the "C" 
drive.

To me, this is a foolproof way of backing up because if one back up 
is corrupted for any reason, the previous back up can be used. 
Also, drives other than the "C" drive can be cloned onto the mobile 
rack.

You would need to buy the mobile rack, a hard drive and NG. If you
decide to go this way, I can send you the BAT files.

Another benefit is when upgrading your computer. Transfer the 
mobile rack to the new computer and you have access to every file 
on your old "C" drive.

Hope this is of some help.