April 29, 2005 • Vol.27 Issue 17
Page(s) 22 in print issue
I lost another hard drive last weekthat makes two this month. It makes me realize that hard disks (nay, any kind of mechanical media) have a limited lifetime. As disks get larger, the amount of information at risk grows, as does the difficulty of finding some way to save what’s important. What I really need is a wife who can double as an IT manager, so I don’t have to worry about keeping my systems working smoothly and the data backed up and safe.
After this little scare I started looking around for better backup solutions. I have a license for Nero 6 Ultra, which can burn DVDs, and it did a reasonably good job of archiving my most important stuff. Now that’s the rub isn’t it? We back up what we think is important and leave the rest to chance knowing that we can rebuild the system if there’s a major crash. Too bad more of us don’t actually go through the process of recovering a system from scratch. It’s not that easyespecially if you try to restore a system image to different hardware.
VPC & I Have Parted Ways
At the last Dev Connections conference, I knew that VPC and I were quits: It locked up too many times. After having seen a slimbay drive carrier for my ThinkPad, I decided that I could boot off a second Hitachi 7,500rpm drive with a demo version of XP, eliminating the need for VPC. I was able to build a base system very quickly using the ThinkPad Recovery CDs, but they did not include the latest XP SP2 or the dozens of Microsoft/IBM updates released since then. Fortunately, IBM has also been working on this issue. I discovered a (relatively) new program called the ThinkPad Software Installer. This puppy does what Windows Update does: It walks the Registry to see what IBM drivers are installed and shows you which drivers are out of date. It even checks the BIOS version and lets you choose which drivers to updateincluding the BIOSall without having to touch (pretty much) anything.
Ghost Fails To WorkAgain
Now that I had an image to work with, I (naturally) thought that Symantec Ghost would be able to back up the drive/partition and let me restore it. Ah, no. Although Ghost 9.0 could back up the partition (if the moon is in the right alignment), the restored version would not boot. I called the so-called support people and discovered (as many, many people have discovered) that their support staff in India is, well, terrible. They are barely understandable and can’t seem to do anything but read a script or ask someone else for help. I wonder if they just phone back to the states for the hard questions. After hours on hold, I gave up and dug through Google and the IBM site for help. The bottom line: Ghost can’t do it viably, reliably, or easily.
The IBM Backup/Restore Solution
After several days of frustration, I called IBM support and was connected to someone in Atlanta. Wow, what a difference! The IBM people were professional, smart(er), and made some great suggestionsin Englishthat I could understand. I described the problem, and they suggested IBM’s own backup program. I didn’t want to use it because it requires me to dedicate a big hunk (up to half) of my hard drive to the backup image. And what happens if I want to use another drive or the original drive fails? The support staff assured me that the new program (released in January) would be a far better solution.
I downloaded and installed the new IBM Rescue and Recovery beast (about 900MB). It couldn’t have been much easier. There is a major problem with it, though. I pointed the application at my 120GB USB drive, and when I started the backup, it unceremoniously formatted it. I lost a ton of stufffortunately all backed up elsewhere. (I think.) I told IBM that the program should warn you twice that it’s going to format the drive and require a note from your mom before proceeding, especially when it finds data on the target drive. They assured me that the new version now in testing (due out in July) fixes this problem. I sure hope so.
The Rescue and Recovery program also made the USB drive bootable. This means the next time the system is booted with the USB drive attached, the program (which is also integrated into the boot loader) boots into a recovery mode. This will be a lot easier than keeping a bootable CD (although that’s still an option). If you press F11 when the system boots, it launches the R&R program from somewherewithout a drive being attached. I also restored my second drive with R&R, and it’s fastvery fast. Where are those Ghost Busters when you need them?
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