Hard Drive Replacement

[Norm Cook]

Hi experts:
I have 2 physical internal hard drives:
c: 30GB single partition - operating system
d: 80GB single partition - data

Have ordered a Seagate 320GB.

My plan:
1) copy everything from d: to my usb external & delete all folders/files
2) copy everything from c: to d:
3) shutdown & install the 80GB drive as master (c and the
new 320GB drive as slave (d

Is this doable or will I have to do a clean/reinstall windows etc
on the 80GB.

If this plan won't work, I will likely just leave the c: drive as is and
replace the d: (80GB) with the new 320GB drive.

Thanks all--

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi experts:
I have 2 physical internal hard drives:
c: 30GB single partition - operating system
d: 80GB single partition - data

Have ordered a Seagate 320GB.

My plan:
1) copy everything from d: to my usb external & delete all folders/files
2) copy everything from c: to d:
3) shutdown & install the 80GB drive as master (c and the
new 320GB drive as slave (d

Is this doable or will I have to do a clean/reinstall windows etc
on the 80GB.

If this plan won't work, I will likely just leave the c: drive as is and
replace the d: (80GB) with the new 320GB drive.

Thanks all--

This won't work because a number of key files are locked
while Windows is active. Use the cloning program that the
manufacturer of your hard disk has on his web site, and
remember to disconnect the old disk when first booting
the machine with the new disk.

 

[Roger Parr]

Hi experts:
I have 2 physical internal hard drives:
c: 30GB single partition - operating system
d: 80GB single partition - data

Have ordered a Seagate 320GB.

My plan:
1) copy everything from d: to my usb external & delete all folders/files
2) copy everything from c: to d:
3) shutdown & install the 80GB drive as master (c and the
new 320GB drive as slave (d

Is this doable or will I have to do a clean/reinstall windows etc
on the 80GB.

If this plan won't work, I will likely just leave the c: drive as is and
replace the d: (80GB) with the new 320GB drive.

Thanks all--

It sounds as though your PC may be some years old with drives that size.
Make sure you have SP4 installed and then the fix for drives larger than
128GB, otherwise your new drive will not be fully recognised and you
could lose data. You may also need a BIOS update - check the motherboard
manufacturers website. Do all this before you start cloning the drive.

Details of the fix are at
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=305098

I seem to remember that the Maxtor website has a very small program
which will update the registry for you if you are not happy editing it
yourself - and it doesn't need to be a Maxtor drive either.

 

[Frank Booth Snr]

Hi experts:
I have 2 physical internal hard drives:
c: 30GB single partition - operating system
d: 80GB single partition - data

Have ordered a Seagate 320GB.

My plan:
1) copy everything from d: to my usb external & delete all folders/files
2) copy everything from c: to d:
3) shutdown & install the 80GB drive as master (c and the
new 320GB drive as slave (d

Is this doable or will I have to do a clean/reinstall windows etc
on the 80GB.

If this plan won't work, I will likely just leave the c: drive as is and
replace the d: (80GB) with the new 320GB drive.

Thanks all--

You should install the 2 drives as masters on both drive controllers,
using the 80GB drive on IDE 0 (primary controller). You cannot simply
copy over the system files from one drive to another and expect them to
work as your registry will refer to the original c: drive. You should
re-install Win2k on the 80GB drive using a 6-8 GB partition for the
system and keeping the other partition for your data files

 

[Devalzadvok8]

My problem is somewhat similar to Norm's. I have two hard drives, the first
,currently, an 80 Gig IDE 'C' drive that also has 'D' and 'E' partitions.
All my system software, Windows, etc. is on my 'C' drive. All my data files
are on my 'D' partition. All my application programs are on my 'E'
partition. My second hard drive, 'H', is a Seagate 18 Gig SCSI 15,000 rpm
'backup' drive.

