Re: Two "expert" issues I must solve before upgading
From: Jeff W (msnews_at_Kwcpa.com)
Date: 09/09/04
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Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 11:25:35 -0400
Good thoughts all Vanguardx - a few comments:
1) I think backups are different than the other fluff you suggest - more
in he 'safety and security' class than in extra functions like FTP.
Perhaps if they put a good, easy-to-use disaster-recovery program in
windows, home users WOULD use it, and they'd have fewer windows-haters
out there who had a disk crash and had to start from scratch.
2) I think your point is that it's hard to extract a single file from a
disk image? So i should continue weekly fulls, daily incrementals, and,
honestly, weekly disk images (I believe that trying to restore more than
a week of incrementals can start to get ugly - incrementals can't track
files deleted, etc). That's a lot of backing up.....(sigh) Still - it
means i can do everything with just NTBACKUP and something like IFW
3) I agree that if I ever start mucking with multiple O/Ses, or
'power-user' partition swapping tricks then I need a more industrial
strength solution, but if i don't, I won't.
4) I have cloned drives using XCOPY in WIN98SE. My theory was that for
XP you can do the same, if you also do some special extra steps (like
fixmbr). A lot of FUD about this, but not a lot of clear proof it won't
work if I'm otherwise keeping things simple 8-}
Thanks again
/j
Vanguardx wrote:
>"Jeff W" <msnews@kwcpa.com>
>wrote in news:OU2z0YilEHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl:
>> Hi Sharon - thanks for the response -
>>
>> First - I'm not against imaging programs - I've heard good things
>> about Image-for-Windows. However, my concern with them is this - if
>> I need an imaging program for my full backups, don't I also need
>> imaging for my incrementals? Is there nothing I could I do
>> "mid-week" to render my last full image backup out of date?
>
>No. Don't consider disk images as file backup. They are hardware
>backup, or for disaster recovery. In your case, consider saving a disk
>image when you are planning to perform a major change. If you are
>upgrading, er, migrating from Windows 98 to Windows XP, save a disk
>image of your current Windows 98 OS partition. Then if things go awry
>with the migration, you can restore the disk image and get back quickly
>to the Windows 98 that was working for you before and then rethink how
>to successfully redo the migration. If you are going to make hardware
>changes then save a disk image. Before you install a major application,
>like MS Office, then save a disk image. Before you install a Service
>Pack, save a disk image.
>
>Keep doing your monthly full, weekly incremental, and daily incremental
>(grandfather-father-son) backups. Then when you need to recover from a
>disaster, use the disk image followed by only those backups that you did
>after you saved the disk image (so date the disk image media or use
>folder/filenames that let you know when the disk image got created so
>you know after what date to restore from logical backups). You can
>still use your backups as before, even restoring an older dated version
>of a file rather than restoring a newer one that you know doesn't have
>what you want (i.e., the revised version is the bad one). The disk
>images provide snapshots which act like walking down a long hallway with
>a door at each snapshot. If there aren't any doors, you end up slammed
>all the way at the start of the hallway and have to rebuild everything
>again to reach the other end. If you keep closing a door along the way
>where you make critical or signigicant changes (i.e., make a snapshot
>before taking the risk), you only get pushed back to that last closed
>door and can rebuild from there.
>
>> Also - your response, though similar to others I've seen many places,
>> is a bit frustating to an old 98/DOS hacker like myself. There's
>> sort of a religion out there that you can't capture everything by
>> copying just files and folders.
>
>Very true. Those that think using XCOPY to clone a drive don't realize
>that inuse files don't get copies (which includes the registry files for
>the account under which they are currently logged into) and files for
>which they don't have read permission (something you still have to note
>when doing backups) or were locked out by the system or other processes
>won't get copied. XCOPY does not support shadow copying. Disk imaging
>(actually partition imaging) doesn't care about account permissions,
>security, policies, EFS, or inuse files because you are not running the
>OS when creating the image.
>
>> Msoft puts "special stuff" out there
>> on the disk, outside of the MBR, that can only be captured by a disk
>> image. I'll accept this more easily if someone could tell me what
>> that information is. You say "You cannot simply sys an XP drive and
>> toss data onto it." I have to use an imaging program. Ok, I'l accept
>> this, but must I do so blindly 8-}
>
>Some disk imaging software does not include the MBR along with the
>partition's image fileset. That's because it can bite you hard. I use
>DriveImage 2002 (haven't upgraded yet) and there is no option to save
>the MBR or to restore it; however, you can download Powerquest's freebie
>MBR save/restore utility (one version runs in DOS and the other under
>Windows). Following exemplifies why backing up and restoring old copies
>of the MBR is considered an advanced restore function.
