Mirrored Discs - Windows XP

[Proto]

Is there any way to set up disc mirroring in Windows XP Pro?(or XP home for that matter)

Trying to find an easy and cheap solution to system security.

Ta.

 

[Crackle]

Normally done at Bios level with drivers/system files added to windows to manage it, as far as I know anyway and certainly that's the only way I've done it with a computer with Raid capability on the motherboard and the Bios to control it and a disc to add the drivers at the Windows build level.

 

[rh100]

You want it mirrored on the fly so if one fails the other takes over? If so I think you need RAID if your motherboard supports it, if not then an addon card may give you that function - cant advise much apart from that I'm afraid as I've never really bothered with it - I'm sure someone here can tell you the ins and outs of it.

If you just want to make images of the disc for backup and full disk restore - I've been looking at a free utility called Drive Image XML , seems to work ok - I transferred a Server 2003 OS to a new drive with it.

 

[rh100]

Normally done at Bios level with drivers/system files added to windows to manage it, as far as I know anyway and certainly that's the only way I've done it with a computer with Raid capability on the motherboard and the Bios to control it and a disc to add the drivers at the Windows build level.

Beat me to it

Also - I think you need to be very carefull adding a drive into a raid array if you want to keep whats on it (windows and your data etc), could easily get wiped by pressing the wrong button during setup as one disk will clone the other.

 

[Crackle]

It does work though and work well. I had a disc in a mirrored system fail and when I replaced it, the computer seamlessly rebuilt it and of course it continued working when the disc failed.

 

[Proto]

Can you speak slowly and use small words please. I'm out of my depth here.

You want it mirrored on the fly so if one fails the other takes over?

Yes, exactly. I'm looking for a way of securing our system and data in case of disc failure.


We are a small engineering company. We have 4 networked PCs, the 'master' so to speak, is used for Sage accounts/payroll plus production control and browsing cycling websites. We also store all our CNC programmes on it, approx 7000 files. Other PCs are used for production control, CNC programming and file transfer between machine tools and master (file storage).


I back up all the data pretty well every night, but when we suffered a hard drive failure last year rebuilding the system was not straightforward and took the efforts of an IT bod to sort out. Loading back on the software proved problematic but was achieved. The production control software will only run on XP so I'm rather stuck with that.


Disc mirroring seems like a perfect solution. One fails and the other takes over and flags up the error. New disc in and copy the other disc and carry on.


So, how do I go about it, and how do I find out if my machine will support RAID. The machine is a Dell Dimension 4550, Pentium 4, XP Pro.

 

[Proto]

That Drive Image XML looks interesting. So, is it a matter of using that to copy the complete disc to a file? An can that file then be transferred to another machine/DVD for security?

 

[S_t_e_v_e]

There is a software solution too... not as robust as a raid system, but will help keep important data secure.
I use SyncBackPro, but there are other similar apps to choose.

 

[2Loose]

By the sound of it, you would need an 'IT bod' to setup RAID in the first place. As it requires new hard drives and internal add on cards to be fitted.
Once it is done though, it works a treat.

Drive Imaging software, such as Drive Image XML, Symantec Ghost or many Acronis products 'clone' the data and files on the entire hard drive, effectively making a 100% exact copy and store it as a file. To image a disk, you will need somewhere to store the image, and external hard disk is good for this, but some of those products will allow you to store the image on several DVD's. This isn't a good way though, because you need to sit there for hours feeding in blank disks as it needs them.

Once the image is created, then should a disk get damaged and replaced, then a small program is loaded which can put the stored image file onto the new disk. Voila! No need to reinstall the operating system, applications or data.

Normally, an image can take an hour or more to create, but can take less than half an hour to restore dependent on the size of the disk.
I take a new image of my PC to an external hard drive on a friday evening so that if something happened, I would only lose a weeks work.
I also take nightly backups of any data files that I create (but not the whole system). In the worst case scenario of a disk failing on a friday lunchtime, I would restore the last image that I created from the previous friday, then add the files that were backed up from this week. I am pretty sure that I could restore everything to 'just how it was', in far less time than it would take to install just Windows from scratch, let alone the apps and data.

