Question about Hoster back-up

[tymzend]

Last night, I had a couple of problems right before the show started. These problems were induced by a mistake that I made. But, it all leads to a specific question.

We have a song where the graphics were just horrible. Deacon Blues, DKM-1109-15. By the end of the song, completely unreadable. So, I figure that I'll re-import it, and see if it was the CDG, or the file on my PC. Well, it took forever to read the song on that disc, and sure enough, it was just as bad after re-importing.

So, I decide that I'm just going to delete it out of the song database, and rebuild the database. Well, when I go to rebuild it after deleting the song, I get an error message about not being able to find a "jeterr35" (or something like that) file.

Well, at the bar there is no internet connection for me (this I didn't realize until AFTER I decided to uninstall and reinstall Hoster). Well, the Hoster installation couldn't register, and I didn't have a floppy disc with me for the registration, so at that point I'm screwed, right? No!!!! I did my disc copy to my back-up hard drive when I upgraded to the newest version of Hoster the previous week, so I'll just boot to the other hard drive and we'll be all set.

So, I do this, and I start Hoster, which immediately brings up another error message (SCODE - something or other). Which leads me to my question(s).

Would a corrupted version of Hoster mess up the backup copy on the other hard drive? Shouldn't the other hard drive be completely independent of problems on the drive I normally use? Do they share resources? If they are independent, then how on earth can one work, and not the other, when they are EXACT copies of each other?

When I do the back-up, I follow the instructions specifically, and make sure only certain boxes are checked, etc.

Well, what I ended up doing, was running home, loading Hoster back up, and getting back to start the show a little late. But, the Cubs game was on, so if there's a lot of people watching, we usually wait until after the game (it's a sports bar) anyway, so I walked back in the door just as the last out was made.

The show ended up running flawlessly, but this whole back-up deal really has me confused. I'm wondering now if my back-up is really reliable?

[gduns - with the Lord]

If you had a drive image made of your C: drive, made with Norton Ghost 2003 or later you could have done a reimage at your gig in about 10-15 minutes, and been up and running.

I wouldnt be without it.

[tymzend]

Isn't that (in essence) what the Powerquest Drive Image software (that I got from MTU with my PC) is supposed to be?

What's the point of copying one drive to another if you can't boot to the other drive and go?

P.S. - The copy function with Powerquest takes over 5 hours to complete.

[gduns - with the Lord]

I'm not sure about the program you are talking about, But Ghost will make a drive Image IE: it will compress your 20 gig c: drive to about 7 gigs, But it is just an Image, not a running backup drive. I also have an extra laptop harddrive for it, and can just swap out the hard drive in 3 mins. But Ghost, is really a gig saver

[tymzend]

I have (2) 120GB hard drives in my MTU PC, and an external 120GB hard drive that I just keep a backup of the music on.

When I use the Powerquest software, it makes a direct copy (I believe) of the C: drive, onto my D: drive. Same size, same everything. The thought being that if something crashed on drive C:, you could boot to the other drive and be up and running. This is what MTU recommends when they sell you the extra hard drive (optional) and the Powerquest Drive Image software.

But, drive image (when you use the "Copy Contents of One Drive To Another" option), does not compress any information at all. It's supposed to be a working backup.

It just seems that when Hoster does something, or I do somethig to Hoster, it seems to corrupt the Hoster copy that is on the back-up drive as well.

Guess what............


http://www.powerquest.com/sabu/ghost.../features.html

[gduns - with the Lord]

I keep a small C: (system drive) with an operating system , and the nessicary programs only on it (less than 30 gigs). I use norton ghost to make an Image (1 file that contains the entire c: drive), on my D: drive. It takes up about 7gigs.

I use a usb external hard drive for the music files, or you could use the internal D: drive for this, as you have plenty of room.

When you reimage the hard drive from the file on the D: drive, it rebuilds the C: drive to the way it was when you made the image. No reloading software, windows ect.

This is the Best way I have found to do it. Ghost will also copy one hard drive to another, But that is a waste of space as far as I am concerned.

[tymzend]

Maybe I need to try your approach

[DJYale]

Having never used Ghost to create a drive image, just curious as to how long it takes to restore a Ghosted image?

Personally, I cheated when I built my rack-mount and bought dual hot-swapable drive bays.

