Moderators Lee Knight Posted August 29, 2005 Moderators Posted August 29, 2005 Can we talk about backup strategies? So... I'm editing away on a project. I'm lost in splice and dice. Wait... Pro Tools has frozen. Hmmmm...?? Reboot. That ALWAYS makes it better. Booting XP... waiting... waiting. Dig out the troubleshooting books. Try this and that.. Hmmmm... uh, wait, what's that clacking noise? Replace C: drive with a new WD 7200rpm disc. Format and reinstall Windows. Cool. Now on to reinstalling apps. Hey wait... where's my autorization in.... fo.... CRAP! ON MY C DRIVE! Well... I do backup my audio drives. Yes, I am a dummy. Can we talk about backup strategies? I'm all ears this time.
Members LiveMusic Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Lee, read this recent Craig thread.
Moderators Lee Knight Posted August 29, 2005 Author Moderators Posted August 29, 2005 Originally posted by LiveMusic Lee, read this recent Craig thread. Thanks LiveMusic. There's a lot of good info there. What I'm looking for is a little different I guess. I'm interested other's strategies on "mirroring" or "ghosting" their system drive. I never foresaw just what a pain in the ass this could be...
Members MorePaul Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 swap trays and an imaging program (hell, it doesn't even have to be in a swap tray nor does the image have to live on a dedicated drive...they get stored as files) NOTE - even after format, the data still exists (except for the stuff you overwrote - well, there are techniques there too like MFM, but those are a whole different ballgame and are HW, not SW related -- strictly cleanroom {censored}) In this particular case - the hassle/cost is prob greater recovering the data (an auth code) than working around it But as to the original question -- drive imaging type backup isn't all that diffeent from backing up other data (in default mode, apps like ghost or the PQ imager does a file-type image as opposed to a sector image anyway, so it's kinda sorta a species of file backup - they can do sector images if you are trying to save, say, fragmentation state or need to image for recovery or forensics purposes)
Members Dylan Walters Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 I have both Ghost 2003 and recently Acronis True Image 8.0 that I downloaded directly from the manufacturer for $50. I later found out that you can download it from Newegg for only $29, d'oh!. At any rate, I think that Acronis is much better than the current crop of Ghost. Most new Symantec products blow donkey, FWIW. You can quote me on that. I had to buy Acronis because Ghost couldn't clone a 40GB drive to a 200GB drive. I haven't yet tried cloning my drive to a DVD with Acronis but I plan on doing this soon.
Members MorePaul Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Symantec has a big problem that way - they are generally a "technology aggregator" these days as opposed to the dev house coming up with a lot of that so what happens is 1) symantec buys the dev house or just plain the technology 2) dev guys jump ship or walk the plank 3) code base is now legacy with little to no dev support or documentation
Moderators Lee Knight Posted August 29, 2005 Author Moderators Posted August 29, 2005 Blow Donkey!?!?! Well, I DON'T want that then. Acronis True Image 8.0. I'll look into it. Thanks guys. BTW, I replaced the C drive, I couldn't reformat. And yeah, I suppose I could retrieve stuff from the "fallen" drive but like you said, it's probably not worth it. Thanks again for the suggestions. Can I back up a new, clean, C configuration onto DVD?
Members Dylan Walters Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Yeah, you can clone your new HD to CD's or DVD's with most 3rd party imaging tools. BTW, you can always try the ol' freezer trick with your toasted HD if there is anything worth saving. Just stick the drive in a ziplock bag for a few hours (or overnight) and then hook it up quickly.
Members Anderton Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Yeah, the ol' C drive problem... The C: drive in my Windows 98SE office computer was starting to act funky...sometimes it wouldn't boot, and I'd have to turn the computer off/on to bring it back to life...I figured an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. So, I pulled the C: drive, and formatted a new drive in my office computer. Then I put both drives in the removeable bays for my XP music computer, and copied the old drive to the new one. Put the new drive in the office computer, and now it's happy.
Members Anderton Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Hey, now that I think about it, a question... If you use True Image on a disk with authorizations and stuff, is it REALLY an exact copy so you don't have to re-authorize software and such? I've heard stories of some copy protection schemes writing to "illegal" portions of the drive...or maybe that's an urban legend. By the way, I'd like to send out a big "thanks" to Dylan Walters for all his incredibly useful advice here and in SSS 3.0.
Members Dylan Walters Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Thanks, Craig. Since I do not use any software that requires disk-based CP I can't offically comment on whether it works or not. But in theory it should, as these cloning tools make an *exact* replica of the drives. I know that Windows activation and other prodcuts that require activation like Sony's pro audio apps are taken care of when cloning, however.
Members Jon Doe Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 You can get a USB 2 80 gig HDD for less than $100. You can get a USB 2 250 gig HDD for less than $200. Buy one to suit your needs and use the backup tool that came with your OS to do a full system backup (backs up the registry) once in a while. Backup everytime you make a significant software modification. Set it to run overnight. I do it once a week. Works great. Rilly...