Problem: Bad virus on my 'C' drive! Cannot eliminate it - no how. Want to
establish my existing 'H' drive as my new 'C' drive and reload Windows 2000
on it. Then, I go back to my 'old' 'C' drive [now my new 'D' partition -
format it, use Partition Magic to add my old 'D' partition to it, and
continue to use my old, 'legacy' programs that are on the 'E' drive, which
did not change 'address'. However, I believe I have to somehow 'move' all
the current 'C' drive Registry items from that old 'C' drive over to my 'new'
'C' drive. How do I do this? Is anything else required?

Second 'problem': My understanding is that Win2000 controls which drive is
'slave' and which is 'master' - not done by 'changing 'pins/clips' on the
hard drives themselves. Is this true? If so, is just so simple that I
disconnect my existing IDE C,D,E drive and start the computer up with Win2000
install disk in CD ROM drive? Then, after old SCSI 'H' drive now 'C' drive,
with Win2000, then just hook up my old 'C',D,E drive, 'eliminate' 'C', and
then go from here? 'Preciate any help that can be given here. Going back to
the 'beginning' and re-installing all my old legacy software [some going back
to 1995] is an almost impossible task at this point. T.I.A.

Dev

 

[John John]

See in-line replies.

My problem is somewhat similar to Norm's. I have two hard drives, the first
,currently, an 80 Gig IDE 'C' drive that also has 'D' and 'E' partitions.
All my system software, Windows, etc. is on my 'C' drive. All my data files
are on my 'D' partition. All my application programs are on my 'E'
partition.

There is practically no advantage to having the applications on a
separate partition. In the old days (MS-DOS) when applications had
individual .ini files and when they stored all their user data in their
individual program folders the idea made sense but nowadays it doesn't
make much sense to have the applications on a different drive than the
operating system, the only time I would ever recommend that is if the
operating system drive was low on space and if replacing the drive or
moving other things was impossible. If the operating system is hosed
and needs to be reinstalled almost all the applications need to be
reinstalled, so it serves practically no useful purpose having them on a
different partition.

My second hard drive, 'H', is a Seagate 18 Gig SCSI 15,000 rpm
'backup' drive.

What a waste of (expensive) speed! Using a 15,000 RPM drive for backups
only and using the slower one for the operating system is like using a
Formula 1 race car to drive to the end of the street and using the Lada
in the Formula 1 race! Install the operating system and all your
programs on the SCSI drive! For most users 18GB is plenty big for
Windows 2000 and the applications, just keep your user files on a
different drive.

Problem: Bad virus on my 'C' drive! Cannot eliminate it - no how. Want to
establish my existing 'H' drive as my new 'C' drive and reload Windows 2000
on it.

Good idea! Disconnect the other (slow IDE) drive and install Windows
2000 on the SCSI drive. By disconnecting the IDE drive while you
install Windows you will eliminate drive letter assignment problems and
other possible confusions during the installation process. The IDE
drive can be brought on line after Windows 2000 is installed.

Then, I go back to my 'old' 'C' drive [now my new 'D' partition -
format it, use Partition Magic to add my old 'D' partition to it, and
continue to use my old, 'legacy' programs that are on the 'E' drive, which
did not change 'address'. However, I believe I have to somehow 'move' all
the current 'C' drive Registry items from that old 'C' drive over to my 'new'
'C' drive. How do I do this? Is anything else required?

You cannot do that, you *must* reinstall the applications. There is no
way that you can migrate or merge the applications' registry entries to
the new registry, no one in their right mind would even attempt this, it
would be a hopeless endeavour.

Second 'problem': My understanding is that Win2000 controls which drive is
'slave' and which is 'master' - not done by 'changing 'pins/clips' on the
hard drives themselves. Is this true?

No, that is not true. The Master/Slave relationship between IDE drives
on the same IDE controller is determined by "physical" hardware
settings, such as the jumper pins on the hard drive or by the use of
Cable Select cables if the motherboard supports cable select mechanism.
Windows 2000, nor any other Windows version for that matter, cannot
order or reorder the Master/Slave relationship between drives, you have
to open the box and move things about inside to do that.

If so, is just so simple that I
disconnect my existing IDE C,D,E drive and start the computer up with Win2000
install disk in CD ROM drive? Then, after old SCSI 'H' drive now 'C' drive,
with Win2000, then just hook up my old 'C',D,E drive, 'eliminate' 'C', and
then go from here?

