What to do BEFORE a system CRASH...

[BillyG. 0]

... that is the $20,000 question.

 

Although I have scheduled a nightly differential NTBackup (along with a weekly full backup), and have daily restore points performed (and several other GUI things), none of it matters if you can't get past the boot screen because they do not have CMD line options (Colorado tape drives don't either according to everything I read online today!).

 

So the trick is to have something that can be kicked off from the CMD line and I'm looking towards a zip drive now but haven't found out yet if they accomodate that feature. Any ideas?

 

Yes, I tried the System Recovery first (way more than once!). The first time, it ran fine, I WAS BACK! When it finished and rebooted, IT WANTED AN ACCOUNT NAME & PASSWORD TO LOG IN! I had never assigned it one, or so I thought (later on that). So now I have to run Recovery again, only now it won't get past the second screen (where it asks for a computer name). After 10 mins of desperation (what's gonna happen if I corrupt this Recovery app!), I finally rebooted, SAME SCENARIO! Reboot again, SAME SCENARIO! Reboot one more time, VIOLA!, it pushed thru. YEAH!

 

Now, after it reboots, I enter the computer name (just guessing) that I chose earlier and use it for the USER name and IT ACCEPTED IT! Even as I type this, I can't remember how I got thru the password part. You can bet though that the first thing I did when I got back inside windows was create a user account with a password so I wouldn't have to go thru that again.

 

Bottomline, I got back online last night after about 3 hours of some serious frustration, seeing no way out although I had a Restore Point via GUI, and Last Known Good Config if I could get to the prompt (who knows if that would've worked!). So today I've been looking into ways to prepare myself for this should it occur again (God forbid)!

 

No, my lazy arse didn't have a boot disk (I DO NOW!) but seeing as how I couldn't even get past System Recovery (for awhile anyway), I don't see what good that would have done. Then again, with a bootdisk, I would not have had any reason to be in System Recovery, I am right? But with no access to a CMD line, would the bootdisk give me one from A:\ anyway?

 

On the good side, I've opted to not download a lot of STUFF I had before which already has given me an improvement in speed.

 

Critiques are welcome and much appreciated.

[Edited by Billyg. on 2004-11-09 20:07:14]

 

[DosFreak 2]

Unsure what you are asking. Are you asking if your tape drive is supported by a DOS bootdisk or some other media so you can restore from tape to your HD?

 

I haven't used NTBackup for awhile (Been using Veritas BackupExec for a long time). The programs are similar (NTBackup being a stripped down version of BackupExec) BackupExec has the ability to create recovery CD's to restore your OS but BackupExec is likely too expensive for what you want to do.

 

It's possible that you could hack NTBackup support into WinPE/BartPe and do a restore from there but I've never tried it.

 

The best suggestion I can give you is to use Acronis TrueImage Server, it supports SCSI tape drives but I've never used Tape Drives with TrueImage so I can't tell you how effective it would be.

[BillyG. 0]

thought I may have been rambling on a bit much there...

 

I'm just looking for a solid route to take for storage in the event that I need to do a full system recovery in the future but am unable to get to a prompt.

 

I would imagine it would require booting straight from a tape or zip drive or another HD but since my box is set to boot from C:\ (like everyone else's!), I don't know that those drives would work anyway. How would my (imagine now corrupted) system know to boot off the second HD, or zip or tape drive?

 

Obviously I haven't delved into this area in the past and am just thinking out loud now, throwing out ideas... thanks.

[BillyG. 0]

Thanks for the reply and sticking with me on this one APK. I understand your post and the procedures you are using but I have to ask you to please read the first post this thread; in it, I explained why I am looking for another option, perhaps another drive is the only option!

 

Again, thanks for your patience.

[BillyG. 0]

Your a great saleman APK! Actually, that wasn't a hard sale at all; as soon as I read your

 

"It is... fast too! Far faster than tapedrives" (which obviously makes sense)

 

and then your

 

"having that second disk for storing my backup image (once I get a "perfect" setup that's virus/malware/worm free & with all my softwares, tweaks + tunings, & shell extensions into place on it)", I knew what I was gonna do!

 

Thanks for the kick in the butt! I really appreciate it.

 

[DosFreak 2]

Hmmm, Ghost32 on Winpe/BartPE should theoretically support Silicon Image controllers assuming that you include the drivers. As for the Dos based versions of Ghost it's unlikely unless SI has Dos SATA drivers. Supposedly the latest version of Acronis TrueImage Build 774 supports SI controllers, I tried TrueImage a couple of versions back and it didn't work but according to the rumours this latest version does.

