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.