Yes that is the best way to go about it. After you install Windows 2000
cleanly on the SCSI drive and bring the old IDE drive back online you
may have to "take ownership" of the files on the IDE drive but other
than that you should be able to use the disk without problems.

'Preciate any help that can be given here. Going back to
the 'beginning' and re-installing all my old legacy software [some going back
to 1995] is an almost impossible task at this point.

Unfortunately that is what you will have to do if you want to do a clean
Windows 2000 installation. If you really insist on using the old
applications without reinstalling them then you will have to change your
plans and make further attempt to repair the damaged Windows
installation. If you are really knowledgeable and adept with the
Windows 2000 registry you can keep the old copy of the registry and you
can then use it to verify old application entries, and even transplant
some select old entries, but otherwise there is no way that you can
transfer the entries to the new Windows installation and expect the
application to run, you must reinstall the applications.

Regards;

John

 

[Sid Elbow]

...... using the Lada in the Formula 1 race!

At least we'd see some passing!

 

[nesredep egrob]

See in-line replies.


There is practically no advantage to having the applications on a
separate partition.

Oh dear me - should not have written that.

There is a massive improvement if you are clever enough to use Acronis for
backups. If that had been done, the C: drive would just have been replaced by
the back up. As you should know the system can exist quite happily on 10 GB
partition and that is a nice amount to backup via Acronis - just takes a couple
of minutes - THAT IS NOT the case if you back up the total disk.
To be really fireproof, you need to back up to a 320GB external.

For extra security I have 2x750GB in a raid array and they hold all my photos
and video.
A small price to pay for total security

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia






In the old days (MS-DOS) when applications had

individual .ini files and when they stored all their user data in their
individual program folders the idea made sense but nowadays it doesn't
make much sense to have the applications on a different drive than the
operating system, the only time I would ever recommend that is if the
operating system drive was low on space and if replacing the drive or
moving other things was impossible. If the operating system is hosed
and needs to be reinstalled almost all the applications need to be
reinstalled, so it serves practically no useful purpose having them on a
different partition.

My second hard drive, 'H', is a Seagate 18 Gig SCSI 15,000 rpm
'backup' drive.

What a waste of (expensive) speed! Using a 15,000 RPM drive for backups
only and using the slower one for the operating system is like using a
Formula 1 race car to drive to the end of the street and using the Lada
in the Formula 1 race! Install the operating system and all your
programs on the SCSI drive! For most users 18GB is plenty big for
Windows 2000 and the applications, just keep your user files on a
different drive.

Problem: Bad virus on my 'C' drive! Cannot eliminate it - no how. Want to
establish my existing 'H' drive as my new 'C' drive and reload Windows 2000
on it.

Good idea! Disconnect the other (slow IDE) drive and install Windows
2000 on the SCSI drive. By disconnecting the IDE drive while you
install Windows you will eliminate drive letter assignment problems and
other possible confusions during the installation process. The IDE
drive can be brought on line after Windows 2000 is installed.

Then, I go back to my 'old' 'C' drive [now my new 'D' partition -
format it, use Partition Magic to add my old 'D' partition to it, and
continue to use my old, 'legacy' programs that are on the 'E' drive, which
did not change 'address'. However, I believe I have to somehow 'move' all
the current 'C' drive Registry items from that old 'C' drive over to my 'new'
'C' drive. How do I do this? Is anything else required?

You cannot do that, you *must* reinstall the applications. There is no
way that you can migrate or merge the applications' registry entries to
the new registry, no one in their right mind would even attempt this, it
would be a hopeless endeavour.

Second 'problem': My understanding is that Win2000 controls which drive is
'slave' and which is 'master' - not done by 'changing 'pins/clips' on the
hard drives themselves. Is this true?

No, that is not true. The Master/Slave relationship between IDE drives
on the same IDE controller is determined by "physical" hardware
settings, such as the jumper pins on the hard drive or by the use of
Cable Select cables if the motherboard supports cable select mechanism.
Windows 2000, nor any other Windows version for that matter, cannot
order or reorder the Master/Slave relationship between drives, you have
to open the box and move things about inside to do that.

