I have Win XP Pro, sp2 installed on a Sony laptop. This machine is used for
development.

I have installed Visual Studio and SQL Server 2000 also. I have an 80gb
hard drive which has been partitioned with 5gb for SQL and the remainder as
"C:"

My problem is that I wish to have a Disaster Recovery plan for the entire
drive's contents. In XP Disk Management I see a 5gb unnamed partition (I
assume it is the space for SQL). I also see the partition for C: as 69 gb (I
don't know where the missing 5 gb is!?!). When I launch "Backup" from
System Tools, "My Computer " only shows the C: drive. Viewing "Properties"
from Explorer, I see 69gb showing with 29gb used- this figure is shown on the
far right. Running XP Backup transfers 27gb to an external hard drive as the
backup set. There is no chance in Backup to "mark" the unnamed partition and
it is also obvious that Backup does not backup the "drive". Only the "named
C: partition".

How to I backup the entire drives contents? Essentially, I need a clone in
case of a hard disk crash. I don't want to go so far as to install SeaGate
to manage a small SQL problem.

I also considered using a product such as Novell's "Ghost". But I also have
a problem there. It will drop back to the command level and needs the floppy
(Sony) attached as a: When a reboot is made, I cannot boot from the floopy
as it is attached thru PCMCIA and needs the windows drivers running. Even
though the BIOS is set to boot first from floopy, it goes straight to the
hard disk

Your help will be appreciated.

Arthur wrote:


> My problem is that I wish to have a Disaster Recovery plan for the
> entire drive's contents. In XP Disk Management I see a 5gb unnamed
> partition (I assume it is the space for SQL). I also see the
> partition for C: as 69 gb (I don't know where the missing 5 gb
> is!?!). When I launch "Backup" from System Tools, "My Computer "
> only shows the C: drive. Viewing "Properties" from Explorer, I see
> 69gb showing with 29gb used- this figure is shown on the far right.
> Running XP Backup transfers 27gb to an external hard drive as the
> backup set. There is no chance in Backup to "mark" the unnamed
> partition and it is also obvious that Backup does not backup the
> "drive". Only the "named C: partition".
>
> How to I backup the entire drives contents? Essentially, I need a
> clone in case of a hard disk crash. I don't want to go so far as to
> install SeaGate to manage a small SQL problem.

SQL server writes databases to their own files on the drive it was onto,
unless you've told it different. It certainly doesn't setup its own
partitions without your help.

This second partition could well be part of a Sony system restore routine,
containing a backup of the factory setup of your machine.

As for SQL Server, if you have the SQL enterprise manager installed then
your best bet is to run that, and create a maintenance task for your
databases that back them up to a "flat file" on a regular basis, and said
backup files can then easily be picked up by any file backup program such as
Windows Backup.


--
--
Rob Moir
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html
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