sjsmads1230expert
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Data storage methods
I have a r/w CD Rom. I need to know if using it to back-up a hard drive is feasible? Or whether the capacities would mean one CD per software application/program.
An alternative being buying an I-Omega zip drive
An alternative being buying an I-Omega zip drive
Check the software that came with the CDRW drive. Vendors will include a disaster recovery utility that will enable you to recover from hard drive failures. If not it becomes more difficult to do the backup. It is not like old Windows 3.x where you make a copy then restore and all is the same. Another option may be the built in backup utility for Windows. I do not like it but some have used it with success. If anyone has further input I will be interested in seeing it.
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Why don't you use GHOST?
This program will make a full IMAGE of the hard disk (if it's smaller than 650MB ) and then you can put it on the CDR
This program will make a full IMAGE of the hard disk (if it's smaller than 650MB ) and then you can put it on the CDR
Ronins suggestion about GHOST is good, however you will need another hdd or networkdrive to copy the image to. If you choose to compress the image (feature in GHOST) my experiance is that it shrinks to about ½ size of used space of the hdd. It's simple to use and you can burn the image to CD along with the ghost program which will make it possible to fully restore the computer in about 5 - 10 minutes depending on the amount of data, and all you need is a bootdisk with CDROM drivers. Had to do it myself a week ago and everything worked instantly.
Good luck
Good luck
As already pointed out if you have nowhere to store a created Ghost image then the program won't work.
My preffered option is GHOST to a Tape drive but with Ghost 6 you now have the option for other removable media that has drivers loaded in DOS.
This allows spanning.
This adds a plus to the Zip drive option but perhaps consider using a 2.5 Gig ORB drive instead of a 100meg Zip disk.
The problem with the CD R/W is that it creates images using windows and this makes backing up currently used system files a problem.
I have in the past used one other option that is cumbersome but cheap.
For win9#:
Using RAR (not winrar), boot from a floppy and create cd sized rar images for spanning of files you select including all files and store them on free space of the HD.
Load windows and make data cd's of the rar files.
In the event of a system fail, boot from the win98 floppy and prep the HD using format with sys.
Place format and RAR on a floppy.
Just load rar and restore from the cd's.
My preffered option is GHOST to a Tape drive but with Ghost 6 you now have the option for other removable media that has drivers loaded in DOS.
This allows spanning.
This adds a plus to the Zip drive option but perhaps consider using a 2.5 Gig ORB drive instead of a 100meg Zip disk.
The problem with the CD R/W is that it creates images using windows and this makes backing up currently used system files a problem.
I have in the past used one other option that is cumbersome but cheap.
For win9#:
Using RAR (not winrar), boot from a floppy and create cd sized rar images for spanning of files you select including all files and store them on free space of the HD.
Load windows and make data cd's of the rar files.
In the event of a system fail, boot from the win98 floppy and prep the HD using format with sys.
Place format and RAR on a floppy.
Just load rar and restore from the cd's.