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Subject:
From:
"Frank R. Brown" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 8 Feb 2001 07:44:35 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
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First off, thanks for everyone's suggestions.

I guess I'm getting talked into using a hard drive and something
like second copy 2000 or xxcopy for backing up data files.

I'd like a little more advice on whole machine backup.

Since some of the machines I want to back up are laptops,
the plan of adding a second hard drive to the machine and
running ghost --- instant recovery by simply switching over
to booting off the second drive --- doesn't seem practical.

What whole-machine backup solutions might I want to look
at, and do they really work?

(In all my years of computing --- which pre-dates windows by
several generations --- I have never seen a whole-machine
restore succeed.    Not that they can't, but what I've seen
is either no whole-machine backup available, available, but
not attempted, or attempted, but failed.  In practice, I've seen
reinstallation of the os, &c., followed by recovery of data files
from whatever backups were available.)

Let's say I have a laptop and use ghost to a network drive
(or use ntbackup to a tape drive).  Let's say I lose my
hard drive, and replace it, possibly with one of larger capacity.
How do I do a whole-machine restore?  Do I need to do a
plain-vanilla install of the os (I use nt) to get things going, and
then the restore procedure overwrites the temporary copy of
the os?

As John Chin <[log in to unmask]> said,
"Learning how to tell the wheat from chaff on a Windows system
takes time."  (I call this the windows file-splatter disease.)
It seems to me you either really do a true, complete whole-
machine restore, or you don't do it at all.

Have people perhaps found reinstalling the os, the apps, and
then recovering desired data files to be the more practical solution?


"Frank R. Brown" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> What do people recommend for a home backup
> solution?
> ...

     Frank R.Brown
     Frank.R.Brown@MailAndNews

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