 

[Proto]

Adding cards and disc drives is not a problem, I usually such things myself. I do all my own PC maintenance, replacing drives, adding memory, sorting out software problems, heck, I've even built PCs in the past from a pile of bits and some Windows discs.

Where I run into trouble is with the production control software. I remember terms like 'drive mapping', virtual drive' and suchlike. Out of my depth completely, and too import to get wrong. Same with re-installing Sage. It ought to be easy but in my experience it hasn't been.

If I copy the hard disc with imaging software, can I test the copy by putting a new blank hard drive in another PC and restoring to that to see if it is a true clone, or will hardware difference throw up problems?

 

[2Loose]

Sorry, the software thing just made me think that you'd feel safer outside of the PC Case, most people do.

In that case you need a SATA RAID card (about 20-30 quid) and two preferably identical (to minimise potential issues) new drives to add to the existing machine. The supplied software will do the rest. I have only built machines from scratch like this, so I have never added it to an already installed pc. In my case I built the system, then installed of my software and it just worked. But I guess your point is that reinstalling all of the software is the problematic bit.

If I copy the hard disc with imaging software, can I test the copy by putting a new blank hard drive in another PC and restoring to that to see if it is a true clone, or will hardware difference throw up problems?

Hardware differences would likely be an issue (although the Acronis stuff is very clever and can compensate for hardware changes by switching drivers on the fly during restore - also, fully working demo versions available.)

But the alternative is just to switch to a new\test hard disk in the existing pc and restore to that. Hardware is then the same so it should be a true test.

1 original HDD, 1 external HDD for image backups and 1 new HDD to swap out and test the images on \ keep ready in case of a failure.

 

[Proto]

Many thanks for that 2loose, seems quite do-able, new card and two new drives. I'll have a trial run on a machine at home before I dig too big a hole for myself.

However, I'm still not clear on how Windows XP (Pro at work, Home at, err, home) will know to write to both drives and what software will be doing the write/read/verification, and further, what would flag up any errors if any should occur. Does the card come with the required software? Care to recommend something?

Also, how can I find out if my machine (motherboard, I guess) will accept and utilise a RAID card? My machine a Dell Dimension 4550 is eight years old

(new hard drive, more memory, additional DVD player/writer since then though)

More basics please

 

[2Loose]

Your PC only needs an empty PCI expansion slot to work. The cards basically add a few SATA HDD connectors, so just plug it in, add HDD's to it.
Your PC should just find the drives...they will show up as in windows as extra drives as expected.

Run the RAID software that comes with the cards. For 'mirroring' you want to choose RAID 1, for 'striping' you want RAID 0 (from memory)
It is pretty straight forward, unless there is some kind of conflict with your existing BIOS.

Take a look at this and check out some reviews.... Startech sata card with Raid capability

 

[Proto]

Your PC only needs an empty PCI expansion slot to work.

Your PC should just find the drives...they will show up as in windows as extra drives as expected.

It is pretty straight forward, unless there is some kind of conflict with your existing BIOS.

Sounds like I'm being niggly now, and I don't mean to be, but is there a chance that my ancient motherboard/BIOS will not recognise the new card?

 

[rh100]

It should recognize it, worth a punt for £20 or so. From what I know of them it is contolled by it's own BIOS after the initial pc bios starts up but before windows boots, has DOS type menu's to operate it.

I'd like to add though - your pc does not have the PCI Express slots, this affects what raid card you can buy. You would need one that plugs into plain PCI - because of the bandwidth of PCI the speed is limited to the first SATA standard of 1.5Gbps, the newer PCIexpress cards can run the 3Gbps drives at full speed. I know some drives had a jumper on them to clip the speed to 1.5Gbps for compatibility with the older sata controllers.

Does anyone know if recent drives have this jumper still - is it really needed?

With Drive Image XML - you get two files - an XML file and a dat file. Store these where ever you choose to store your backups (just keep them in individual folders per backup for clarity). To restore I would do as suggested - connect the new drive to a running pc as a slave - in an external caddy or whatever - run the software on that pc to copy the saved image to that new drive - fit the drive to the failed pc and boot up - to test this process just safely disconnect the current drive and connect the new drive and boot.