Why don't more people image their OS Hard drive

[photo_angel2004]

I have heard of ghost a lot but I have never used anything like that. I guess I have never really needed to. If something goes wrong in a big way I just re install windows.

Nice link jm1647 there are 2 mail in rebates here after the reabates its free:

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201955877&dcaid=17260

[Chewy]

Why don't more people image there OS Hard drive?

Once you learn to partition, get some extra hard drives and learn to take care of your OS install, it's just easier to keep duplicate copies of data
on seperate hard drives. Besides I have found I usually get a better install of windows on the second or third go round. Seen ghost screw up on a friend,
probably user error.

[Dan]

Once you learn to partition, get some extra hard drives and learn to take care of your OS install, it's just easier to keep duplicate copies of data
on seperate hard drives. Besides I have found I usually get a better install of windows on the second or third go round. Seen ghost screw up on a friend,
probably user error.

That's basically the way I manage my pc. I have 4 partitions and take good care of my pc. I have never needed a clean install and I keep all my apps etc. on cd. Just never went the extra step but good to hear all of this.

[jm1647]

I usta watch a show on Tech TV, now called G4 I think. A guy called Leo Laporte usta do 2 shows, Call for Help and the Screensavers.

He sorta recommended if ya do a lot of installing and uninstalling programs like they did on the show its a good idea to do spring cleaning once a year. And an image makes it so much easier to do that.

I have a fresh install of just updated windows and a install of a fresh install of windows with my favorite programs. Ghosted then burnt to DVD. If something goes wrong, , your back up in a flash.

I also have anything I can move off the OS partition off of it, and also ghost my data, mp3, mail and any partition I feel would be a shame to lose. I can also go into the image and just pull certain files out if I want. That's nice also.

[vw56german]

do you just have one hard drive with one partition?

Currently I have 2 hard drives, the main system drive 80Gb SATA with 2 partitions, (general C: drive and the D: drive is partition for system restore) and I have a 120Gb IDE on its own controler with only one partition.

I had to power down for a storm (yes i do get paranoid sometimes, even with a usb and surge protection) and when I powered up again there was an unhealthy noise that I believe may be coming from the system hard drive. It did go away, but got me thinking about what to have ready in case of a failure. It also made me think about getting a new 250Gb or 300Gb SATA drive and making it the system drive.

If I am on track with the thread here, I should be able to create a partition on the 120Gb drive and store an image there as back up. I did create the HP system restore discs, but I believe they would only be used for a complete wipe and reformat, so good to have but I like the idea of not loosing so much data and not having to reinstall everything.

[Chewy]

whenever that 80 makes any more noises think seriously about reloading
onto a new bigger drive, the 250 and 300's are good buys, I like the seagates,
5 year warranty. You can store images without partitioning the data drive.

[Steve83]

I've been fighting a weird crash for the past few months, involving at least a dozen "clean" installs/updates/reloads & the accompanying data loss. I have over 1.3TB of HD space, but of course, most of that was just bulk video storage - no big deal to lose. I've replaced the OS HD & now the mobo, but I still get the feeling I haven't "fixed it", so I'm paranoid.

When it strikes, the symptom is a whole bunch of "The file or directory is corrupt or unreadable." windows popping up, followed by a fast degradation of OS performance & the inability to launch any new instances of any programs. If I reboot, the BIOS reports "NTLDR is missing" or "Error loading operating system". Installing the drive on another system results in "The drive is not formatted, or contains an unrecognized file system. Would you like to format?".

I have Nero6, NSW05, & the install CDs for Maxtor, WD, & Seagate. Can I use any of those to create a dupe HD? Or an image? If I use a HD install CD to copy a partition containing an OS, will it automatically clear/erase/format the source drive, or can I end up with 2 (or more) exact copies?

[Chewy]

Welcome to the cold cruel world of bad hardware, Steve, more than likely you have a bad component, problem is it's just slightly bad, and takes a little while to corrupt windows.

