Duplicate OS hard drive question

[pjpjpjpj]

So, just to be clear:

1) Install another (new, clean) drive in the computer.
2) Use some software to create a complete copy of my C: drive (OS, Sage, etc.) as it is right now onto that drive.
3) Physically remove that copied drive from the machine.

Then if I had a crash of the current C: drive, I could shut down the computer, take out the crashed drive, insert the copy drive, and boot up? Would that work? What about the fact that the copied drive would have a different drive letter when it was being copied?

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Then if I had a crash of the current C: drive, I could shut down the computer, take out the crashed drive, insert the copy drive, and boot up?

Then if I had a crash of the current C: drive, I could shut down the computer, take out the crashed drive, insert the copy drive, boot up, and then restore the wiz.bin file from the most recently backed-up copy (making sure that SageTV is not running during the restore, of course).

[rrhorer]

Cloning is not absolutely required, as imaging may be sufficient if the images are kept safe (i.e., not on the same system). If you do want to go the cloned route, you will need to make a cloned copy (much different than a simple file copy) which copies the system, boot files and all. For example, in DiscWizard (by Acronis), you are presented with four options on running the program: (1) Image Backup and Image Restore, (2) Disc Utilities, (3) Create Bootable Media and (4) Manage Image Backups.

The Disc Utilities option is used for cloning. In the built-in Help on Disc Cloning, you'll find the following:

You might find that your hard disc does not have enough space for the operating system and installed applications, preventing you from updating your software. In this case, you have to transfer the system to a higher-capacity hard disc.All partitions on your old drive will be kept untouched. You can remove your old hard disc drive from your computer and keep it in a safe place as a backup after your data is transferred to the new drive.Seagate DiscWizard makes all the data transfer procedure from one disc to another (disc cloning) quite easy and clear.To clone a disc:
• Click on the Clone Disc item in the Disc Utilities window or select Tools -> Clone Disc from the menu.
• Follow the Clone Disc Wizard steps:
Selecting clone mode
Selecting source disc
Selecting destination disc
Partitioned destination disc
Hard disc drives structure
Manual relayout
Partition selection
Size and position
Selecting partition transfer method
Cloning summary
Cloning error"

The new hard drive can be larger than the existing drive and the drive letter does not matter. When you replace the existing drive (after a failure or just to get more space with a larger drive), you will need to assign it as the boot drive in the BIOS if you do not use the same drive connector. And, if you have made images sometime after making the clone drive, simply restore the latest image to get your system back to the date of the latest image.

Once you have created your cloned drive and put it safely aside somewhere, you can make periodic images using the first of the four options discussed above. You will also need to create a bootable restore CD (one time only), using the third of the four options discussed above. Again, the DiscWizard software can be downloaded for free from the Seagate site, but requires at least one attached (attached via USB is fine) Seagate hard drive in order to run.

Others have mentioned raid 1, or mirroring, as an option. My preference is the cloning option because data cannot be corrupted by a virus (raid 1 mirrors everything including viruses) or lost due to critical power failures, etc. IMO, raid 1 has a place for recording purposes if you want to make sure that your recordings are not lost with the failure of a single drive. Since the potential loss of recordings doesn't concern me greatly, I have opted to use multiple recording drives of the same size, but not in a raid configuration. Each to his or her own.

I hope this was helpful.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Then if I had a crash of the current C: drive, I could shut down the computer, take out the crashed drive, insert the copy drive, boot up, and then restore the wiz.bin file from the most recently backed-up copy (making sure that SageTV is not running during the restore, of course).

I didn't bother writing that because I was trying to simplify my post, but, yeah, that would be part of the plan. Once I clarify the first part, then I'll worry about some method of automatically (and regularly) backing up wiz.bin to another drive, probably my recordings drive or one of my external DVD rip drives.

rrhorer's post aside (helpful but also specific to a certain piece of software), is there free disc cloning software out there? Or is it all definitely something I will have to buy? Gotta ask, since I'll be running this by the boss (aka wife).

[wayner]

Clonezilla is free software that is very good that I have used for cloning. But I believe this requires you to boot up from a CD (or USB drive) to do your cloning so it is not just a service that you can have running from within Windows to do nightly backups.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by wayner

Clonezilla is free software that is very good that I have used for cloning. But I believe this requires you to boot up from a CD (or USB drive) to do your cloning so it is not just a service that you can have running from within Windows to do nightly backups.

Looking at this - and talking to a somewhat-knowledgeable co-worker - it looks like this is what I would want. I just want to make a clone of my C: drive to have for emergency replacement. Then I can worry about backing up wiz.bin separately.