If so, is just so simple that I
disconnect my existing IDE C,D,E drive and start the computer up with Win2000
install disk in CD ROM drive? Then, after old SCSI 'H' drive now 'C' drive,
with Win2000, then just hook up my old 'C',D,E drive, 'eliminate' 'C', and
then go from here?

Yes that is the best way to go about it. After you install Windows 2000
cleanly on the SCSI drive and bring the old IDE drive back online you
may have to "take ownership" of the files on the IDE drive but other
than that you should be able to use the disk without problems.

'Preciate any help that can be given here. Going back to
the 'beginning' and re-installing all my old legacy software [some going back
to 1995] is an almost impossible task at this point.

Unfortunately that is what you will have to do if you want to do a clean
Windows 2000 installation. If you really insist on using the old
applications without reinstalling them then you will have to change your
plans and make further attempt to repair the damaged Windows
installation. If you are really knowledgeable and adept with the
Windows 2000 registry you can keep the old copy of the registry and you
can then use it to verify old application entries, and even transplant
some select old entries, but otherwise there is no way that you can
transfer the entries to the new Windows installation and expect the
application to run, you must reinstall the applications.

Regards;

John

 

[John John]

Oh dear me - should not have written that.

There is a massive improvement if you are clever enough to use Acronis for
backups.

I do use Acronis and what massive improvements does having the programs
on a separate drive make? What does this have to do with anything?
Installing programs on a different drive makes absolutely no difference
whatsoever in performance, none, zero, zilch! What massive improvements
are you talking about? Do you mean that when you do a backup or create
an image it will take about four minutes more time to do a larger OS
image? And what about the programs drive? Don't you have to image that
too? So now instead of having everything on one image you have to
create two different images every time you want to back things up and if
you want to restore you have to restore two images, I can't see what
good that does.

John

 

[nesredep egrob]

I do use Acronis and what massive improvements does having the programs
on a separate drive make? What does this have to do with anything?
Installing programs on a different drive makes absolutely no difference
whatsoever in performance, none, zero, zilch! What massive improvements
are you talking about? Do you mean that when you do a backup or create
an image it will take about four minutes more time to do a larger OS
image? And what about the programs drive? Don't you have to image that
too? So now instead of having everything on one image you have to
create two different images every time you want to back things up and if
you want to restore you have to restore two images, I can't see what
good that does.

John

Most people have an idea where the fault in the disk lies. Just like a TV, even
my apprentices would not start messing with the linetimebase if the sound was
missing and the picture was OK.

Likewise if some program is missing but the system seems to work I would be sad
to have to troll through the whole computer and reset the lot.
Remember even after a couple of days your backup is that much behind present
time and having system and programs together makes for the whole lot being a
given time behind what the computer was like today.

Each to his own of course but should my system go, I would prefer not to have to
also have the programs set back to the last time I did the backup.
Programs are often changed or updated for a better one - system is often left
just as it was when installed, therefore why have the lot bundled together.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[John John]

Most people have an idea where the fault in the disk lies. Just like a TV, even
my apprentices would not start messing with the linetimebase if the sound was
missing and the picture was OK.

Likewise if some program is missing but the system seems to work I would be sad
to have to troll through the whole computer and reset the lot.
Remember even after a couple of days your backup is that much behind present
time and having system and programs together makes for the whole lot being a
given time behind what the computer was like today.

Each to his own of course but should my system go, I would prefer not to have to
also have the programs set back to the last time I did the backup.
Programs are often changed or updated for a better one - system is often left
just as it was when installed, therefore why have the lot bundled together.

Excuse me but I beg to differ. First of all we are talking about an
18GB SCSI drive, not a big 300+ GB drive. As for the system not being
changed often, or left just as it was when installed then I suppose you
never tweak the operating system to your likings, not to mention that
you don't do any security updates, even if only a few times a year.