[Steve83]

Well, that was what I thought when I replaced the mobo last week, but it crashed again. That's when I tried the HD in my spare system & found that THIS TIME, everything was still there, and that system would run off that HD just fine (it has an identical NEW EPoX mobo & almost identical processor). So I tossed the RAID (JABOD) card, modem card, & USB card out of my original system & started transferring data off the old HDs onto the working one in the spare box, but on like the 5th one, it shut down & gave me the old "Error loading OS" again. So now I'm running on one that I formatted AGAIN in the old box, but this time with only the mobo, video & audio cards, 2 sticks of RAM, 1HD & 1 DVD-ROM. But I'm about to add the DVD-RW-DL since it has been running & booting OK for a couple of days now.

Any ideas which chunk of hardware is the most likely suspect? I'm using an EPoX mobo right now, but this is how it used to be:

.

BTW
I've scanned every HD with the mfr.'s diagnostic utility, and even the ones that show 100% good exhibit the same crash behavior (even the new WD), so I doubt it's any of them. I also run NSW05 with all the updates, and WinDoctor doesn't find any major problems. Device Manager doesn't show any conflicts or devices NOT working properly. I don't get a BSOD, so there's no error code to track.

PS
One other REALLY weird thing I've noticed: I specifically remember buying a 2400 processor, but the EPoX BIOS reports it's an 1800. After all this swapping (at one point I had 4 systems torn down in the same room), I can't be 100% sure I put the right one back in this box, but I can't find a 2400 in any of the others, either.

[Chewy]

what a nightmare, and you're running W2k?
antec may be good but the smart power isn't strong enough for that many drives

air flow must be poor in that case crammed full/heat issues?

even xp will have irq problems with that many cards, w2k has no plug and pray

the pci slot below the agp I always leave empty, might get away with the usb card there?

memory looks funky

what's that 32 meg listed?

[Steve83]

I've never had heat or power issues before, other than my 3-year-old original PS dying. The system was stable & functional as shown in the photo for a couple of years. I've even run it temporarily on a 250W, but I probably didn't have ALL those HDs then.

I have 4 fans blowing in thru filters, plus the 2 PS fans pulling out & the CPU fan stirring it up.

I PnP all the time. It never had trouble detecting new stuff. And like I said before: no conflicts, so I don't think the IRQs are a problem.

This isn't an argument, but how is the slot below the AGP different from the others?

I never understood why it thought there was anything in A3 - I always assumed it was something on the mobo that handled the slot that somehow provided 32M. It was never a problem before.

[Chewy]

the top pci slot likes to share an internal address with agp
some mobos share the back slot

what's device manager say about your IRQ's?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

let's see a quick report on overclock under computer

and a sensor report after a fairy heavy load of system

[AlienX69]

w2k has no plug and pray

ROTF !!!

PS: Mind is still running smooth !!! THX Again !

[Chewy]

when W2K first came out, my bro-in-law(an it professional and developers
subscriber) just crammed a bunch of cards in willy nilly in their slots, installed
W2k, he complained for weeks how it was slower than any 3-4 year old computer, I told him certain cards like certain slots(he was a noob then).
He pulled every extra card and then played in bios finding each cards optimal home. Several evenings later he had a properly configured optimized W2k machine. This is the same guy that left the plastic strip on protecting the
heat transfer compound when mounting his first heat sink. Chipped the core when he went to artic silver. Experience is the best teacher.

[Steve83]

I'll try to get that proggy installed & a screenshot posted. Meanwhile, here's what happened during my first burn on this install. I unplugged the DVD-ROM & plugged in the DVD-RW, and the system seemed normal until the burn started. Now that it's finished, it's normal again, but I've never seen the buffer bounce like this. The burn was successful, though.



BTW
I don't overclock, so I don't understand what "overclock under computer" means. Device Manager shows no IRQ conflicts or errors, other than the onboard audio driver, which I disabled. IDK why I had to do it on this board to get the SB card to work.

I forgot to reboot after switching that channel to DMA, so here's a shot of a burn, then a rip in PIO.