Resolved Have some questions on partioning a backup drive

I guess that's to your personal preference to partition like your HDD or keep it open with different folders...

 

The clone is a backup for emergency.

 

Is a clone drive bootable?

 

yes if the original is bootable it should be as well

 

I did a straight clone of my primary, so I expect it should be. I'll swap them to see. You seem to be knowledgeable on this subject, what would be the difference between the original and the clone - if any?
I ask because I'm thinking it might be wise to switch the two so the drive w/ the hours on it becomes my external backup - which would only be turned on every few wks for a current backup. (The enclosure can be hot swapped, which seems pretty practical.)

 

It's a clone, so there are no difference at all other than brand and actual size.
Swapping the 2 drive is a good idea let the old one rest and use the new one, especially if it as any kind of warranty.
I would recommend creating an image of the system drive now to keep for later use. The thing about cloning, say weekly, would mean you could only go back to the previous state, the furthest been the week before. What if something had invaded your system a month prior but didn't create any problems until later...

This is also why incremental imaging is so cool: it creates small images of only the files that have changed since the last image, all other files are already in the previous images.
Since you use Acronis true image (if I'm not mistaken) it also has the feature of auto consolidating the images according to the parameters you choose (time, number or size of images)

Hope this helps

JC

 

You should also consider the fact that when you clone one drive to another, all data is wiped out on the target drive and replaced with the data from the source drive. That tends to inhibit using the target drive for anything else. That's why most people image their system as opposed to cloning. The image can be stored on a target drive and it won't wipe the rest of the drive clean like cloning does.

 

JC, Thx that's definitely helpful info.
Do you know if The scaled down version of Acronis that comes w/ Seagate drives will do incremental backups? I'm completely unfamiliar w/ all this, and the program itself. I've had two identical 750GB Seagate drives for a yr now, and just got around to doing the backup drive.

 

SD, I'm not sure what the implications are of what you said. My backup drive is a new never used drive, so if I understand you correctly it's no biggie.

 

Good point there.

Ounce the initial disk clone is done I would only clone the system partition (unfortunately Seagate utility or Acronis true image won't do that ) but I usually don't, the whole point of the alternate system, is to have a "virgin ", clean system to boot to in case of disaster. Basically it could also be a clean install with the crucial programs that you would need to keep going temporarily and to do diagnostics and recovery.

So cloning is a way to partition the whole drive at ounce instead of manually one at a time with partition software.

Unfortunately no, that is the selling point along with other fancy features for the full version. I still haven't found free software this fancy, but I haven't had time to look that much.

So you have 3 drives all together?

 

No, just 2 drives. I have one drive in the system and the 2nd that's been sitting around doing nothing this past yr - which is now the clone.
I will shut down to verify the clone is bootable, and post back.
Since I've never (hate to admit it) had a backup drive, I'm not sure how to do the monthly backups if Acronis won't do it incrementally.
Looking for ideas.

 

Ok, tell me how your disk is partitioned and the sizes.

 

C: 24.4gb
m: 292
p: 292
s: 73.6
w: 14.6

 

Also, need to reconfigure the partitions...
Increase the size of M: as it's almost full (music).
Can reduce the size of P: (Photography) as it has 220GB free right now.

 

I recommend 2 partitions per disk, system & data. 3 if you have a factory recovery partition. Data is best in folders which are already assigned by windows (defaults) and then adding your own.

XP has all the folders in "My Documents ". in properties click "move ", ok; it will ask you if you want to move all the files to the new location? make sure you click ok (yes) even if there are no files, this will avoid duplicate locations

 

JC, can you explain how I adjust the size of partitions? I've read it's ify - and can result in a possible data loss.

 

What is: s and w?

There are a few ways to go about doing this.

so far you have cloned your drive to your external drive so we have two of everything.

I don't remember the features Seagate Disk Wizard has anymore... but I don't think it will suffice.

Download one of these Free partition software:

http://download.cnet.com/Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition/3000-2094_4-10962200.html?tag=mncol (this is fine)

http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Partition-Manager-Express/3000-2248_4-10904411.html?tag=mncol (I haven't tried this one yet)

We could "merge" your partitions, but this usually takes a long time.
It would be easier and much faster to delete the 4 data partition (since we have a copy of these right?) and then create one big one (aside from the system partition), to which we can then transfer the data back into different folders, preferably using windows default structure: My Documents > Music, Pictures, Videos, etc. This way you have access to a large "free space" instead of the free space being fragmented to multiple partition, in other words: any one of your folders can "expand" into the free space instead of been limited to whats left on the partition that it's on.

Ounce everything is back for sure you can then clone this "new" drive to your external.

 

S: is Spare
W: is Word Docs
Both are partitions - the letters just work for me.
I'll download the software you listed as preferred.

Everything you said in your last paragraph was pretty much beyond me, as I've never gone down this road before, so if you have the time (and patience) I enjoy learning. My experience is more w/ hardware than software. I use to build systems, but can't do a whole lot w/ them.
OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, though there really are a lot of Windows basics, for example, that I don't know, and I've never had a two drive system. Never saw the need until last yr when my HD died. Oh, fun!
In the old days when the drive was in MB's you didn't lose that much, but now!
So don't even bother to ask why the h*ll I've waited over a yr to get a backup going!

 

Hey, if you would like I can take you step by step. If it's permitted we can use chat or voip to make it easier... or remote desktop

 

Yeah, that's pretty much frowned upon. When the info is posted then everyone who's interested benefits, which I think is wise.
The other way is faster, but this supports the community.