As for the programs changing often, then by the very nature of modern
applications all but the smallest of them write to many different places
in the registry so if you change these often and do a restore of an old
OS image then much of your programs are going to be missing registry
entries and they won't work properly. If the programs develop errors
and you then think that you can fix them by restoring an image of the
"Programs" partition only then you are not restoring any registry
entries associated with the programs, because, as we all know, there are
no registry files in the programs folder, the registry files are in the
System32 folder. You also forget that some programs put some dll's and
other support files in some of the Operating System's folders.

If a single program fails then one of the most common and easy fix is to
reinstall the application, that restores the program files and the
associated registry entries. If all your programs fail then the problem
is deeper and you may have to reinstall or restore the Operating System.
Restoring the programs folder without restoring the associated
registry entries fixes nothing and restoring an old OS image that
doesn't contain up to date registry information for the applications
won't fix anything either. In short, the Operating System files, the
Registry and the Applications need to be sync together.

People don't restore images all that often, for most problems it is
easier to find the problem and do a targeted fix. When thing really go
south then people pull out the images and start doing restores, doing
restores of "out of sync" components will leave you with a fine mess.
No one should expect to restore one or both of the operating system side
or the applications side of the system with files that are severely out
of date with each other and expect the restore to work properly. When
you back these up you have to back them up together and keep them
synchronized to each other if you want to have reliable backups. You
can't say: "I changed a lot of programs so I am going to backup only the
programs folder for disaster recovery", you have to back up the
Operating System along with the programs files if you want reliable
backups that can get you back up and running quickly.

The strategy that you propose requires users to create two images or
backups every time that they do their system backups, one for the
operating system and another one for the programs. It is difficult
enough to get some people to do one (System) backup on a regular basis,
let alone having them do two of them. In the event of a disaster
recovery your strategy also requires users to do two separate restore
operations, one for the operating system and one for the programs, thus
practically doubling the effort and time required to bring the system
back up, maybe not a big deal on a home computer but a hassle
nonetheless, in a corporate environment an absolute no-no, the quicker
the system can be brought back up to working state the better. Add
mismatched or severely out of date/out of sync system and programs
backup sets to the pressure of bringing downed systems back up and you
have nothing short of self inflicted misery!

As you say, "to each his own", but I cannot see the logic in the backup
method that you propose and it is definitely not one that I would use.
I maintain that there is little to no useful purpose to having the
operating system and the program files on separate partitions. The
backup scenario that you propose does not give weight to the argument in
favour of separate partitions, to the contrary it reinforces the reasons
to have them on a single partition.

John

 

[Devalzadvok8]

Am back. Sorry for 'lag', but have been distracted by other things.

All you gentlemen's points are well taken. However, I 'harken' from a
period back.

When I replaced my IBM-PC with a PC-XT, a bit more than 25 years ago, I
thought that the 10 meg disk drive would never fill up. I quickly learned
that not only would it do so, but that my backups on 5 1/4" floppy discs
rapidly exceeded the number I could deal with, and did it in very slow
fashion, to boot. As a result I employed a partitioning system [C,D,E] that
would allow me to back up my own 'data' more quickly and with fewer floppies
involved.

Over the years I have developed a two-computer philosophy, with the older
computer backing up the newer. When technology passed me [and my 'B'
machine] by so far that I was forced to get a new computer I would salvage my
'B' machine and make my previous 'A' machine now become the 'new' 'B'
machine.

Each one has a duplicate C,D,E hard drive setup and/or equivalent. Every
program that I buy and have a CD-ROM for I put on my 'E' drive. All
operating system and 'downloaded' [only] programs go on my 'C[' partition. I
do not use ethernet to transfer files, on the not-so-outside chance that a
virus on the newer computer could transfer to the older. This, by the way,
is the obvious reason I don't use a 'RAID' setup. And, in the viruses I've
received over the years only once has a virus put anything out on a non-'C'
drive - actually, the most recent one at that - a virused "Mplayer.com" on my
'D' drive. The other progams infected, by the way, included: Windows
Explorer, IExplorer, Java, MPlayer, Windows Media Player, System32 directory,
and about another half-dozen places - some I can't find at all.

