Radified Community Forums - Physical placement of the partitions

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Physical placement of the partitions (Read 31932 times)

ml3

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	Re: Physical placement of the partitions Reply #30 - Feb 12^th, 2009 at 10:08pm Thanks, guys. I'm all for simplicity, so I'll skip the partitions. I do have an external drive, and I image my internal HD to it--I'll just continue with that. Thanks again!
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Brian

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Re: Physical placement of the partitions
Reply #31 - Feb 13^th, 2009 at 12:51am

ml3,

I prefer separating data from the OS. I use two partitions and back them up differently. Images for the OS and data backup software for the data partition. It's automated so it wouldn't be any less or more work for me if I just had a single partition but I'd need a lot more backup HDs than I have at present.

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ml3

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Just out of curiosity ...
Reply #32 - Feb 13^th, 2009 at 3:12pm

Quote:

and to be able to just pick up and keep running when the primary drive fails is hard unless you just RAID-1 them - unless you think about having a system where you can mount and run the backup in a virtual machine if you had to, which is a *great* place to be in but again requires some planning.

Actually, this is something I've been wondering about. If I have a second HD with an image (which I do), and my main drive fails, I pull out the dead one, stick in a new one ... and then what? How do you get running (and on which disk) in order to mount the image on the main HD? Is it just a few steps or a long, agonizing procedure (which I suspect is more likely)? If the latter, would anyone (Rad?) care to write an article on how to do it?
Update: On looking into this further, I find it can be done by booting to a rescue disk previously created with your imaging program (e.g., Ghost or Acronis). This allows you to mount the image from the backup disk on the new (previously formatted) HD.

Nigel, how and/or why would you run the backup in a virtual machine if the drive you're going to run it on is dead, or you've just replaced it with a new, unformatted HD?

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MrMagoo

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Re: Physical placement of the partitions
Reply #33 - Feb 13^th, 2009 at 6:45pm

ml3 wrote on Feb 13^th, 2009 at 3:12pm:

If I have a second HD with an image (which I do), and my main drive fails, I pull out the dead one, stick in a new one ... and then what?

The installation CD for Ghost also serves as a 'rescue' disk. You can use it to restore images. The process is actually fairly easy. The menus in the rescue environment are mostly intuitive. Boot up the CD and you'll see what I mean.

ml3 wrote on Feb 13^th, 2009 at 3:12pm:

how and/or why would you run the backup in a virtual machine if the drive you're going to run it on is dead, or you've just replaced it with a new, unformatted HD?

You would need to have an OS installed on the second drive or on another computer. You could then use the image as a virtual disk for a virtual machine on the working computer. If done right, the virtual machine would look/act just like your old machine did when you took the image. This would be really useful if you have things on the dead machine that you need to be able to get to with very little interruption if your HD dies and you don't happen to be able to get a replacement for it in a short time.

There are a few other threads on this forum that discuss mounting images in a virtual machine. If you are confident you can get a new HD to replace the dead one in a short time (or can live without access to your computer for that time,) then repalcing the dead HD and restoring from backup is probably less complicated.

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ml3

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	Re: Physical placement of the partitions Reply #34 - Feb 13^th, 2009 at 11:08pm Thanks!
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Nigel Bree

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Re: Physical placement of the partitions
Reply #35 - Feb 14^th, 2009 at 3:43am

ml3 wrote on Feb 13^th, 2009 at 3:12pm:

Nigel, how and/or why would you run the backup in a virtual machine if the drive you're going to run it on is dead, or you've just replaced it with a new, unformatted HD?

The why is because drive failure isn't the only reason - or even really that common, nowadays - to need or even want to use a backup that way. The rest of the machine is vulnerable too, after all. And since laptops have for some years been the most popular kind of machine for consumers to buy, the fact they get lost and/or stolen at a terrifying rate is worth considering in terms of general advice on backup.

So, being able to get going again - really rapidly - from the last backup on whatever other hardware you might be able to get to source to plug your external backup drive into is a pretty neat proposition (even if just temporarily, while you source permanent replacement hardware).

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