Program Files on 2 HDs. How to make an image?

[bka1967]

I am looking into either Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to make an image of my OS….incase my OS hard drive fails.

I just realized that I have installed my program files on 2 hard drives in the following fashion.

HD1 - (20 GB, approx 10 GB used) – OS (All Windows XP files and MS Office etc.)

HD2 - (200 GB, 4 Partitions) – I have used one partition for installing programs other than OS (G:\Program Files)

HD3 - (New 250 GB, made 3 partitions)

HD4 – (New 500 GB, made 5 partitions)

I have never made an image of OS HD. I want to make an image on one of my last 2 hard drives and also want to make a bootable image on dvds, incase the primary HD fails.

Do I have a correct set-up or should I have installed all programs on 1 HD? :confused:

Thanks for helping!

[Steve R Jones]

The two programs you mentioned will ask you to select ONE Source drive and One target drive.....Guessing you could repeat the process for HD2....

[bka1967]

The two programs you mentioned will ask you to select ONE Source drive and One target drive.....Guessing you could repeat the process for HD2....

I guess so (I can make images of 1st HD as well as program files partition of the 2nd HD).

I do not know if and how these 2 seperate images of OS and program files images will work ......when needed to restore?

Should all OS and program files be on one HD?

[Steve R Jones]

I do not know if and how these 2 seperate images of OS and program files images will work ......when needed to restore? -> You'd probably have to restore em at the same time.

Should all OS and program files be on one HD? -> For making images - Yes...Even for reinstalling Windows you have to re-install all programs.

[Sterling_Aug]

You have quite a mees there.

Why so many partitions? It would make more sense to have one of the new faster hard drives set up with Windows. You could create two partitions on this drive (one 20GB one for C: the rest for data). The other drives should be only one partition for data storage. Toss out the old 20GB slow hard drive. It will be dying soon anyway.

[bka1967]

You have quite a mees there.

Why so many partitions? It would make more sense to have one of the new faster hard drives set up with Windows. You could create two partitions on this drive (one 20GB one for C: the rest for data). The other drives should be only one partition for data storage. Toss out the old 20GB slow hard drive. It will be dying soon anyway.

I can delete some partitions on the new HDs. I used Seagate's utility to create them. I do not know how to delete them.....Guess I will find out if the same utility will do that also.

I originally made 4 partitions on my 2nd HD to

1 = Data, MS Money, Adobe and MS Office applications files
2 = Digital Pics and using to edit movies from digital camcorder
3= Program Files
4 = Everything else

I know I have lots of partitions and 2 dvd burners....as long I know where my files are I should be OK.

Unless too many partitions are bad, then I will delete them.

[Sterling_Aug]

The more partitions, the harder it will be to find where you saved something.

I create only two partitions on my boot drive (one for Windows and programs, the other for data). Any other drives that add will only have one partition and eb used for data.

[bka1967]

The more partitions, the harder it will be to find where you saved something.

I create only two partitions on my boot drive (one for Windows and programs, the other for data). Any other drives that add will only have one partition and eb used for data.

Quick Question

When I used Seagate Utility,
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html

it made partitions real fast! (I remember Windows take time to format)

Was I supposed to format the new HDs.....like with Windows OS...disc management?