Yes, copying out [my D, E] on CD-ROMs and loading them into the 'old'
computer is cumbersome, but gives me additional backup [and consequent peace
of mind]. Further, more than once, I have swapped out my data/application
program hard disk drives off of an old computer and mounted them to a new
computer to process them there. The application programs have to be
reloaded, yes, but there are almost always 'variable' files associated that
the new 'loadings' don't destroy and I can continue to capitalize on their
contents.

I realize that you all must think this as 'foolish', but I believe that this
particular methodology, plus others I employ, have enabled me to not lose a
database since I entered the on-line computer game, some 48 years ago.
That's not a bad record to have, I believe.

My original problem, getting rid of the virus and 'reversing' the two disk
drives turns out to be difficult - at least for me. And, as an aside, the
15,000 rpm 18 gig SCSI drive was the survivor of two such drives - the first
one crashing a couple of years ago. Fortunately, the 'crashed' drive was
just my 'C' drive and all my valuable data was on the second SCSI drive. I
replaced the 'dead' drive with a non-SCSI IDE 80 gig hard drive. The reason,
then, that I didn't assign the 'fast' drive as my primary drive was due to my
worry that it just might die not long after my first such drive. The
original drive was an IBM, but the second drive arrived later [after IBM sold
their disk drive division to Seagate]. At the time of the 'crash' the
succeeding 80 gig IDE drive seemed so large that I just assigned the SCSI
Seagate as a 'backup' drive, that would reside in 'sleep' mode most of the
time [to hopefully make it last longer].

The difficulty in any 'easy' drive switch is that the SCSI information is on
the IDE primary drive and I also have no real idea of how to 'switch' the
base Registry data over [which was Microsoft's original intent to forstall in
the beginning]. Also, I have no documentation on the motherboard that would
allow me to determine whether drive assignments go by cable end location,
drive 'pin' 0/1, master/slave location, or programmatic assignment - or some
combination of all. The local 'builder' of my computer has long since gone
out of business.

I have spent far too much time in trying to resolve this - a most
impractical expenditure - but I have never been defeated by a computer
problem before and I stubbornly struggled to keep my record 'clean'. Mistake
on my part, I guess.

My 'A' machine is over 6 years old, now, and the 'B' approaching 9 years. I
have discovered great difficulties in trying to find 'upgrade' parts for
techology long obsoleted. As a result I have gone out and purchased a new HP
n6230a which 'seemed' to have the right specs I desired. To my horror I
discovered that [under Vista] it ran slower than my 6 year old Win2000 'A'
machine!

My 'A' machine is in a good case with good peripherals. Virtually none of
the motherboard components can be readily upgraded in this 'modern' age as
their 'formats' are no longer manufactured. I have determined that for
approx. $360 I could buy a 800 Mhz buss speed motherboard, dual core
processor [AMD], and a Seagate 500 gig SATA drive, plus a couple of gig of
RAM. This is about as far as I want to go in trying to make my 'old' machine
as similar to the new machine as possible. With luck, I should be able to
carry this combination forward for another 2-3 years before I have to scratch
my head and think about next replacements.

The dual-core processor was an odd requirement, but I have been
experimenting with 'Skype' and Logitec's PRO-9000 web camera, which, as I
have found out, turns out to be a horrible combination to run under Vista -
it is so slow. Under my wife's old WinXP machine it runs both faster and
clearer. 'Skype' indicates that the 'dual-core processor' is one of their
webcam interface requirements [and, as it turns out, it really isn't].

What kills it, speed-wise, I believe is the 'graphics' associated with HP's
built-in GeForce 6150 graphics chip and 19" flat screen monitor. I bypassed
that by procuring a GeForce 8500GT graphics card at reasonable cost. This
'helped', but not enough. Have now reduced the resolution from 1440x900 [for
the 19" flat screen] down to 1280x800. This helps a lot, too, but there is
still 'motion lag' and the resulting graphics resolution from the web camera
[with Zeiss lens, yet] is still as poor as before.

