DL wrote:
> A mirror raid is not an altenative to a backup.
Absolutely right. Mirroring is used to provide reduncancy in a situation
where downtime can't be tolerated. Backup is still required to provent loss
of data in situations where both the original and mirror are lost
simultaneously.
For the average user (certainly almost every home user) mirroring not only
isn't required, it isn't even a good idea.. It provides a false sense of
security, and suffers from the same weaknesses as backup to a non-removable
hard drive--it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original
and backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup
> Depending on the raid controler, if a hd fails the system may not
> report which hd has failed, and it may go down. It also maybe that
> you cannot reboot untill you split the raid and disconnect the failed
> HD, once you have determined which HD has failed.
> After experiencing many problems with onboard raid, as supplied on
> many mobos, I purchased a reasonably high end raid card ($380) I know
> this unit will show which HD has a problem and will continue running
> the sys when a HD fails. I also added a third hot swap HD which the
> card will automatically use to rebuild if one fails.
> PS I still have onsite/offsite backups
>
> "RealtorJohn" <MSnewsgroup@pamgrice.com> wrote in message
> news:21C1C273-A929-4D26-8F95-9FD672D63234@microsoft.com...
>> Let me straighten out any misconceptions. All of the current drives
>> have only been installed on this machine.
>>
>> I had a faulty HD from which no data coiuld be retreived, (sent to a
>> recovery company), in the mean time I installed a SG 160GB and
>> installed XP and reloaded most of my programs. The damaged HD was
>> under warrenty so
>> WD sent me a refurbished HD that was the same model and size of the
>> old one. I was intending to use the WD dirive strictly as backup for
>> data, I didn't want to loose all of my data again.
>>
>> After about 3 weeks the SG 160GB XP installation started failing and
>> I couldn't get it to repair. I then installed XP on the refurbished
>> WD drive and reinstalled the HW and SW again.
>>
>> In the meantime I investigated using a RAID configuration with a
>> mirror solution to try to avoid more down time, I depend on my
>> computer everyday I can't afford to have it unusable, it needs to be
>> available 100% of the time. So I came up with the brilliant idea of
>> multiple boots.
>>
>> My idea was to use the mirror drive as the main boot, and have one
>> on each of the other drives, just in case.
>>
>> Most of my programs had been installed on the F: drive, of couse it
>> was the C: drive at the time. No fear I can use Norton Windoctor to
>> change any designations to whatever they need to be changed to. And
>> no there has not been a clean install on the F: drive. I read DL's
>> responce and I will try to repair the XP installation before I
>> proceed any further.
>>
>> I understand about having progams on a seperate partition or disk is
>> not of much value now. It seems to me that W95 would reinstall and
>> any programs on your HD would automatically be registered and
>> installed for use. What a crime that XP doesn't work that way.
>>
>> Thank you both, DL and Ken. I'll let you know how I make out.
>> --
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Realtor John
>>
>>
>> "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:
>>
>>> RealtorJohn wrote:
>>>
>>>> I had a XP crash from which I couln't recover. I installed into my
>>>> home built 2 80 GB SG drives and set them up as a RAID 1. I still
>>>> have the drive with all of my programs that had been loaded onto
>>>> it, XP just doesn't work. I am using PnP to put all of my hardware
>>>> back into the new RAID 1 drive (E
setup.
>>>> My set up is:
>>>> ASUS P4C800 Deluxe MB
>>>> 1GB RAM
>>>> Built in USB ports (4 are activated)
>>>> Built in Network connection (RJ45 Port)
>>>> Built in Sound using Sound MAx software.
>>>> Uses Promise Fst Trak 378 Driver for the RAID
>>>> I have also make the system a multiple boot with an XP system on
>>>> C:, E:, & F: C: is SG 160GB
>>>> D: is a 22GB portion of C:
>>>> E: is 2 SG 80 GB Raid 1 Mirrorred drives (I've had 2 crashes in 6
>>>> months) F:is a WD 120GB a rebuilt replacement for the the original
>>>> failure.
>>>>
>>>> F: boot does not work and that is the disk with all of the
>>>> installed HW & SW
>>>>
>>>> Certainly there must be a way to have the progams already installed
>>>> on F: to act as if they have been installed on the E: and D: drives
>>>> without actually installing them.
>>>>
>>>> I hope someone can tell me how to do this. It is most distressing
>>>> to be required to reinstall about 50 (including utilities)
>>>> programs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you saying that you have installed programs on F: and that these
>>> programs had been installed under Windows XP, but Windows XP has
>>> since been cleanly reinstalled?
>>>
>>> Sorry, but there is no way to use those installed programs, and
>>> they have to be reinstalled from scratch. Installed programs (all
>>> but the very occasionl tiny program) have many components and
>>> references all over the operating system (in the registry and
>>> elsewhere).When you reinstalled Windows, all of this was lost.
>>>
>>> This is the main reason why having a separate drive or partition for
>>> installed programs isn't really a useful thing to do.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
>>> Please reply to the newsgroup