>
>You image a partition. This is the first primary partition on your
>drive containing Windows XP and which occupies half of it. With that
>image you save the MBR which includes the bootstrap program, disk
>signature, bytes, the partition table, and a couple other items I don't
>recall right now. There is also another 2nd FAT32 partition using up
>the remainder of the drive and which contains Windows 98 (you really
>like your old games, or you need to test your product across all
>supported platforms). You decide to add Linux or some other OS using
>whatever file system is appropriate for it in another primary partition
>but all the disk space has been used up in the 2 partitions already
>there. You resize the 2nd primary partition since there is lots of
>unused space in it. This leaves unallocated space on the hard drive for
>your new 3rd partition. However, for reasons you only know, you decide
>you want the new 3rd partition to follow after the first partition and
>the old 2nd partition to be last, so the physical order will be: old
>NTFS primary partition #1, new other-file-system primary partition #3,
>and then the old FAT32 primary partition #2. That means you not only
>have to resize old partition #2 but you also have to slide it to the end
>of the disk. Then you can create the new partition in the middle. Well
>guess what happened to the partition table in the MBR? If you later
>restore the image for partition 1 and include the MBR that got saved
>with it, you will also restore a partition table in that old copy of the
>MBR which no longer matches your current partition setup. The old MBR
>copy shows 2 primary partitions where the first one is an NTFS type
>partition occupying half the disk and the second is a FAT32 type
>partition occupying the other half of the disk. That's okay for your
>old NTFS primary partition #1 but will screw up your new
>other-file-system primary partition #3 and the resized and moved old
>FAT32 primary partition #2. You can recover from this blunder by using
>a partition table editor (another freebie download from Powerquest's FTP
>site) but you are doing more hazardous editing of your system setup than
>even when editing the registry.
>
>> PS - another mini rant. - What I want (a way to do good, proactive
>> backups that protect me from a disk crash, without spending a fortune
>> on 3rd party software), seems like something MICROSOFT would be very
>> supportive of - yet they apparently don't offer any easy way to do
>> it???? (sigh)
>
>But you are forgeting that the NT Backup program wasn't written by
>Microsoft. It is a crippled version of Veritas' Backup Exec Desktop.
>Microsoft provided a minimal and crippled solution (which is actually
>fluff if all you really wanted was just the OS) which is still palatable
>by many low-volume, normal octane users (and YOU chose to reduce the
>octane further by going with XP Home instead of XP Pro). The
>defragmenter included in Windows XP is a crippled version of Diskeeper.
>The Disk Cleanup utility is a crippled version of CleanSweep. Don't
>know about you, but I haven't used Wordpad since, well, I can't remember
>when I last used it so it's been years. EFS is good for securing the
>content of your files but it isn't meant to compete against more robust
>security solutions (I haven't tried SafeBoot or DriveCrypt but they
>appear to implement better drive encryption security). Windows XP Pro
>comes with the Fax Service and it is usable but not for high-volume
>business use (alas, Symantec let WinFax die after they bought it from
>Delrina). If you FTP a lot, do you use the DOS-mode ftp.exe program or
>try FTP'ing through Internet Explorer, or do you get FileZilla or some
>other real FTP client? If you care about securely erasing files, are
>you going to rely on deleting the file, emptying the Recycle Bin, and
>running defrag hoping that the now unused space gets overwritten, or do
>you head on over to http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ to get the decent and
>freebie Eraser utility? Do you rely on the Bayesian filtering in
>Outlook 2003 to get rid of spam, or do you get a better solution that
>includes Bayesian filtering, DNS blacklists of known spam sources, block
>by country of origin, HTML filtering and weighting, URL checking, and
>other anti-spam methods that are far superior and might even be rolled
>into one product, like SpamPal (which is free, by the way)?
>
>There is a lot of fluff in Windows that is NOT part of an operating
>system but is good marketing for Microsoft to keep their users happy by
>giving them just enough to shut them up. You got something, it's
>passable, but it's not a strong solution. Basically they are still just
>selling an operating system. Users already complain about the cost of
>Windows. Are you going to pay more to have Microsoft include whatever
>is the most potent backup program available along with whatever is the
>most potent disk imaging software? Why not also demand they include MS
>Office Pro in place of WordPad, Spinrite6 in place of CHKDSK, and
>PhotoShop in place of Paint? Rather than make Windows even more
>expensive, I'd like to get a much cheaper and less fluffy version of
>Windows and add software for the critical or wanted functions that *I*
>want to include.
>
>
>
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