[BillyG. 0]

APK, IRT your statement made earlier:

 

"Might as well cut that figure of how occupied C:\ drive is minus the pagefile.sys in 1/2 & add 10mb!"

 

I have a 30GB HD with less than 6GB used right now. I suppose that a full 30GB allocation for a backup HD would suffice well into the future on this current system but I guess I'll judge that based on price (thanks for your formula).

 

Would there be any advantage to having my working pagefile (being used now) reside on the second backup HD (in addition to the backed up pagefile) or should I just leave my current HD as is and use the new HD strictly for a backup source?

 

Thanks for yours and everyone else's help.

[BillyG. 0]

YOU DA MAN APK!

 

Thanks for your input and best wishes!

 

off note: I looked around for awhile IRT your question on Ad-Aware logs (tvdebug, etc.) but wasn't able to find anything useful IRT where they are controlled from, sorry; everything I read said they could just be deleted but that doesn't answer your question.

 

On a bias note, I own Ad-Aware also.

[DosFreak 2]

Originally posted by Alec§taar:

Quote:

P.S.=> What exactly is WinPE/BartPE? Don't use it myself, so it cannot hurt to ask about those... apk

 

 

WinPE or WINdows PrEinstallation Environment was corrected by Microsoft for troubleshooting and installation of XP/2003 systems.

 

The WinPE CD is created by running a Microsoft program that extracts the files that it needs off of your XP/2003 CD which then creates the WINPE CD. The WINPE CD is a stripped down bootable version of Windows XP/2003 and is only limited by what you add/remove to the CD. You can compare it to the "Live" Linux CD's except it's for Windows.

 

Now the thing is. When WinPE initially came out you had to use Microsoft's program to built the CD....and it isn't legal to distribute this program. So Bart Lagerweij http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ created BartPE which replaces Microsoft's program to built the CD with his own program that is MUCH better. Using his program you are able to build "Plugins". These "Plugins" are whatever you wish them to be. Video, SCSI, USB, Firewire, SATA, etc.. and whatever program you can find that will work off of a bootable CD.

 

I haven't mentioned BartPE on this site before because it's kind of one of those "Gray" areas where legality and Microsoft kind of bump up against each other. BartPE is legal to use though, as long as you use your own copy of Windows XP/2003.

[BillyG. 0]

lol, you got me on that one... I meant to type ZA (I have that too!) and that is what I was searching on, momentary brain-fart

 

thx for pushing on the BartPE subject, now I'm curious, g/l

[BillyG. 0]

I'm on the same page with you Alec IRT Ghost 9.0! I recieved it a few days ago and love it even though I read some bad critiques on it.

 

The only problem I have with it though is the fact that it only does incremental backups, not differential, so you have to keep every backup file (taking up space) in case you need to use it. The other problem is that it only does weekly or monthly full image backups, not daily! (at least according to the menu options, it will do the incrementals daily though if you just checkoff everyday, I suppose I could get it to do the full daily also...)

 

As is, I reckon I will delete all the daily incrementals the day after the new weekly full image is ran. It is a little more laborious but beats the fact that I got screwed with NTBackup a few weeks ago when my system crashed and I had to do a Recovery (all those registry edits lost!) to get back in because I couldn't get to the prompt (which isn't an option for NTBackup or Restore Points anyway!). It was at that point that I broke down and got an external SeaGate on the cheap and now use it for a full bootable (thanks Ghost) backup. Ghost even provides a bootable recovery CD with all applicable options!

 

Creating a bootdisk was the other monster I was messing with because, like most people, my system was preloaded and you need the Windows CD for access to a few files (at least the image file!). I thought the I386 folder was an exact copy of the CD but apparently not. (If someone could educate me on exactly what it is that this folder and the D:\ out the box are used for, I would appreciate it, i.e now that I have an external HD (power source seperate from computer) for complete image backups, is the I386 folder or the D:\ (partition) even needed? TIA)

 

Anyway, Ghost has taken care of all my backup needs for me now. I was so happy to see my new F:\ EXACTLY mirror my C:\, down to the byte.

 

FYI: Ghost was retailing at BestBuy and others for $69 last week, I got it from BUYCHEAPSOFTWARE.com for $55 total... it even comes with a $20 rebate option if upgrading from certain Symantec products (go to Symantec for the downloadable coupon) but you need proof-of-purchase from the product you are upgrading from (keep those software boxes!). Needless to say, the rebate didn't work for me but $55 is still better than $69 (albeit several days later, 3-day ground via Fed-Ex from CA.)

 

G/L.