hi,
i’m putting together a system w/2 disks, one of which i want to be a fall-back disk so i can boot to it in case smth happens to the boot drive. i want to avoid having to reinstall windows from scratch on the second disk, if i can.
current config:
there are 2 partitions on the boot disk, system and data, and the system partition has a stable install of windows xp sp2 w/all the needed apps etc. in a “known good” config. the second drive also has 2 partitions, both empty.
what i want to do is create a clone of the current boot disk’s boot partition on the second drive. i’ve never done this before, but in reading, i thought i might go about it like this:
1. make an image of the boot partition, using an image program like powerquest ‘drive-image’ or terrabyte ‘image’. store the image in a partition on the new disk.
2. restore the image to the other partition on the new disk, which will become the system partition of the new disk.
3. shutdown and remove the old disk.
4. boot w/the new disk as boot disk.
5. change the disk’s letter following the instructions here – http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223188
6. update env vars as mentioned here – http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;124298
8. shutdown and put the old disk back in.
i’m thinking that i should now be able to boot to the old disk and see both drives correctly, or in case of emergency boot to the new disk and see both drives, w/o problems.
has anybody done anything like this before? does what i’ve got above look right?
thanks