What gripes me is that my 'other' web cam associate and test 'subject' [a
front end software programmer] is using an old laptop w/built-in webcam and
his pictures come in far clearer than mine. Am beginning to think this
webcam business is just one big 'experiment'. If I had read all the problem
reports on Logitec's webcam board first I doubt if I would have attempted to
'give' this camera setup to my wife as a Christmas present. Well, that's how
it goes, I guess.

I want to thank all of you for your inputs. And, 'yes', I will continue to
be as 'inefficient' as before until someone comes by with unrefutable reasons
as to why I should do different<g>. Hey, it works for me. . . . . .

Cheers & thanx,

Dev

 

[nesredep egrob]

Excuse me but I beg to differ. First of all we are talking about an
18GB SCSI drive, not a big 300+ GB drive. As for the system not being
changed often, or left just as it was when installed then I suppose you
never tweak the operating system to your likings, not to mention that
you don't do any security updates, even if only a few times a year.

As for the programs changing often, then by the very nature of modern
applications all but the smallest of them write to many different places
in the registry so if you change these often and do a restore of an old
OS image then much of your programs are going to be missing registry
entries and they won't work properly. If the programs develop errors
and you then think that you can fix them by restoring an image of the
"Programs" partition only then you are not restoring any registry
entries associated with the programs, because, as we all know, there are
no registry files in the programs folder, the registry files are in the
System32 folder. You also forget that some programs put some dll's and
other support files in some of the Operating System's folders.

If a single program fails then one of the most common and easy fix is to
reinstall the application, that restores the program files and the
associated registry entries. If all your programs fail then the problem
is deeper and you may have to reinstall or restore the Operating System.
Restoring the programs folder without restoring the associated
registry entries fixes nothing and restoring an old OS image that
doesn't contain up to date registry information for the applications
won't fix anything either. In short, the Operating System files, the
Registry and the Applications need to be sync together.

People don't restore images all that often, for most problems it is
easier to find the problem and do a targeted fix. When thing really go
south then people pull out the images and start doing restores, doing
restores of "out of sync" components will leave you with a fine mess.
No one should expect to restore one or both of the operating system side
or the applications side of the system with files that are severely out
of date with each other and expect the restore to work properly. When
you back these up you have to back them up together and keep them
synchronized to each other if you want to have reliable backups. You
can't say: "I changed a lot of programs so I am going to backup only the
programs folder for disaster recovery", you have to back up the
Operating System along with the programs files if you want reliable
backups that can get you back up and running quickly.

The strategy that you propose requires users to create two images or
backups every time that they do their system backups, one for the
operating system and another one for the programs. It is difficult
enough to get some people to do one (System) backup on a regular basis,
let alone having them do two of them. In the event of a disaster
recovery your strategy also requires users to do two separate restore
operations, one for the operating system and one for the programs, thus
practically doubling the effort and time required to bring the system
back up, maybe not a big deal on a home computer but a hassle
nonetheless, in a corporate environment an absolute no-no, the quicker
the system can be brought back up to working state the better. Add
mismatched or severely out of date/out of sync system and programs
backup sets to the pressure of bringing downed systems back up and you
have nothing short of self inflicted misery!

As you say, "to each his own", but I cannot see the logic in the backup
method that you propose and it is definitely not one that I would use.
I maintain that there is little to no useful purpose to having the
operating system and the program files on separate partitions. The
backup scenario that you propose does not give weight to the argument in
favour of separate partitions, to the contrary it reinforces the reasons
to have them on a single partition.

John

You seem to have spent an awful long time proving me wrong despite the fact that
it was worked well now for more than 8 years - that was after the horrible
period of reinstalling the system whenever something went wrong.

The fact that the disk is only 18GB matters not. Eventually the need to replace
it will come as the user finds too little room to move - Then it is nice to know
how to create and maintain partitions the easy way.

If I now state that for safety, I have installed a raid consisting of 2x 750GB
WD and that they are there just to keep photos and video safe in addition to
some of the downloaded programs which incidentally are also on CD/DVD storage, I
am sure you will find something that I need to do to that.

I am a firm believer in not fixing something which works unless I can see an
upcoming disaster in the near future.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia