• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Computer question

Share this page

T

Tinster

Guest
Guest
Offline
I'm setting up my primary work computer after performing
the dreaded " format C " when Windows XP professional
self destructed. ( I love Bill Gates !) /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/pukeface.gif

I have an internal second hard drive and two external hard
drives for data backup. 2 gigs of memory in the machine.

It is such a royal pain to reinstall some of the
professional software. You have to call India and beg
and plead for new authorization keys. Half the time I
can't understand the folks in India with their heavy accents. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

My question:

I would really like to install important software on my
secondary drives and have only Windows running on "C".

Is it possible to install software on drives other han "C".?

If so, where can I find the procedure?

Thanks,

dale
 
Felices navidades Dale!

Usually (!) the default installation destination for Windows software is the C drive. At the beginning of the installation procedure, you *usually* see the intended destination before you click the OK. You'll see something like:

<Install to: C:\ProgramFiles\Adobe\Apps\Photoshop> etc.

But you *usually* can change that destination from C to D or whatever. Just clik in the Install line, backspace over the C, and put D (or whatever). Keeping the operating system on one physical hard drive, and everything else on other hard drives, is actually pretty popular and *sometimes* actually makes the system run faster depending on the hard drive access speed.

But to me, it makes more sense to use default installations on the C drive as per normal. Heaven knows hard drives these days are gigantic (remember when a 20Meg HD cost nearly $1000?). I install everything on the C drive, then I use Symantec Ghost once a week to copy *the entire drive* to another hard drive as your backup. Then you never have to re-install the operating system or the applications, as Ghost copies *everything* - boot record, directory structure, system files, everything. Other guys here beside me use Ghost for the same reason: it copies *everything* to a different drive, so if the main drive ("C") goes kaflooey, you just boot from the other drive.

Main thing - you can *usually* choose the destination drive for any installation by just reading the window that "sums up" your installation before you click that final OK.

Tom
 
Tom,
You have mentioned "Ghost" before. I have been using "BounceBack" to back up all of the computers on the home network, but have only had to restore individual files or folders in the past. I also was able to move all of my wife's files to her new computer last month with much difficultly from the back up external hard drive.
What are the advantages of "Ghost"? Should I consider upgrading?
 
Thanks Tom,

Therein lies my stumbling block.

Both my external drives have partitions that are complete
system backup drives. Once a week they go to work.
I primarily use them as data backups.

When Windows eats itself , I have not a clue how to use
the full system backups and get them into the computer
after I "format C"

d
 
Dale - OK, I missed that. You say "both my external drives have partitions that are complete system backup drives.". If they are complete system backup drives, you need to find out from the backup system how to use it.

What's the name of the backup system (the program?) that makes those weekly backups? If they're making complete system backups, then they're already doing what Ghost would do.

Tom
 
OK - we've covered the original question - how to install apps on a drive other than the C drive.

And looks like you know the companies to contact when you have questions on how to use their backup software.

One thing you might want to ask them when you get back from the supermercado: if their systems are doing "complete system backups" ... why did you need to re-install Windows and all those apps again when your "Windows XP Professional self destructed"?

Believe me, you're not alone. There's a *lot* of folks who are told (usually by sales staff ...) that their computer includes a full one-button backup system. But the only real backup is when you take it "back up" to the service desk.

Tom
 
Whenever I build a new computer I do 2 initial backups to DVDs using Acronis TrueImage (similar to Ghost).

The first is after loading up just the essentials with all the updates:
- operating system - XP Pro (I won't touch Vista yet)
- anti-virus - BitDefender
- firewall - Zone Alarm
- anti-spyware (various)

Then after I have loaded up the important software that I use I do another one.

This way I can go back to these if there is a big problem.

I then do separate monthly backups similar to NutmegCT.
 
My method, which in its current variation has brought me through nearly 30 years of computing without data loss, is to run two internal drives in a Raid-1 array and one external backup for data.

Many new motherboards come with built-in Raid support and if not, you can buy a raid controller card pretty cheap. You then connect two identical hard drives and specify a Raid-1 array. Everything that is written to one drive is also written to the other, so that if a drive fails, you continue computing uninterrupted with no data loss. There is only a simple warning message that a drive has failed. You can replace it at your convenience at which point the contents of the remaining good drive are then transfered to the new one as well, and the Raid array continues.

The backup drive stores all volitile data in case of a malicious virus (unlikely), massive power spike, physical damage, etc.
 
Steve_S said:
My method is to run two internal drives in a Raid-1 array and one external backup for data.

The backup drive stores all volitile data in case of a malicious virus (unlikely), massive power spike, physical damage, etc.
Click to expand...

