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Bootable Backup in XP

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by des421

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Background - In W98 I have 2 drives, Primary of 2 partitions C: & E: and Secondary of 3 partitions D:, F:, & G:. System divided into C:\Windows & Microsoft stuff and E:\all 3rd party stuff. Then D: & G: are images of C: & E:. So if the primary drive is unplugged, the secondary simply boots in it place. If the secondary is unplugged a drive letter assignment utility can turn D: into E:, and everything is back to normal. The nice thing here is, the drive letter assignment utility allows swapping C: & E: with D: & G: and booting the secondary (backup) drive for whatever. Very Handy!

OK... I will be getting a new system with XP-Pro and wish to expand this concept out to say 6 or more partitions/drive. So far I know XP (unlike W98) can assign drive letters, etc. But... what will happen to this letter assignment scheme in the event of the primary drive failure? Do the drive letters on the secondary stay as assigned (bugger!) or do a W98 like fall back (I can only hope!).

Hope you see where I'm going here? And any related comments would be appreciated.

Thanks: DES

5 replies

by djent

With NT4 & up you can do a second install on any partition as long as you use a different directory name (WINNT2) and load either from the boot loader menu.

by des421

True, but doesn't answer the question. (And what if the Primary drive is not functional?) What I want (and currently have to a limited regree) is a backup that is an image of the primary. Not a separate install with everything referrenced to different drive letters. If the primary is removed from the system (either electrically or physically), the secondary automatically replaces it. The 2 drives can be physically swapped with no effect.

by djent

What you are describing is a mirrored drive. I'm not sure if XP pro supports mirrored drives, NT4/W2k server does. The other option would a raid controller that does mirrors.

by des421

On a mirrored drive, anything incorrect is simultaneously written to both. Think about this briefly! I prefer to update my backup manually if and when the primary copy is proven to be functioning normally thank you. But why won't anyone answer the question?

As it turns out, a fellow by the nomen DimBulb has... on the PC Magazine forum. He informs me that drive letters assigned to partitions/logical drives fall back to those assigned to the physical drive position. Or with drive 0 containingC:, D:, E: and drive 1 containing F:, G:, H:. (drive 1 partitions being images of drive 0) If drive 0 is disabled, drive 1 will become C:, D:, E:, and boot as though it was drive 0.

Both DimBulb and myself can not understand why others don't see the advantages of this? But whatever!

by djent

The drive letter assignment for changing drive 1 to 0 follows OS defaults, without further direction they they need some kind of assignment. If you don't want a live mirror get Drive Image or Ghost and dupe your drive, better yet get a tape drive and Backup Exec with intelligent disaster recovery. Then you can make as many redundant incremental backups as you wish.

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