Members kylen Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 I'm in the same boat...C drive started whining - unacceptable for a DAW and a welcome cry for help before the crash! Just got back from Fry's with a removable drive dock so I can use Acronis True Image 8 to clone my C drive from time to time:http://sanmax.com/products/index.cgi?display=item?=PMD-96I New power supply was necessary too (don't ask - haha) so I picked up an Antec 480 watt Neopower dual rail 12v:http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24480 Upgraded my motherboard from the Intel 845 chipset for my P4 2.6GHz pc to a Abit IC7-G mobo w/875 chipset:http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=4It has native usb2, firewire, and spdif i/o. Had to upgrade my old PC2700 DDR memory to 1GB 3200DDR, I got 2 sticks of 512MB a piece since the mobo handles dual channel - that would seem to make for faster memory fetches of data blocks I'm guessing (correct me if I'm wrong!). Also put in the new SATA disk technology (new for me I mean) so we'll see how fast data transfer is on those guys... Cross my fingers that it all works...
Members Dylan Walters Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Looks like a sweet upgrade! I just put an Antec 500 Watt PSU like the one you got in my new file server and it's great! I love the modular power connections. No messy unused cables to manage! Let us know how it works out for you!
Members kylen Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 OK - thanks for the tips! Yes not having PS cables inside the DAW that I'm not using is very cool, literally!
Members Zooey Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 The most inconvenient part of a fresh install for me is losing disk based copy protection authorizations. There's really not much to be done except to make sure you're registered. I don't think you can drag and drop copy protection from a backup to a new disk--you have to go through the re-authorization process all over again.
Members MorePaul Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Originally posted by Anderton Hey, now that I think about it, a question... If you use True Image on a disk with authorizations and stuff, is it REALLY an exact copy so you don't have to re-authorize software and such? I've heard stories of some copy protection schemes writing to "illegal" portions of the drive...or maybe that's an urban legend. I suppose it's possible (I'm not aware of specific products that do, but that doesn't really mean much at all) to write some registration info to a sector and not "tell" the filesystem about it, but I'm not really sure how'd you'd do it through, say, Windows NT based- API and then the copy protection would suffer from vulnerability of getting overwritten (much like the old trick of using "orphan"reg keys in the 90s...which then would get cleaned by a cleaner and nix the SW key) Even then, a lower level image (like a sector image) is going to scoop that up too (blast from the past - any you guys remember Nibble editting?)
Members kylen Posted August 29, 2005 Members Posted August 29, 2005 Originally posted by Zooey The most inconvenient part of a fresh install for me is losing disk based copy protection authorizations. There's really not much to be done except to make sure you're registered. I don't think you can drag and drop copy protection from a backup to a new disk--you have to go through the re-authorization process all over again. Well that's one of the inconveniences for sure - that's what I want to see how much, if any, True Image clone will improve this. I have various software like WinXP to plugins like Wave Arts that have a tolerence for certain hardware changes before they require a re-reg. In my case doing a clone won't get around the hardware changes...maybe later when I simply do clones between 2 differen "C" drives maybe I won't have to re-reg stuff...pain.
Members Zooey Posted August 30, 2005 Members Posted August 30, 2005 Originally posted by kylen maybe later when I simply do clones between 2 differen "C" drives maybe I won't have to re-reg stuff...pain. Got it. I guess you would have to use the cloned drive as your new primary drive for it to work. As you note, it wouldn't help you if you had major hardware changes. It also wouldn't help you if you needed to try a fresh OS install in order to address a technical problem (you'd be surprised how often tech support recommends doing this--even on Mac). Pretty much the only situation in which it would help would be sudden failure of your primary drive. In every other scenario, I don't see how you can get around re-authorizing your software. Well, there is one way...
Members MorePaul Posted August 30, 2005 Members Posted August 30, 2005 That's essentially what you use it for in a backup situation -- Drive failures or full on "dumb" rollbacks Imaging really isn't an OS management tool - but a data recording process
Moderators Lee Knight Posted August 30, 2005 Author Moderators Posted August 30, 2005 Wow! I'm learning so much listening to you guys... this is cool.
Members Anderton Posted August 30, 2005 Members Posted August 30, 2005 No kidding. SSS has been the best tech support I've ever experienced. Harmony Central is looking into some kind of software that will allow moderators to tag threads and make them part of a knowledge base. Now, wouldn't that be cool? You'd type in "C: drive" and think of all the great info that would flow out!!
Moderators Lee Knight Posted August 30, 2005 Author Moderators Posted August 30, 2005 Originally posted by Anderton No kidding. SSS has been the best tech support I've ever experienced.Harmony Central is looking into some kind of software that will allow moderators to tag threads and make them part of a knowledge base. Now, wouldn't that be cool? You'd type in "C: drive" and think of all the great info that would flow out!! Yes! Awesome idea. As it exists now it's great but that would be great(er). Quick and easy...
Members polyt Posted August 30, 2005 Members Posted August 30, 2005 Originally posted by Anderton I've heard stories of some copy protection schemes writing to "illegal" portions of the drive...or maybe that's an urban legend. Intuit tried something along these lines with the 2003 edition of Turbo Tax. I don't recall the specifics but you can read about it here. Edit: Here's the nitty gritty.
Members Raymar Posted August 31, 2005 Members Posted August 31, 2005 I've been a victim of this scenerio a few times and now I partition an extra drive to store data incase the hard drive is still good, and I have a back-up HD with everything on it that I update periodically, so when this drive goes I'm still going without a sweat. For added protection I have two backup floppies for text stuff like my checking account register. (too) Steve
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