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Alf,
No you are not missing the obvious. It isn't obvious that a good
backup or clone of a drive should make you safe but doesn't. I
learned the hard way. If I screw up something or something gets
messed up do I know it today or tomorrow or three days away. If
that happens and it is really bad or C: dies I can open the clone
drive then pick which backup from the third drive has the most
information but still before the screw up happened.
Where I really learned my lesson is I've had hardware failures and
system errors at the same time more than once. Sometimes a hardware
failure can cause a system mess. I keep several days of backups on
that third drive. Then I have a choice. Even if you simply delete a
file you want later and have emptied the trash can.
A really sneaky mess is if you have a clone drive but it blows up or
is corrupt and you don't know it. Then you have no protection if your
C: dies. Had that several years ago.
Jimmy
Thursday, October 21, 2004, 2:34:49 PM, you wrote:
AH> Jimmy,
AH> I may be missing the obvious, but is there a reason why you do your nightly
AH> backup to a third drive rather than update the second one?
AH> Alf
AH> ----- Original Message -----
AH> From: "Jimmy" <jhsnowden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
AH> To: "cwest" <cwest@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Omega-List" <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
AH> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 7:52 PM
AH> Subject: Re[2]: Casper catastrophe
>> Colin,
>>
>> RAID is for speed. You can save data part to one disk part to other.
>> You can also save all data to both disks. If one fails with data on
>> each disk your are dead. If one fails with all data on both disks
>> then ok you PROBABLY can be ok. Assumes Windows doesn't blow up when
>> a equipment failure happens and it probably will. I'm no expert but I
>> have never heard a RAID person tell me one drive dies and he keeps on
>> running. I have heard ugly stories. Like RAID card blew up. Or RAID
>> on motherboard but motherboard died. Do you need the exact same setup
>> to run again? Two cloned drives allow you to be running in less than
>> 5 minutes. A third drive with nightly backups or copies will allow you
>> to be running and trading in less than a half hour maybe 10 minutes.
>> You only need to clone the second drive pretty rarely. I do it on
>> Saturday or if I forget next week or the week after. Nightly data
>> backups keep me current. If the main drive dies you have the clone.
>> If the third drive and main drive dies then Esignal will have that
>> much data I can download right then. Just my opinion.
>>
>> Jimmy
>>
>> Thursday, October 21, 2004, 1:39:10 PM, you wrote:
>>
>> c> I'm still baffled why no one on this list that I'm aware of uses a
>> simple
>> c> RAID 1 config--it would just about obviate all of the (hardware)
>> failure
>> c> problems I read about. What's wrong with RAID 1? Why not use it?
>>
>> c> Colin West
>>
>> c> -----Original Message-----
>> c> From: Michael Guess [mailto:mguess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> c> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 3:10 PM
>> c> To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
>> c> Subject: Casper catastrophe
>>
>> c> Jimmy et al,
>>
>> c> Like many of you, I like to clone my hard disk (drawered so I can swap
>> it
>> c> if necessary). I used to use Ghost but panicked one day when I wasn't
>> sure
>> c> which drive was truly Master and which one was Destination. That
>> encouraged
>> c> me to switch to Casper, as I love its interface, etc. (especially that
>> it
>> c> can do its thing within Windows).
>>
>> c> As you may recall, several weeks ago I had a disaster during a backup
>> that
>> c> wiped out my backup and caused a registry problem that could only be
>> c> resolved by reinstalling my Win2k OS. It's been plenty rough since
>> then,
>> c> but the other night I decided it was time to preserve my hard work, so
>> I
>> c> used Casper to back up.
>>
>> c> At the very end of the backup I got a warning from Zone Alarm Pro that
>> it
>> c> had defended against something (not an intrusion). I tried clicking on
>> the
>> c> OK button to make it go away but it wouldn't budge. Things appeared
>> frozen.
>> c> Suddenly I got the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, just as I did before.
>> c> After a major hissy fit, I calmed down and tried rebooting my main
>> disk. No
>> c> luck.
>>
>> c> This timing is especially bad (isn't it always) as I was closing in on
>> a
>> c> trading seminar I'm scheduled to do this week. Desperation drove me to
>> try
>> c> booting from the cloned copy. It actually made it past the Windows
>> splash
>> c> screen and was playing the wav file you hear when finally arriving at
>> the
>> c> Desktop. Suddenly, I got a message saying I was either missing my
>> PageFile
>> c> or it was too small. The problem was how could I go in to correct that
>> if I
>> c> couldn't even finish booting.
>>
>> c> A friend researched this for me and advised I could assign the C drive
>> c> designation to the destination drive by booting from a Win98 floppy or
>> CD,
>> c> then running 'ckdsk /mbr' which would take care of the problem. I am
>> now
>> c> typing this from the destination drive that's now my main drive, with
>> all
>> c> my apps intact. Say halleluja!
>>
>> c> All of this is to warn others that there MAY be a link between Casper
>> and
>> c> ZA Pro (latest version) which can cause such disasters. I'm going back
>> c> behind a router firewall and uninstalling my ZA. Meanwhile, I'm looking
>> for
>> c> safe alternatives to Casper. I encourage further discussion on this, as
>> c> many of you really extended yourselves to help me before. I'm very
>> c> grateful, and hope I can prevent others from similar disasters. This
>> isn't
>> c> meant to diss Casper per se, as I really loved using it until this came
>> up.
>> c> I just want to help others prevent similar fates.
>>
>> c> Thanx to all,
>>
>> c> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> Jimmy mailto:jhsnowden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________________________
>> This email and all attachments have been electronically scanned by
>> Kingston
>> Communications' email Anti-Virus service and no known viruses were
>> detected.
>> ____________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>>
AH> ____________________________________________________________________________
AH> This email and all attachments have been electronically scanned by Kingston
AH> Communications' email Anti-Virus service and no known viruses were detected.
AH> ____________________________________________________________________________
--
Best regards,
Jimmy mailto:jhsnowden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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