Minimus Mode and USB detection

[charliemb]

I keep my music backed up on an external USB Passport drive.
On another PC, I rip to the backup drive first, so that I know I always have a backup.  This means that after I rip, I walk the external drive over to the audio PC, plug it into the a USB port and copy the files onto the internal drive of the audio PC and now I'm ready to play them.

My question is, if I am in Minimize OS mode and I plug in my external USB drive, will the PC enumerate (see) the external USB drive so that I can copy the files over?

[PeterSt]

Yes Charlie. USB remains untouched.
But I figure you already tried that ?

[charliemb]

No.  I'm just planning and reading right now.  ..Reading about Minimus mode and how to get out of trouble.  Each night I save a new restore point in case I get the nerve to try it.   At least I copied the system drivers to another disk.

I have no original OS disc and no backup.  And I notice that Gates backup program requires that you have the original install disk, so that won't work.

I have an old version of Ghost, and doubt it works with Vista.  Anyone have any recommendations for current backup software?

I've read posts where users have gotten stuck inside of Minimize OS mode and can't get out.   I can actually live with that for a while, but I must be able to continuously add music to the music disk via USB;  hence the original post.

[PeterSt]

Charlie,

Your being afraid is perfectly understood and at least you read the warnings about it (which are there for a reason). But really, when done what's advised - and which is that Restore Point - really nothing can and will happen bad. Otherwise you would have read about *that*.

Also, nobody will really get stuck in anything (when no Restore Point at hand) because there's always me in the background for further help. And, when that help was asked, it -so far- always worked out. It can be a tedious thing though, while restoring to a Restore Point takes maybe 3 minutes and works out by guarantee.

Really, go ahead with it. But being (pre)cautious is a good thing.
Peter

[Calibrator]

I have an old version of Ghost, and doubt it works with Vista.  Anyone have any recommendations for current backup software?

G'day Charlie,

Norton's Ghost should work OK with Vista I would have thought, depending on how recent the version you are using. I used to use it all the time up till a few years back then changed to Acronis True Image ( http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ )

It should be easy enough to test whether Ghost works for you with Vista (and I'm pretty sure I was using that at the time when Vista came out ). Create a bootable Ghost recovery disc and try it on your C drive, then run the validate process at completion.

I switched over to True Image as it did a better job of cloning drives. In some instances Ghost just didn't work for that function.

Cheers,

Russ

[charliemb]

Thanks Russ.     I presume then that I would have to install Ghost on the audio PC to do this?

Create a bootable Ghost recovery disc and try it on your C drive, then run the validate process at completion.

I didn't know I could do that.  So I can do a validate without actually doing a restore?  (..which could fail)

And to do the validate, do I start from the recovery disc?  ..or from the installed Ghost software on C:?

[Calibrator]

I presume then that I would have to install Ghost on the audio PC to do this?

Not required. On the PC upon which you have Ghost currently installed, there will be be an option to create a bootable recovery CD (or floppy if memory serves). It might even be a separate program identified in the start menu ... it's been a while since I've used it.

Once you have the disc created, assumming you have a CD burner mounted in that PC, you boot your music PC from it and a DOS based Ghost version fires up. Follow the menu prompts to choose what type of backup you want. I normally chose full partition backup. It will prompt for the destination location of your restore file. This is where it can get tricky if you don't have another partition in your system to point that file to. I will assume you have at least another partition defined, which may be your music files partition or even a spare partition.

And to do the validate, do I start from the recovery disc?  ..or from the installed Ghost software on C:?

Within that DOS based version there is an option to validate a restore file you have just created. I think the process just does a checksum on the file itself rather than a full compare against the data on the partition, as it doesn't take all that much time to complete.

If you have a rummage through the Norton forum ( http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/bd-p/other ) you may pick up a few more tips.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Russ

[charliemb]

Wow!  That's extremely helpful.  Thanks Russ.

[charliemb]

Actually, the version of Ghost that I have is 9.0 and I don't see an option to create recovery media, neither from Start->Programs nor from within the Ghost application.

The help file says:

When restoring a computer in the recovery environment you must use the Norton Ghost CD or Symantec Recovery Disk (available with Norton SystemWorks Premier) to first boot into the recovery environment.

Dead in the water?

[Calibrator]

I just checked my earlier Norton's and it is Norton's 2003. According to the entry on wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28software%29 ) , Norton's 9 apparently came afterwards and was bundled with a separate bootable CD that allowed access to images created with Norton's 2003, but it seems a backup outside of Windows was not in it's repertoire.

Seems like a retrograde function to me, and might explain why customers were disgruntled, being used to the earlier version and how they operated.

It would appear then you may well be "dead in the water" if you don't wish to install Nortons 9 on your music server.

I would still advocate checking out Acronis True Image. It is widely regarded as one of the best backup products available.

Cheers,

Russ
 

edit:
here's a pretty good summation of the difference between Ghost and True Image ...

http://www.techsupportalert.com/drive-imaging-reviews.htm

edit2:

seems like CloneZilla may be a non-cost viable alternative. Worth checking out ...

http://clonezilla.org/

[charliemb]

Thanks again Russ.  Looks like True Image did much better in that review.  I'll also check out cloneZilla.