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best backup, ghost software

I've used Terabyte IFW/IFD and Acronis TI10, both excellent solutions. The Acronis GUI makes it the superior app for anyone new to backup/restore apps. Haven't used Ghost since 2003. Currently using Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite, which combines backup/restore capability with...
- dunkster
- Post #10
- May 25, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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Which would you get?

Unless you have some specific reason for using USB backup, consider a drive bay solution. I've been using a StarTech HSD100SATBK Trayless SATA Drive Bay. It's a cheap and fast direct SATA solution that allows using any SATA drive of any capacity as a removable-drive, completely eliminating...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- May 25, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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which mechanical keyboard?

I just replaced a Unicomp Customizer (stuck space key) with an ABS M1 mechanical keyboard. The ABS M1 has nice feedback, full key layout and very efficient small desktop footprint. I like it better than the Unicomp keyboard.
- dunkster
- Post #6
- May 5, 2009
- Forum: Keyboards
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Imaging software

Is backing up and cloning and being able to boot the same thing? I use both methods. It's redundant, but effective. Recovery of borked OS from saved image: - An image of OS partition is saved to another partition on the same drive. - If the OS becomes corrupted (can't boot), use recovery...
- dunkster
- Post #11
- Mar 8, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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Questions for anyone who's used Acronis True Image

I didn't think you can fit an OS and some apps in less than 10GB My OS partition is intentionally lean (XPSP3 + AV + Firewall/HIPS + Browsers) at 6.9GB used space. All other apps (Word, Excel, Defragger, Partition Manager, utilities, etc.) I consider non-critical, installed in a small...
- dunkster
- Post #9
- Mar 4, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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Questions for anyone who's used Acronis True Image

My OS partition is lean at about 7GB actual used partition space. The following apps have been used to image/restore the partition to/from 4.7GB DVD: - Terabyte IFW/IFD. - Acronis TI10. - Paragon HD Manager 2009 Suite. Standard compression in all instances. Reliability 100%, speeds...
- dunkster
- Post #5
- Mar 4, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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Multiple hard drive failures?

I lost a WD2500KS coincident with failure of an Antec PS. After replacing PS, the drive was intermittently unstable. It seems likely that 5V supply line lost regulation (over-volted), damaging the HD controller chip(s). You have probably guessed that the replacement PS was not an Antec...
- dunkster
- Post #7
- Mar 2, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Air flow?

For most fans, if you look around the outside edges of the fan frame, you'll see an arrow pointing in the direction of intended air flow. If missing, just apply 12V and make your own air-direction marking. Hope this helps!
- dunkster
- Post #2
- Mar 1, 2009
- Forum: Cases & Cooling
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Harddrive partition corruption or dying harddrive?

Tough problem. Could also be your power supply. I had a power supply failure that left me with a hard drive that was intermittently unreliable. I suspect that the failure mode of the power supply was failed regulation of the 5V line (over-volted 5V supply) before PS failure. Had to replace...
- dunkster
- Post #2
- Feb 28, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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What happens when you do a sector-by-sector copy to a smaller hard drive?

When I tried the smart copy with proportional partitioning option, my Vista64 needed a bootfix to make it work ok That's a potential problem in the copy-only-used-sectors method. Some copy apps may, for example, interpret a sector as 'empty' when it actually contains an encrypted password...
- dunkster
- Post #7
- Feb 28, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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SATA Hard Disk Drives, better to have internal or external?

I've been using a StarTech HSD100SATBK Trayless SATA Drive Bay. 'Trayless' means that no tray/carrier is required. The bay uses SATA power and signal pass-through connector, converting a bare SATA drive to a plug-in device. No USB/eSATA interface involved - all operations at true SATA speed...
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Feb 28, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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What happens when you do a sector-by-sector copy to a smaller hard drive?

There are two methods of sector-copying: - Copying only used sectors (empty sectors are ignored). - Raw sector-by-sector copies every sector serially, including empty sectors. The copy-only-used-sectors method will allow copying any partition to another partition, so long as there is...
- dunkster
- Post #5
- Feb 27, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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External HD reliability

I'm currently using a StarTech HSD100SATBK Trayless SATA Drive Bay. Basically, an SATA drive becomes a plug-in drive. Plug the bare drive into the bay, do your task, pull the drive. Simple as that with all operations at SATA speed. I have a Thermaltake blacX Docking Station, but my eSATA...
- dunkster
- Post #2
- Feb 27, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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What happens when you do a sector-by-sector copy to a smaller hard drive?

