re: two hard drives!
Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 2:20 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by joanne salutric
(59 messages posted)
to msl: i have printed out you last message and i can't begin to tell you how much
it helps! i'm busy right now but tomorrow i will write and tell you what has been
going on. thank you for your email address i really appreciate it. i hope i won't
be a pain. i'm a 63 year old lady and i really struggle with this new computer.
thanks until tomorrow. you let me know if i'm a bother!
On Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 1:24 pm, MLS wrote:
>Let me suggest the following to keep you out of trouble in the future. First, do
>get a second hard drive and set it up as a slave. Next, perform a clean install
>of windows XP on your C drive. Michael Stevens and Paul Thurrott each have web
sites
>that give you everything you need to do for a clean install. Once XP is cleanly
>installed, and assuming you are connected to the internet, activate XP and then
download
>all XP critical updates. Next, install a program such as Norton Ghost on your C
>drive. During the setup the program gives you the opportunity to create a self-booting
>floppy disk. Do it!. Once Ghost, or whatever program you choose is installed on
>your C drive, run the backup program and tell it to make an image of your C drive
>on your second hard drive. If you are using Ghost, the program will tell you that
>it must restart in DOS to make the backup. That is OK as it is all automatic from
>that point on. Once the C drive image is made and placed on the second drive (it
>is a compressed image that is placed there...not one you can boot from), the program
>will automatically restart and you will boot back into Windows. You now have a
baseline
>image of an up-to-date XP installation that you can use to restore your C drive
if
>it later gets messed up. Having done that, then go about installing your peripherals
>and applications until you have your C drive fully populated and working as it should.
> At that time I would make a second image of your C drive (keep your first as well)
>so that you now have an image of your fully loaded C drive. You should now have
>your C drive fully loaded and working properly, and you should have two images on
>your second drive, one being the drive with just the fully functioning XP, and the
>second one being the C drive with everything installed and working. From this point
>on you have a couple of choices. One would be to obtain a program such as Iomega's
>Auto Backup, which tracks in real-time all changes you make to your important files
>(My Docs, Outlook, etc.). Programs like this work by first copying everything in
>your then existing folders that you tell it to monitor, and then adding new copies
>of files anytime one of the files in your monitored folders is changed. This has
>a great advantage in that you can now always recover all of your important data
by
>going to your second drive and retrieving the files placed there by Auto Backup
or
>the like. Another approach might be to use a program like GoBack 3.0. GoBack
keeps
>track of every time that you C drive is written to, as well as the same for your
>second hard drive. If you ever get into trouble, you can reboot, tell GoBack during
>the boot process that you want to restore the computer to an earlier time, select
>the time, and then sit back and wait for the process to complete. GoBack works
just
>like XP's System Restore, except that it is much more comprehensive and works (unlike
>System Restore) when you really need it. For simplicity of use, GoBack is the easier
>way to go (though you do have to jump through a couple minor hurdles if you later
>want to make another image of your C drive so that it is fully up-to-date). Any
>specific questions, feel free to email me directly at slonecker@earthlink.net.
>
>
- Written in response to:
- re: two hard drives! (MLS: Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 1:24 pm)
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