"Barry Delfino" said in :
Greetings all!
=20
I own a Dell 8250 with a 2.8 P4 chip, 512 meg of memory, and a 120
gig WD hard drive. I recently purchased a second WD 120 drive, and an
Adaptec RAID card. I'd like to set up a RAID 0 configuration.
=20
Now my question: I understand that when you enable the RAID setup,
you lose all existing data on your hard drive, so I'd like to clone
the drive to either CDRs or DVDs. My system has a Plextor 708A DVD
writer in it. What's the best software with which to do said cloning?
I've heard good and bad things about Norton Ghost, but I'd like to
hear some suggestions from this group. I guess I'm looking for
software to clone the drive, and then allow me to put all of my data
back on to the RAID setup without having to reinstall software. Is
this possible? And, will the cloned data also keep network settings,
passwords, etc?=20
=20
TIA,
Barry
Powerquest claims DriveImage supports RAID 0. DriveImage creates =
physical image files in that it reads the sectors from the hard disk. =
It also skips the unused sectors (so they are not recorded in the image =
file but just tracked). At one time, I got Norton Systemworks 2002 Pro =
which included Ghost so I tested it for awhile but found it had some =
nasty deficiencies mentioned below (but most can be overcome with =
command-line switches). If DriveImage supports recovery to RAID 0 then =
I would suspect so would Ghost. I went back to DriveImage.
Problems I had with Norton Ghost:
- It boots using IBM MS-DOS (that was the included DOS). IBM DOS is =
known for not being as hardware compatible as MS-DOS; i.e., there are =
some hardware configurations that will be flaky under IBM DOS (and mine =
was one of them apparently). You can create an image of a bootable =
floppy made with another DOS, like MS-DOS, and store that so Ghost will =
then use that when it creates a bootable floppy. However, you then have =
to buy another operating system since NT-based versions of Windows don't =
bother to include plain MS-DOS on a bootable floppy, and that =
requirement is not mentioned in the product. At the time, I didn't know =
about
http://www.bootdisk.com to obtain images of MS-DOS (and which =
Microsoft knows about and even recommends in one of the KB articles). =
DriveImage uses CalderaDOS with which I've had no problems across 3 home =
PCs.
- Ghost defaults to a logical read of the disk when writing its image =
file. That means it has to open files. I had EFS (encrypted file =
system) used to protect some data directories. On a restore, and =
because the files are being read (instead of just reading the binary =
contents of a sector), the restore would fail on the EFS-protected =
files. I had to remove EFS, create the image, do the restore or clone, =
and then reinstantiate EFS. Sucks royal.
- There is a command-line switch (I think it is -IA) that switches ghost =
from logical reading to physical reading of the drive (so it then =
operates more like DriveImage). However, there is no command-line =
switch to also have it skip empty, or unused, sectors from the image =
file. So the image file was far larger compared against what I got with =
DriveImage. You'll end up consuming far more CDs to store Ghost's =
physical image file.
That was 2 versions ago with Ghost. Perhaps Symantec has enhanced their =
product since then. I doubt it. Symantec is a large software predator =
consuming software companies, like Norton and now Powerquest (so I fear =
for PartitionMagic's and DriveImage's future quality and survivability). =
Everything Symantec buys then wanes over the years. That's why I doubt =
there has been significant improvement in Ghost over the last couple =
years. Might be why they decided to eat up Powerquest.
You might want to throws a pre-sales e-mail at Powerquest, er, Symantec, =
to see if Ghost will handle RAID 0 drive configurations (using an image =
file created in a non-RAID configuration). I didn't find any =
appropriate KB articles at Symantec's web site when selecting "Ghost =
2003" as the product and version and searching on "RAID clone". I did =
find their KB article at
http://snipurl.com/5ak6 which says, "Symantec =
Ghost 8.0 and earlier, and Norton Ghost 2003 and earlier, do not support =
RAID controllers". Norton Ghost 2003 is the latest "personal" version. =
There is a "Symantec" or corporation of ghost and maybe it supports RAID =
but I doubt you want to pay for their corporate version. See, I told =
you all Symantec products wane. Symantec is a software publisher (i.e., =
predator), not a developer. That's why I fear for Powerquest's products =
now that Symantec bought Powerquest.
--=20
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