Check description of capabilities for the drive utility offered by the maker of the drive. I've used drive utilities from both WD and Maxtor that offer the choice to automatically scale partition-size(s) or allow manual partition-size assignment prior to actual cloning operation. In those...
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Feb 27, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Problem after system repair

The repair program re-installed Windows - which installed a fresh Windows Registry. That new registry has no record of previously-installed programs. Those programs will simply have to be re-installed to use them. It's a bother, but that's the way that repair scheme is designed to work...
- dunkster
- Post #2
- Feb 26, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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How loud should a harddrive be?

Warning, Xarick! If you take this noise-irritation too seriously, the next thing will be a case-mod to elastically suspend the drive. That will likely lead to further mods involving fan choices, fan controllers, sealing off noise-leaking ports, installing noise-absorber materials...
- dunkster
- Post #13
- Feb 24, 2009
- Forum: Computer Building
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OK to back up on separate internal hard drive?

Just a FYI ESATA is external SATA should be no slowdown using it with the right components. I must not have the 'right components'. I used a Thermaltake blacX in eSATA interface to raw sector-by-sector clone a 250GB Seagate to a 250GB WD drive. I've lost the HDTach and HDTune numbers for...
- dunkster
- Post #6
- Feb 24, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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External Removable Sata Drive Based

I was thinking sata drives in a removable enclosure of some kind Regarding SATA drives as removable devices, I've been using a StarTech HSD100SATBK Trayless SATA Drive Bay. Being 'trayless' means that no drive carrier/tray is required. The bare drive is inserted into the trayless enclosure...
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Feb 24, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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OK to back up on separate internal hard drive?

I recently installed a StarTech HSD100SATBK Trayless SATA Drive Bay as an element of my backup strategy. The device is simply installed in a 5" bay, essentially making a physical SATA drive a plug-in removable device. The drive SATA signal and power connections plug into a pass-through...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- Feb 24, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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New Hard Drive - Mirroring?

Download Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS to either floppy or CD/DVD. I attempted to load the latest version to check functions, but I have a Seagate drive installed and it won't start with the Seagate drive. I used it some time ago for disk cloning, cloning a 40GB drive...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- Feb 20, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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No Image

If I understand your post, you: - bought a new motherboard - bought new graphics card - made no software or driver changes - plugged everything in and it doesn't run right When installing a new motherboard, you really should: - re-install Windows - install the drivers from the CD that...
- dunkster
- Post #6
- Feb 19, 2009
- Forum: Computer Building
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Any freeware programs that PREVENT spyware from getting on the computer?

Comodo or Online Armor (free version) both offer inbound and outbound firewall protection as well as alerts for any unknown/suspicious program start-ups. Firefox browser has good basic protection, plus offering additional modules for protection against scripts and blocking adware. The...
- dunkster
- Post #9
- Feb 16, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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1tb partitions 333 in size?

<with a WD black 1tb. Would there be any speed advantage to partitioning it into 3 segments of 333,333,334? Would this restrict each partition to one platter and thus increase the speed of each parition? Users have no control whatsoever about discretely assigning indiviual disk platters. The...
- dunkster
- Post #7
- Feb 14, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Where do you physically keep your harddisks?

My external drive is used to raw-clone my main drive for swapping in the event of main drive failure, using a trayless removable drive bay. It sits in an anti-static bag in a closed cabinet between cloning sessions. In my view, environmental humidity is of little concern, so long as the...
- dunkster
- Post #16
- Feb 14, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Just when I think it is safe to upgrade

Another retired guy here. A few suggestions: - Base your hardware and software decisions on what is adequate for your own tasks. - Ignore the 'benchmarks are everything' crowd. My requirements differ from yours only in that I play games like Crysis and Crysis Warhead, which dictate just a...
- dunkster
- Post #8
- Feb 12, 2009
- Forum: Computer Building
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How to clone partition on the same HD

For partition manipulation (create, shrink, expand, merge, clone, wipe, etc.) you need partition-management software. Google 'partition manager' for a selection of both free and paid solutions. I can recommend Paragon HD Manager 2009 Suite, a rich suite that combines comprehensive...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- Feb 12, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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How do you back up your storage?

