Arild, I have TWO backup disks. My drives are all mounted in drawers, using an add-on IDE controller card which supports "cable select". This allows me to switch drives with the turn of a key (the drawers lock into my mid-tower case) without the need to move jumpers. I don't use RAID at all. When I mistakenly installed the XP SP3 update with IE7 still installed my computer was in a condition that REQUIRED there be 2 drives installed. My fault, when I installed XP I had both drives installed thinking I would be able to boot on either XP or 98SE. I indeed could but HAD to have both installed as the XP had installed as a "dual boot" system. Anyway the upgrade to SP3 destroyed BOTH drives. That is why I now have 3 drives! One is the active disk. One is the weekly backup. The third is ONLY cloned when I am CERTAIN my system is stable!
My system now runs with 1 drive unless I am cloning. Eric Thompson S/V Procrastinator South San Francisco [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arild Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 9:58 AM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] Computer failure underway > > > Eric T. wrote: >> * Hello All.* >> ** >> * Having suffered more than my share of disk failures I think I have >> the best recovery scheme on my computer right now.* >> * It is called Acronis True Image and it allows one to CLONE a hard >> disk! You can clone to an external disk (the same size or larger) and >> if your main disk dies you can boot from the Acronis CD and clone back >> to the exact condition you were in when you made the clone copy.* >> * This is an EXACT copy. Everything is copied, the operating system, >> it's validation, all applications, all settings. There will be only >> the delay required to boot from the CD and perform the clone.* >> > > REPLY > Sounds good Eric. One question remains. If it copies everything would > it not also copy a malware infection. In my case by the time I > detected the presence of malware it had already messed with my backups > including "RESTORE". and made several copies of itself including > several hidden folders. > > I discovered the malware erased all previous restore points including > its own previous marks. Every time you boot up the darn program writes > a new restore point and erases anything older. doing a manual hunt and > destroy found the obvious folders but mised the hidden ones. And this > program mutates so file names did not remain constant. > > I agree that a RAID system is great insurance for hardware crashes. We > started using that kind of system for SCADA systems back in 1988 when > I worked for a SCADA manufacturer. > To be truly bullet proof you must also have dual redundant power > supplies. For that reason we actually housed our RAID system in two > completely separated bozes, each capable of standing alone. AND the > powersully was backed up with a UOS capable of running for hours even > if the main station power supply failed. > > But this got to be very expensive not to mention rather bulky. Even > with today's electronics it does take up more room in the navigation > console. > > regards > Arild > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
