Ghost: How to differentiate between drives when cloning?

"Rod Speed" writes:


For a small companies fast turn up times might
be critical, theirs customers won't wait days,
maybe only one hour max. no matter the reason.

Sure, but getting the detail wrong would produce
and even bigger catastrophe very quickly indeed.

Mostly an unrecoverable catastrophe in fact.

There are some other safety precautions which prevents
total disaster for data concerned. Secondary PC's and
laptops etc. But then there start to be synchronisation
problems.

Identical 1:1 copies are good,

They arent actually, essentially because of the very real
risk of doing that backwards and losing everything and
that being completely unrecoverable when it happens.

Ok, maybe said things erraneously, I (or somebody trusted)
makes clones, user only switches to backup disk when nothing
else is viable.

But as we all make mistakes, lowering risks at least in those
critical areas, is desired.

thats why differentiate between new and old is difficult.

Yes, but there isnt any easy way to do that.

I guess it might well be feasible to write a frontend for ghost
7.51 that very carefully checks that is purportedly the source
and destination drives and only does the clone when its satisfied
that it has identified the drives correctly, but it would be quite
hard to ensure that some clown doesnt decide that your app
is having a brain fart and not allowing the clone to be done,
and decides to run ghost directly himself.

Ok, doing and coding by own is man's way do things but re-inventing
wheel again sounds little like resource waste.

Ghost 8.3 version was suggested here and that looked rather similar,
how it has been improved in regard of subject?

Thats recoverable, but recovery isnt that easy to do remotely by phone.

Yes, first aid is done by phone, final recovery always by (own) hand in
place, days or months later.

If they arent casual customers that call after the disaster has struck,
it may well be quite straight forward to install your own recovery
system on their system in advance of disaster. Sort of like the way
the laptops etc do recovery. But in this case using a true clone of
the drive thats updated say daily etc. Your system effectively just
boots off the clone instead and completely automates that so the
user doesnt need to do anything to the hardware.

What about in HD failure case? Or you mean two HD system?

Corse thats not going to stop some stupid with its own ideas
about recovery that doesnt bother to call you or cant manage
to get you and trys going it alone, maybe with the 'assistence'
of someone who claims to know what they are doing but doesnt.

Fortunately those concerned are rather aware when they do things
with their own risk and when by some other risk, and maybe more
important, don't have any excessive ideas of own skills or
capabilities.


Jukka

"Jukka I Seppänen" wrote:
"Horst Franke" nospam@invalid writes:

In "Jukka I Seppänen" typed:
"Peter" writes:
Concerning Symantec's Ghost (7.51):
Use Ghost 8.3
1.436 MB with floppies, oucht!

Hi Jukka, hm? Have You ever heard of A-DSL?

Not sure what you mean, and Google didn't show any decisive.
Can you tell more?

But 1,4 MB is even nothing to worry about.

With even with standard floppies and floppy-drives?

USB- and network boot or CD-drives fails too often from
PC to PC so floppies are still too often the only 100% sure
way to go.

Thats bull****, floppys fail MUCH more often.

Jukka I Seppänen wrote
Rod Speed writes

For a small companies fast turn up times might
be critical, theirs customers won't wait days,
maybe only one hour max. no matter the reason.

Sure, but getting the detail wrong would produce
and even bigger catastrophe very quickly indeed.

Mostly an unrecoverable catastrophe in fact.

There are some other safety precautions which prevents total
disaster for data concerned. Secondary PC's and laptops etc.

Sure, and you can obviously write image files to other
systems as another level of safety, with the nuisance
of a slower restore from there if the **** does hit the
fan and some fool manages to do the clone backwards.

But then there start to be synchronisation problems.

Not necessarily with modern incremental images.

Identical 1:1 copies are good,

They arent actually, essentially because of the very real
risk of doing that backwards and losing everything and
that being completely unrecoverable when it happens.

Ok, maybe said things erraneously, I (or somebody
trusted) makes clones, user only switches to backup
disk when nothing else is viable.

But as we all make mistakes, lowering risks
at least in those critical areas, is desired.

OK, if its other than the dummy doing the clone,
thats easier to provide some more insurance.

thats why differentiate between new and old is difficult.

Yes, but there isnt any easy way to do that.

I guess it might well be feasible to write a frontend for ghost
7.51 that very carefully checks that is purportedly the source
and destination drives and only does the clone when its satisfied
that it has identified the drives correctly, but it would be quite
hard to ensure that some clown doesnt decide that your app
is having a brain fart and not allowing the clone to be done,
and decides to run ghost directly himself.

