If your computer supports SATA drives then using an eSATA docking
station to clone your boot drive is really quite easy. You can just
drop the drive into the docking station, start the cloning software and
take your wife to dinner. It will be all done when you get back and
both of you will be happier. :-)
In the event that your computer supports SATA but doesn't support eSATA
drives you can get an inexpensive adapter. My Dell desktop only
supported SATA internally but I got a Rosewill eSATA adapter from
NewEgg. Works fine.
Chuck Norcutt
C.H.Ling wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestion, I don't use cloning software, it is a little too
> trouble. I only backup the data/images, anything that is recoverable I will
> just take the risk. It has been over a year I haven't re-install the OS,
> last time was a year ago I upgraded my two son's motherboard. I hope there
> is no further hard disk problem as the HDs are later designs and also one of
> my preferred vendor. Another computer running at 24hr/7days is using a 2.5"
> drive, I hope it is even more reliable.
>
> C.H.Ling
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chuck Norcutt" <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>> Apparently you do not use cloning software to back up your boot drive.
>> One of my backup drives is always an identical drive to the boot drive.
>> I use cloning software to make a sector by sector copy of the boot
>> drive. Should the boot drive fail it's only a matter of plugging in the
>> clone drive to replace it. No need to reinstall the OS or applications.
>>
>> It used to be a lot of work to make a clone drive with IDE drives since
>> it was necessary to install it in the computer's case along with the
>> boot drive. But eSATA drives have made it much simpler as have the
>> drive docking stations that Moose and I use. The only problem with
>> making a clone drive is that you can't use the computer during backup.
>> The cloning software has to boot the computer directly since the OS
>> can't be allowed to control the computer and use the drive while it's
>> being copied.
>>
>> I use an obsolete copy of Acronis (version 9.0) on my XP machine.
>> Acronis is a general backup solution (which I don't use) but it also has
>> a cloning capability for the boot drive. I'm not sure what the current
>> version of Acronis is but version 9.0 works on my computer just fine and
>> because it was back level I bought it on line for about $10.
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>>
>>
>> C.H.Ling wrote:
>>
>>> HD is cheap, I don't think it is worth to conisder something less, I will
>>> buy the one with better reputation, the cost different is less than 10%
>>> or
>>> $10. I had more than 4 hard disk failures in last 20 years, it caused
>>> lots
>>> of trouble. Even there is back up I have to re-install the OS and all
>>> software, very time consuming.
>
--
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