jreffner Posted June 3, 2002 Report Share Posted June 3, 2002 My wife is running Windows 2000 at work with an external firewire hard drive. In order to keep her drive backed up, I've taught her how to DUPLICATE her internal hard drive to the external FireWire drive. I do this with our Macs at home because it's easier to restore the drives by booting from the ext. FW drives, and then duplicating the FW drive back to the internal drive that was damaged. This saves me the time of reinstalling an OS an Retrospect in order to access and restore the internal drive from a true back up set. My question is: How can I boot from the external FireWire drive running Windows 2000? I'm talking about a cold boot. I'll need to boot to the FW drive assuming I can't access the internal drive. Note: Both drives are formatted in the newer format (not Fat 32, but the newer one with an "N" in the name) Thanks so much! Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lv2ski Posted June 3, 2002 Report Share Posted June 3, 2002 Yes. If you use Retrospect to duplicate from a system partition, typically your C: drive, to another drive, we'll call it your D: drive, including copying the registry, then you should be able to boot from your D: drive if your C: drive fails. Make sure that you enable the "system state" script option in your duplicate script (these options are off by default). What you have to do to make your D: drive bootable depends upon the OS. If you are running under Windows 95 or 98, then when your C: drive fails, remove it, and set the D: drive to be the new startup drive, set to drive letter C:. Boot from your 9x floppy, and run fdisk to set the new C: partition as active. Be careful not to format it; just set it active. Now at a DOS command prompt, use the sys command to make the new drive bootable. You should now be able to boot from it. If you are running under NT, 2000, or XP, then when your C: drive fails, remove it, and set the D: drive to be the new startup drive, set to drive letter C:. Boot from your NT4 repair floppies (NT4), or the 2000 or XP installation CD, and repair the system. You should now be able to boot from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jreffner Posted June 4, 2002 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2002 Melissa, Thanks for the response! I now have a few more questions for you (if you wouldn't mind). - Is the registry automatically duplicated in a duplicate operation where I "Replace all corresponding files". If not, then what else do I need to do to ensure the registry is always copied? - How do I "enable the "system state" script option in your duplicate script"? - I'm really unclear about this last part: "If you are running under NT, 2000, or XP, then when your C: drive fails, remove it, and set the D: drive to be the new startup drive, set to drive letter C:. Boot from your NT4 repair floppies (NT4), or the 2000 or XP installation CD, and repair the system. You should now be able to boot from it." If I disconnect the C: drive; boot from a Windows 2000 repair CD and repair the system, then how could I possibly use the external Firewire drive (D:)? Can I boot from it? If I can boot from it, then how can I duplicate the data to the Internal drive (C:) if it's disconnected? Your method implys (to me) that Retrospect (and the duplicate OS on the Firewire drive) aren't even being used. I'd really appreciate some clarification. Many thanks! Jim Reffner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lv2ski Posted June 4, 2002 Report Share Posted June 4, 2002 1 & 2: Registry is duplicated IF you have the Desktop version or above AND you make sure that under options of your duplicate that the duplicating system state is turned on. The repair of the system - repairs the system on the D drive and makes it bootable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jreffner Posted June 5, 2002 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 1 & 2 - Great! Many thanks! 3 - Odd. The duplicate (D:) will be damaged, and needs to be repaired first? Why would it be damaged upon duplicating from C:? If I duplicated the internal (C:) drive when it was in fine working order, I don't fathom why D: would be damaged. Can you further explain this? Thanks. 4 - Once the D: drive (firewire drive) is repaired (and made to be bootable), then how will I be able to duplicate drive D: to drive C: if C: is disconnected? If I power down the PC, and connect the C: drive, then I won't be able to boot to the D: drive. Do you see my point? I'll need to duplicate the D: drive back to my internal C: drive so that I can once again have a working (bootable & non damaged) internal C: drive. I can't doo that If I can't boot to D: with C: connected. Thanks so much for your help! Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lv2ski Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 #2. You would boot from D and reconnect C - your old D becomes C now and your old C becomes D. Then you do the duplication back. #1 I am still looking into...good question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jreffner Posted June 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 #2 - So I can connect the data cable to the internal drive while the PC is powered on and booted from the FireWire drive?! This won't damage anything?! Sorry, I'm a Mac guy, and am surprised that this can be done with a PC. #3 - Thanks for your research! I'm very appreciative of your help and time! I'll patiently await your answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lv2ski Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 The deal is not that it is damaged, but that it is not set to be a bootable drive, after you dup from C to D. The only thing the "repair" does is make the drive bootable. #2. Scenario: C duplicates to D. C crashes C is SWAPPED with D. (so D is in place of C and vise versa). Boot off of D - which after the repair becomes C. Then dup from that to the other drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jreffner Posted June 7, 2002 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2002 Melissa, This information sure makes me appreciate my Mac. Thanks for all of your help! Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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