Question

[gsobier]

Brad:

Any smart kitty can do it, not a problem asking questions, I'm working off 6 partitions... ...very important, you need to get a copy of partition magic (v7 or higher). None of my Windows XP partitions are more than 6G. 6G takes about 4G of space when backed up in a .bkf file. Another VERY IMPORTANT point, create a NTFS partition for your backups. Why you ask, FAT32 has a limit of 4G for a file size, NTFS don't care how large... ...partition magic creates and moves/resizes them with no problems.

Regards,
George

George ... just kidding about the new lappy, but I do have XP pro with 30GB HDD, about 20GB free by the time I get my stuff reloaded ... not sure if it's enough?

Don't think I'm up to creating a partition just yet, though it does sound like a good idea (in hind sight) for the next time I crash (just a matter of time the way I operate ) ... will have to read up on that later, either that or pick your brain

Cheers

 

[Brad]

Power Quest

You really put a bug in my fuzzy head George ... having considered other options I'm about to plunge into partitioning my HD today ... should be fun, whatever happens.

Used PQ Drive Image 7 to put my whole HD on CDs just in case, and am about to unleash (install) Partition Magic 8 on my unsuspecting lappy ... any last words of wisdom?

Cheers

 

[gsobier]

Re: Power Quest

Brad:

An avatar of a chicken would suit you better kitty cat. I'm sure you will be able to pull this off Perrrrrrfectly. It would be a good idea to run CHKDSK C: /F in DOS first... ...if you have issues in the partition, PM will bitch and you will be doing it again. Getting an NTFS filesystem instead of FAT32 should be another thing you should do... ...PM8 has options to do this conversion for you. Do the NTFS conversion after the first operation.

When you install, did you get prompted to create a Floppy with PM on it? You need a MS-DOS Boot Diskette with Windows 95 or Windows 98 to use it. This is a just in case rescue diskette which has saved my a$$ a few times.

FYI: You will be re-Boot during the Partitioning because of files being open like swapfile.sys and others.

Since you are not very good with DOS, you are vulnerable when doing these kind of things.

Regards,
George

You really put a bug in my fuzzy head George ... having considered other options I'm about to plunge into partitioning my HD today ... should be fun, whatever happens.

Used PQ Drive Image 7 to put my whole HD on CDs just in case, and am about to unleash (install) Partition Magic 8 on my unsuspecting lappy ... any last words of wisdom?

Cheers

 

[Brad]

Re: Re: Power Quest

>>> When you install, did you get prompted to create a Floppy with PM on it? You need a MS-DOS Boot Diskette with Windows 95 or Windows 98 to use it. This is a just in case rescue diskette which has saved my a$$ a few times.

FYI: You will be re-Boot during the Partitioning because of files being open like swapfile.sys and others.

Since you are not very good with DOS, you are vulnerable when doing these kind of things.

Regards,
George

Yep I did ... problem is I don't have FDD on this lappy ... is there a way to create those on a CDRW?

I am networked to a Win98 lappy but don't think I can access its FDD when rebooting this WinXP unit, cuz the network link maybe lost in the crash ...

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the CDs I made with Drive Image will enable me to reboot and restore should I need to, I'd be then able to reach PM and go from there, no?

Cheers

 

[Brad]

Just a thought ...

This doesn't happen often but what if the HDD gets fried? If it's unserviceable then the partitioned backup becomes useless ... doesn't this necessitate the need to keep a backup on other separate media as well?

 

[gsobier]

Re: Re: Re: Power Quest

Brad:

Boy, you are a challenge... ...if you share A: properly you can get a copy of the files for PM on a diskette. You could burn a copy of those files from the diskette to a CD afterwards. I'm assuming you must be able to BOOT from the CD. I'm not sure if you can get away with running MS-DOS from a CD BOOT, just never tried that trick before.

Regards,
George

Yep I did ... problem is I don't have FDD on this lappy ... is there a way to create those on a CDRW?

I am networked to a Win98 lappy but don't think I can access its FDD when rebooting this WinXP unit, cuz the network link maybe lost in the crash ...

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the CDs I made with Drive Image will enable me to reboot and restore should I need to, I'd be then able to reach PM and go from there, no?

Cheers

 

[gsobier]

Re: Just a thought ...

Brad:

Yes, you should have a backup somewhere else to guard against a hardware failure. You have networked so you can copy files directly from one PC the the other (a smart move). The percentage of people how do this properly like you are doing are very few in numbers.

There is a catch... ...depending on the backup program and the way you did the backup is important. Having multiple partitions is important to get complete backups which are complete so a restore is possible... ...if you backup the partition you are running in, there is a chance your restored partition will not run.

Regards,
George

This doesn't happen often but what if the HDD gets fried? If it's unserviceable then the partitioned backup becomes useless ... doesn't this necessitate the need to keep a backup on other separate media as well?

 

[Brad]

I can see the advantages of a partition backup ... speed, convenience, size, etc.

But I guess I'll hafta to do more schooling on this since I have never used boot disks bfr ... neither floppy nor CD. However, PM does not detect my networked floppy drive

There are programs that will make 'Bootable Emergency Recovery CD or DVD', NTI's BackUp Now!/Drive BackUp! for example ( that prog is slow compared to PowerQuest's but it's very easy to use). And although PQ Drive Image does the same it looks like the Recovery part is included somewhere in the Image disks created, not on separate disks.

So until I actually have to do a reboot I'm kinda in the dark as to how well it works.

The other thing to do would be to add an external floppy to this unit just for that ... I have no other use for it otherwise though.

Gotta love laptops ... still learning ... will keep you posted if you're interested

 

[gsobier]

Brad:

I see you are beginning to see the light... ...small partitions are a good thing because they can be cloned.

I don't have a laptop and do recall when I was given one for work, you had either a CD drive or floppy drive one at a time. If you take out the CD drive and put in the floppy drive, you will have what I'd expect you need for PM.

Regards,
George

I can see the advantages of a partition backup ... speed, convenience, size, etc.

But I guess I'll hafta to do more schooling on this since I have never used boot disks bfr ... neither floppy nor CD. However, PM does not detect my networked floppy drive

There are programs that will make 'Bootable Emergency Recovery CD or DVD', NTI's BackUp Now!/Drive BackUp! for example ( that prog is slow compared to PowerQuest's but it's very easy to use). And although PQ Drive Image does the same it looks like the Recovery part is included somewhere in the Image disks created, not on separate disks.

So until I actually have to do a reboot I'm kinda in the dark as to how well it works.

The other thing to do would be to add an external floppy to this unit just for that ... I have no other use for it otherwise though.

Gotta love laptops ... still learning ... will keep you posted if you're interested