I think if you partition a large drive might improve your crash chances that just one platter of the drive dies but not really sure.. The problem is that no user knows how the internal platters are handled by the HD firmware. Users have no control of discrete platter assignment. Using a...
- dunkster
- Post #18
- Feb 12, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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How do you back up your storage?

I back up to an external drive monthly, and then to DVD's every 6 months (unless nothing major has changed) Similar backup strategy here. I frequently image two critical partitions to protected archive partition on my main drive, and periodically do a raw sector-by-sector clone of the...
- dunkster
- Post #15
- Feb 12, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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What size partitions in a 640 gig hard drive?

Two primary considerations for the OS partition: - Leave just enough free space for expansion, temp files, installation cabs, etc. - Don't make it so large that HD access times suffer due to large head seek travel. Personally, my OS partition size is approximately twice the size of actual...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- Feb 11, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Best drive packaging?

My last two OEM drives came from Newegg and Mwave. Both were in safe static-proof wrapper and protected from shock by bubble-wrap. Hope this helps!
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Jan 28, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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external HD troubles

A quick Google look at your hardware suggests that the external drive/housing is interfaced by Firewire, and your Chaintech mobo has two SATA connectors. You don't know if the problem is: - The actual physical drive (inside the enclosure). - A BIOS/Firewire problem that may incorrectly...
- dunkster
- Post #9
- Jan 28, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Where to get flexible, long, angled s-ata cables?

Every SATA/eSATA cable connection you're likely to need - including left-angle connectors - can be found here: http://www.satacables.com/ Hope this helps!
- dunkster
- Post #5
- Jan 26, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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changing from IDE to SATA

Most cloning programs - free or paid - will do this nicely. They allow IDE>SATA, SATA>IDE and most will even offer to automatically re-size partitions if you're cloning a multi-partition drive to a higher-capacity drive. I've used the free DOS utilities from WD and Maxtor for this, and I...
- dunkster
- Post #4
- Jan 26, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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External drive quality from drive manufacturers

From posts I've read, complaints about external drive housings seem mainly about (lack of) cooling, whiny little 40mm fans, failures of whiny 40mm fans and difficulty in replacing failed whiny 40mm fans. My own requirement for an external backup is to clone my main drive to external drive...
- dunkster
- Post #10
- Jan 26, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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HD damaged blocks

It's been a few years now, but the Western Digital HDDIAG diagnostic program solved a similar problem for me. I had a bad block in the area used by my OS partition. Running HDDIAG in Quick Test mode, it reported a problem, then switched to the full test, then repaired the disk. On completion...
- dunkster
- Post #6
- Jan 25, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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Recommended Partition size for boot drive

The larger your C partiton is, the farther your HD read/write heads have to travel to reach the first track of the D partition. Shorter head-seek travel should produce slightly faster seek times - but current HDs are so fast you may not even notice the difference. A safe minimum size would be...
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Jan 22, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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"Ready to go" backup

I do pretty much what you describe and I do it in two manual steps, but I don't use incremental backups. My HD is configured with multiple partitions. C:\ partition includes OS and security apps. I periodically do an image backup. Image backup takes about 5 minutes. Image restore takes...
- dunkster
- Post #2
- Jan 9, 2009
- Forum: Windows
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C Drive size and performance

Never mind - brain fart!
- dunkster
- Post #14
- Jan 8, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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C Drive size and performance

Given an HD with C:\ and D:\ partitions, increasing the size the C:\ partition increases the distance (seek span) the HD read/write would have to travel to reach the first track of the D:\ partition. Doubling the C:\ partition size would approximately double the seek span time. Since we're...
- dunkster
- Post #6
- Jan 7, 2009
- Forum: Memory and Storage
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program for tracking installed files and registry keys

There are good HIPS programs which will provide excellent program installation logging and will alert you whenever any non-trusted application attempts to run. Google HIPS. A recommended free solution would be Online Armor Free, which combines an excellent Firewall/HIPS combo. Comodo also...
- dunkster
- Post #3
- Jan 5, 2009
- Forum: Windows

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