Topic: Restoration CD

[lobo]

@Tony
Even an old man like me needs the occasional hand out my friend


Brian
 

[Tony]

obviously princess has yet to awaken from her slumbers, Brian.

[Sandra]

No I am up and raring to go now Tony,dont forget even I have to sleep sometimes  
I have been inspecting Brians "rubbings" since I was sweet sixteen  

[lobo]

Hi Sandra

"Reply #32 on: Today at 01:41:37pm »"

Didnt realise that you knew there was two 1 O'clocks in a day

Brian

[Clive]

It's all to do with having to cater for so many different time zones Brian.  In this world of political correctness we must be seen to be fair to all of them so that none are disadvantaged.

[Sandra]

I usually get the two "ones" Brian it the ones with double numbers that I frequently miss out on  

[Tony]

Right,

I read the pdf documents that come with Drive Image, and yes Adept is right [as usual] about the image bit.

It's that long ago that I installed Drive Image that I forgot I had made a  set of [2]'Drive Image' boot disks. So I tried them on a reboot, and low and behold the PC booted to the Drive Image program allowing you to either copy or install a copy of your drives.

I did a dummy run as if to copy to an external drive, and after highlighting the drives to be imaged, it said it would take between 8 to 15 writable CD's, bloody hell. I would have thought it could have been more explicit than that, least ways ballpark needed assuming you use 700MB disks to backup your particulre image.

Of course on my old PC I added a spare hard drive and installed an OS, programs and data on it. I might just do that again, as it would just be a case of using Drive Image copy facility to update the spare regulary to protect against hard disk faliure. Had a few of them in my time, infact only component that has ever failed on me is hard drives. Of course a 'raid' MOBO means you dont even need software like Drive Image. But on has to work with what ones got and least ways doing an image copy would mean you would not need to download all those security patches and virus updates all over again.

Right a question for the pros, most likely Adept and Lobo [know offence intended to others ] I believe you can install a hard drive bay adapter that enables you to plug in a removeble hard drive [eternally] so that you can keep a backup copy of your system safe incase you get the PC nicked, are they called 'addies' and do you just use ordinary hard drives as you would if installing internally?

Cheers

I do hope joudi is taking this all in  

[Sandra]

Right a question for the pros, most likely Adept and Lobo [know offence intended to others ] I believe you can install a hard drive bay adapter that enables you to plug in a removeble hard drive [eternally] so that you can keep a backup copy of your system safe incase you get the PC nicked, are they called 'addies' and do you just use ordinary hard drives as you would if installing internally?

I assume you mean externally not eternally Tony  

I think that they are called "caddies",I have seem them for sale and will see if I can find an address for you.
You use a standard hard drive and fit the "Adaptor" in a spare 5.25 bay  

[Sandra]

Well there arent any that I can see in the usual on line sites that I use but found some here Tony :

http://www.dgdigital.co.uk/acatalog/Drive_Bay_Mountings.html

Next to the bottom section on here:

http://www.sapphiresystems.co.uk/shopping/cables.htm


http://www.geishapc.com/geisha1/hardrivmob.html

They are quite cheap so even if you go stateside to get one it wont break your bank Tony  

[Tony]

Eternally ....what am I like... can you get dementia at 36  

Cheers Sandra I was near with addies though   and thanks for the links  

Look I reckon you can also be called a Pro, so how much do I owe you........just pop it on my account..........I'll settle at the end of the month.

[Sandra]

You couldnt afford me Tony  

Unless you made a real big score on your finacial wheeler dealer things one day  

[Adept]

I believe you can install a hard drive bay adapter that enables you to plug in a removeble hard drive [eternally] so that you can keep a backup copy of your system safe incase you get the PC nicked, are they called 'addies' and do you just use ordinary hard drives as you would if installing internally?

Yes "Caddies" are available for IDE and SCSI drives. SCSI ones can even be "hot-swappable", meaning that you can remove and re-insert the drive whilst the computer is running. No such luck with the IDE ones unfortunately  Caddies tend to sell for between £30-£100 depending on the quality. I used to use removeable hard drives all the time until I realised I was killing a drive every 9 months

Another more expensive, but probably more secure alternative is an external Firewire drive, which just plugs into a standard Firewire port. These are hot-pluggable and retail for between £200 and £300 depending on the capacity of the drive. If you don't have Firewire, there are also USB 2.0 versions available. I wouldn't bother with a USB 1 version as access will be very slow.

[Adept]

Just found this site which on the face of it look like very nice prices for Firewire drives to me

[Tony]

Thanks for the advice and links Adept. I take note especially in regard to the 9 month life expectency.

The security [getting nicked] is a low priority really, anyway when I go on holiday I take the hard drive out in less than 90 secs. I can save my data on a CD OK, it's the inconveniance of having to go through a clean install on a new drive that I really wish to avoid.