Raid-1 and Norton Ghost

Message Edited by ChuckLee on 04-13-200608:50 PM

Here is a link to the 'Radified' forum that specializes in Ghost issues: http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general

As I see it, the whole idea of Ghost is to be able to restore your system including your installed programs, system settings, etc. not just the OS which is what I think you are talking about. Some people have software configurations that would take a week to setup all over again. For someone like that, if a virus destroyed their system or some other unknown catastrophe happened, having a ghost image in a safe but accessible place is going to save a ton of work even if they backed up all their data with another routine. And if they forgot to do that other routine or somehow it got pulled down with the rest of the system, the ghost image is going to be worth its weight in gold.

So if ghost is going to be your only backup machanism, just image the whole drive and you'll have everything. Then, if you want to restore just your Quickbooks DB, you can do that in Ghost without restoring the entire disk.

I get your point and it make sense. I am trying to create a backup point, but it always want to create a backup in the E: which is my DVD RW. I throught it will create a backup image in the Hidden partition, BACKUP.  The BACKUP is only 18GB and C: drive has 54GB. I am confusing that how can you backup a 54GB to a 18GB disk?

Thanks.

My computer (D-8400) does not have the 'Data Safe' feature so I am not familiar with the way Dell has set up the 'Backup' partition you are talking about. So, I too am confused about how a 54 GB drive could be imaged to a 18BG disk. Maybe someone else could shed some light on that.

Here's the way I handled it: I bought a third SATA drive and an Addonics bracket/adapter that fits into an empty CD bay. I use that drive to save the Ghost images (I also use it to store large, seldom-used files). There are a couple of advantages: 1. The Addonics adadpter has an on/off key that lets you turn the drive on and off while the computer is running. When the drive is off, viruses, lightening bolts, etc. cannot reach it. 2. As described by the Ghost docs, an internal HD type configuration is the 'optimal' backup solution. There are long discussions at the 'radified' forum and elsewhere concerning the reliability of restoring an image from a DVD disk or even a USB external drive. In order to get the on/off thing working I had to buy a third-party SATA PCI adapter ($30 at CompUSA) because the SATA connectors on the Intel motherboard would not allow hot plugging (maybe yours does). Of course you don't really need to hot plug the drive -- when you want to use it you could just turn off the computer, turn on the drive and then start the computer. Anyway, that's my solution. Every week, I turn on that drive, let Ghost save the image, then turn it off. I tested it by booting to the Ghost disk and restored a file and it worked. Personally, I would not trust a Ghost image on a CD or DVD. The other thing that would concern me is having the image on a partition on an active drive where it could be messed up.

PS: If you don't have an empty CD bay, you can just as easily set it up as an external drive.

Message Edited by SteveP55419 on 04-14-200611:12 AM