[mindonstrike]

For those of us without ghosting capabilities you can try "restore" (assuming your HD didn't die).
Before any upgrades or making any changes to my computer(s) I set a restore point just in case. Rarely used but when I have needed it, it's saved my backside.

Sam

[gduns - with the Lord]

GHost takes 5-15 minutes to rebuild if you have the image on another hard drive. If you have it on dvd or cd's it takes a little longer.

[MTUSUPPORT]

Powerquest Drive Image is the NEW Ghost 9.0. Norton bought out Drive Image, and now the newest version of Ghost is now Drive Image, and the old Ghost was scrapped.

Drive image has always been far Superior to Ghost in my Opinion, and obviously Norton also thought so, and this is why they bought it, and renamed it as Ghost 9.0.

When you do a backup, it is exactly what was on your Hard at the time you did the backup. I am not sure why yours caused a problem. Do you have the exact Error that it gave you, I know that this happened at a show and you probably didn't keep it, just because it was critical. This will always help me though, about the only thing to give me something to go on.

[Flipeoke]

I'm just guessing here, but when you did the uninstall of Hoster, and realized you couldn't install, are you sure you booted from the "back-up" D: drive? or did you boot from C: and try to use the Hoster from D:

Perhaps, if you booted from C: some of the files needed for Hoster were missing (since you uninstalled) and it would not run properly. To my knowledge, (Which I admit is somewhat limited) if you have an exact replica of a drive you should be able to do anything you want to the first w/o messing up the second...(unless you are using a RAID configuration) This being said, either you mistakenly booted from drive C, or the drives were not identical...when was the last time you booted from D: and tested it out...?
Did you do any updates of Hoster after making your backup drive? If you did, and you were booted from "C:" and updated hoster on both drives, it is quite possible new files were saved in the c:\windows\system on your C drive, and not updated on your D:\windows\system or something to that effect... If this were the case, you either would have to backup again after updating Hoster, or boot from C:, update Hoster, then boot from D: and update again...

Again, not really sure, but just some possibilities I had thought of...

Flip

[tymzend]

I didn't save the exact error message. Was in a panic at the time. But, it said "SCODE" something or other. Had 3 or 4 lines of text.

I did boot to the D drive, and disabled the C drive prior to doing so. When I boot to the D drive, I have to physically go into the CMOS setup and disable C, and enable D.

But, the wierd thing is, that even when I've "disabled" one of them, when I get logged back on, they both show up in my file system.

Maybe I'm not going about booting to the other drive the way I should be.

Maybe Hoster is sharing files from both drives, which would suck.

[George]

Originally Posted by tymzend

Maybe Hoster is sharing files from both drives

One possibility is under the TOOLS, BUILD SONGS DATABASE window that pops up, under SELECT FOLDER, more than one source may be showing. If so, highlight and delete the unwanted one.

George

[gduns - with the Lord]

The problem I have seen when booting from multiple drives, You can boot from D: but windows is still using your registry from the c: drive. The multiple boot thing doesnt really work good, unless you physicaly disconnect the drive, and plug the other one in its place.

I have tried this many times, and it really is frustrating.

If you want a spare drive for a backup after you clone it, disconnect it. Then plug it in when you have a problem. That will work. Otherwise the reimage is the solution

[tymzend]

Gduns,

I agree. I think there is registry sharing.

MTU, just a question for you guys. When I bought the second hard drive, I bought it as protection. But, it doesn't seem to be working the way I understood it would work.

Do you have any recommendations as to how I would be able to use my second drive as a back-up? The way it was explained to me was just like I am doing it. Copy everything over to the other drive, then if you have a crash, reboot to the other drive and go. If there is registry sharing, that's not going to work every time. If it doesn't work every time, the second hard drive that I bought with my system really isn't doing it's job.

Any other suggestions?

[MTUSUPPORT]

Tymzend,
This is how we have all of our office systems setup, and it works fine. When Drive image or Ghost copy the files to the backup drive, this drive is hidden.

If you look under Windows Explorer, you should never see this drive, unless you have booted from it. If you do see it, then you assigned a drive letter in the copy process, which can cause problems. If you don't see the drive it should be working the way that it should. I have tested this many times, and we have this same setup on all of our office systems, 2 hard drives connected inside with one of them as a Backup, that we run occasionally to make sure if we crash, it will be a reboot to fix it.

Other than this, I am not sure why yours would not be working the same.