Steve: That is exactly the setup of both my computers.
Two inside and 1 external. But I use No2 and external as data backups. I have never heard of Raid-1 array but that appears to be the question I am posting by asking how to install my critical software on drive No. 2.

Could you please elaborate on how I can accomplish this Raid-1 array? If you want to go off forum, my email is crcroof@onelinkpr.net

thanks,

dale
 
You need a Raid controller. Some motherboards have it built-in and some do not. You can buy a Raid controller card to add to a system without native Raid support. The type of Raid array I use (Raid 1) is designed for data security. If a hard dive fails, you lose no data.

The way it works is by "mirroring" one drive to the other. It literally writes every byte of data twice, once to each drive, in real time. Both drives are exact clones of one another. Because of this, a Raid-1 array will NOT protect against viruses, hackers, accidental data deletion, etc. What happens on one happens on the other invisibly. Using a computer running Raid-1, you would never know there was a second drive unless one fails, at which point you would get a warning message to replace the faulty drive.

It sounds to me like this isn't what you're looking for. If you want the operating system on one drive and applications on another, then you will need two drives, set up as separate units. Installing applications to a separate drive is done as you install them. When it asks where to install to, simply point it to the location of your choice. In this case, that is Drive D (or whatever drive you choose) rather than Drive C.

I don't see any advantage in doing this however, because in the event of an operating system meltdown, you would have to reinstall applications anyway. You don't want to try and access software which was installed on a different Windows installation. It might work and it might not, but it's best to install fresh with the operating system. Data is another matter, which is why I have an external drive to back it up. If anything catastrophic were to happen, I would have it all ready to restore once I reinstalled the OS and applications.

If you do want to set up a Raid-1 array, it's best to do it with two identical hard drives. You can do it with two different ones, but the larger and / or faster drive will be reduced in usable size and speed to match the other.

Hope this helps!
 
My take is: Dale needs to read up on RAID array schemes. A RAID-1 setup would be a good plan, with data backup on a third internal and one externally. Slim chance of ever having to reinstall the entire O/S and apps, while data is safe in two devices... and BURN regular data CD/DVD copies of data.
 
I use Norton's 360 back up, which periodically tells me to start the back up program. Seems to work well for me. I have 600 gig of hd space, but still copy important files to large capacity disks. It's paid off for me a couple of times when my computers went south, as my shop computer just did a week ago. Before trashing it, (power supply died), I did pull the hd and saved the info in another machine.
 
Steve,

Both internal drives are the same.

My No1 (C drive) was recently formatted and contains windows and a few apps.

My No2 drive has about 30 gigs of data files on it.

Would I have to re-format both drives to convert them
to a Raid system?

thanks,

dale
 
RAID is on a lower level. The machine needs to be told at boot that it has a RAID array, then treats it as a single drive. You would need to transfer your data to a third clean drive before doing the RAID config, and -yes- both drives would need to be wiped.

...sorry for th' hijack, but I think Steve is still in bed and I'm not. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
 
Thanks Doc, I was afraid that was gonna be the answer.

Now, I had the 'puter custom built for me by Velocity Micro
as a graphics machine. I don't actually has a Windows XP
software disk.

I have a reinstall everything disk that puts windows and
all the various drivers directly back on the primary "C"
drive.

How will get around this? And NO I have no desire even a
little to go to Vista.

thanks,

dale
 
Mornin' Dale,
Only having reinstall disk shouldn’t make any difference. The RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives) is one of the first things that loads when you turn on the computer. It acts like a normal hard drive so you should be able to load the OS from your CD as normal. There are different types of arrays. The one Steve and Doc are talking about is RAID 1. RAID 0 is two or more drives striped together to make on larger drive, so 2 100gig drives would make 1 200gig drive that is faster to access, but you will loose data if one drive fails. This config is what a lot hard core gamers prefer. With RAID 1 (mirrored), 2 100gig drives make 1 100gig drive as seen by the OS, you loose capacity and some speed, but gain security.
 
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/iagree.gif
 
It's possible to set up a Raid-1 array using one existing drive and mirroring it to the second. I've never done it myself but I have seen it done many times. However the "proper" way to do it, as mentioned above, is to wipe out both drives.

A decent raid controller won't slow down your computer by setting up a Raid-1, but it also won't give any speed advantage like Raid-0. Then again, hard drives are so fast now that Raid-0 is becoming less and less of an advantage and many people have dumped it in favor of a single hi-speed large capacity drive, which will run cooler, use less power and produce less noise than two drives.
 
RAID-1 would insure data redundancy with reliability. If you have indeed "full data backup" as it seems, you could set up a RAID-1 array and reinstall everything with that. Hassle one time and minor inconvenience from then on (barring catastrophic events).

I wouldn't even ~think~ of suggesting Vista, BTW.
 
Back
Top