Subject:Never have a problem again…..

Posted by: liquid

Date:2/6/2003 7:42:34 PM

K people, I’m sure some of you have done this, or may even know a better way to achieve the same thing, but I’m going to post a full proof way of setting up your computer. Here’s what I did…
Three partitions on my drive
C drive: Windows, other software…etc…
D drive : Songs, loops etc….
E drive : Ghost and Image
I loaded up windows and did all the updates, set up my screen resolution and ghosted my computer on the last partition (E drive)
Then I loaded up acid (C drive), dumped all my loops and songs from my backup computer onto my D drive
Ghosted again….
Now, if I tweak anything, and something goes wrong, all I have to do is call up the second ghost file. It will completely restore my computer to the way I had it originally, and none of my songs or loops will be affected since they’re on another partition. And voila…what can go wrong? If something fucks up, I simply load up the image I stored on my e drive, and I’m off to the races again….why isn’t everyone making backup’s of their configurations when things are working well? Why wait until all hell breaks loose?
I think in EX it’s even easier? You don’t even need ghost…right? I even set up a raid card (mirrored) so if a hard drive blows up, I’ll have an exact copy on my other drive of all my work. Now the only thing I’ve got worry about is theft and fire….
Don’t expect SF or Microsoft to come to the rescue when things go wrong. Protect yourself! If you don’t know how to do this, take your computer to a good computer retailer, talk to the tech and slid him $50 and ask him to make sure he gets it right. The whole thing's going to take a day or two and it just might save you weeks of sharp pain in your ass! You wont regret the effort!

Subject:RE: Never have a problem again…..

Reply by: Vocalpoint

Date:2/7/2003 7:31:43 AM

Is there two drives in this box...or just one? If this is single drive and you lose a hard drive controller (most common way to lose a drive) or have a sector read problem anywhere on that disk...ghosting will not save you. All of your data will be lost.

Best to ensure your songs are backed up in two separate locations at any given time.

Subject:RE: Never have a problem again…..

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/7/2003 7:50:43 AM

I'm a real fan of intelligent ghosting. In fact, this very day I'm doing it. However, I would warn people that you can trash a ghost in a hurry, too, and not realize it before you overwrite the older one that was working right.

So you install a new piece of software you like a lot and register it. (I want all my registrations included in a "good ghost.") But you do a few other little tweaks, too, and then you get some critical update and something goes haywire but you don't realize it yet...until...three hours later...crap!

Well, I made what I thought was the super-primo-wonderfulest-ever ghost yesterday, and I'm just SO glad I keep a penultimate ghost copied to another system on our little peer-to-peer network. I've got the SPWE ghost on my second physical hard drive in my own box--you can't ghost to the same hard drive, to answer the question, unless there's some way of doing it to a partition, but in Norton 2002 I don't think you could do that. Maybe 2003 will do it, but I kinda doubt it.

Since I know this SPWE ghost is trash, I'll delete it and do another ghost over it after I carefully start back with the penultimate ghost and don't do the offending tweaks that trashed it. But before I do another one that's "even better" than that one, I'll copy it to the second computer just in case. If I hadn't done that before, I'd be in a real pickle today.

BTW, turning off Windows System Restore and depending on a ghost strategy has made a huge difference in the speed and stability of my system.

And my strategy is to keep my data files--at least my compositions and midi files--on the second hard drive so I don't overwrite something by mistake when I restore a ghost to C. (I learned this the hard way.) I don't put any huge audio files in my ghost, either, unless they are just so critical to what I do every day that I'm always going to need them. I back those up to CD or DVD. I try to keep a backup of things like configuration settings that change as I work on my other drive.

That reminds me, I'm going to go and download a program called Back Rest, which I know will allow me to selectively back up files/dirs without thinking about it, and register it.

Diane

Subject:RE: Never have a problem again…..

Reply by: liquid

Date:2/7/2003 8:51:05 AM

I have two hard drives mirrored together(Two phisical hard drives, not just partitions). That means that everytime I write anything to one drive, it backs it up automatically onto the other. That along with my ghost means that my backup system is full proof. When I ghost, I never overwrite a previous ghost, that way I know I can always go back. This is the only way to go.

Subject:RE: Never have a problem again…..

Reply by: vanblah

Date:2/7/2003 9:39:17 AM

liquid -

It's fool-proof unless you lose the controller, or start writing bad data which gets mirrored before a crash ... take it from me, mirroring is not fool proof ... it's just insurance.

Why have you not posted motherboard info?

Doug