Ok, doing and coding by own is man's way do things but
re-inventing wheel again sounds little like resource waste.

Sure, but I'm not aware of any cloner that does
much to make it hard to clone the wrong way around.

Ghost 8.3 version was suggested here and that looked rather
similar, how it has been improved in regard of subject?

I'm not aware that it does on that increased safety of not
being able to clone backwards, except in the sense that
its easier to drive using a bat file and that does provide
a high level of safety against cloning backwards.

Thats recoverable, but recovery isnt
that easy to do remotely by phone.

Yes, first aid is done by phone, final recovery
always by (own) hand in place, days or months later.

OK, you appeared to be saying that the dummy on the other
end of the phone would be instructed to do the clone manually.

No so hard to just get them to swap the clone and
the original physically when the original has died.

I'd personally have both drives in eSATA removeable
drive trays and then even the cleaner should be able
to swap the trays and reboot.

You can certainly do incremental clones completely safely
using xxclone and run that at a high rate, even say hourly etc.

That would be a lot better than either Ghost, essentially
because its one of the few systems than can clone incrementally.

If they arent casual customers that call after the disaster has
struck, it may well be quite straight forward to install your own
recovery system on their system in advance of disaster. Sort of
like the way the laptops etc do recovery. But in this case using
a true clone of the drive thats updated say daily etc. Your system
effectively just boots off the clone instead and completely
automates that so the user doesnt need to do anything to the hardware.

What about in HD failure case?

Just swap the eSATA drive trays and reboot.

Or you mean two HD system?

Yes. You did say two HDs of close to identical size.

Corse thats not going to stop some stupid with its own ideas
about recovery that doesnt bother to call you or cant manage
to get you and trys going it alone, maybe with the 'assistance'
of someone who claims to know what they are doing but doesnt.

Fortunately those concerned are rather aware when they do things
with their own risk and when by some other risk, and maybe more
important, don't have any excessive ideas of own skills or capabilities.

You cant always be sure that someone wont bluff them on that tho.

"Rod Speed" writes:


USB- and network boot or CD-drives fails too often from
PC to PC so floppies are still too often the only 100% sure
way to go.

Thats bull****, floppys fail MUCH more often.

Agree with that 100%, and that is why I always try those easier ways at
first. They are faster too, if they just would work for incompatibility
reasons.

I tried to say that if nothing else doesn't work, floppies are still
the only way which you can trust to do at least something.

But carry bunch of them (and couple floppy drives with cables) with you.


Jukka

Jukka I Seppänen wrote
Rod Speed writes

USB- and network boot or CD-drives fails too often from PC to
PC so floppies are still too often the only 100% sure way to go.

Thats bull****, floppys fail MUCH more often.

Agree with that 100%, and that is why I always try
those easier ways at first. They are faster too, if
they just would work for incompatibility reasons.

I tried to say that if nothing else doesn't work, floppies are still
the only way which you can trust to do at least something.

But carry bunch of them (and couple floppy drives with cables) with you.

I prefer to go the CD route myself. You dont see too many
systems that dont have a CD drive at least and even the real
old dinosaurs that cant boot a CD can be made to boot one too.

The main stuff that is still easier to do with a floppy is stuff like boot
time special drivers for something like the XP distribution CD and even
that is better done by slipstreaming the drivers onto the CD instead.

In "Jukka I Seppänen" typed:
Hi Jukka, hm? Have You ever heard of A-DSL?
Not sure what you mean, and Google didn't show any decisive.
Can you tell more?

Hi Jukka, this stands for Asynchronous-DSL = a high speed interface.
I have a DSL-1000 setup = 1024 kbits/sec on download (17Eur/month)
and a data flatrate for about 10 Eur/month.

But 1,4 MB is even nothing to worry about.
That size will be downloaded via DSL in about a few seconds.

With even with standard floppies and floppy-drives?
USB- and network boot or CD-drives fails too often from
PC to PC so floppies are still too often the only 100% sure
way to go.
Can not be seen by me. What are Your surroundings/setups?
No, not nowadays (no data transfer problems known).
A PC to PC LAN would work with 100Mbits/sec or 1000Mbits/sec.

Please tell Your PC setup (HW and OS).
Horst

"Horst Franke" nospam@invalid writes:


Hi Jukka, this stands for Asynchronous-DSL = a high speed interface.
I have a DSL-1000 setup = 1024 kbits/sec on download (17Eur/month)
and a data flatrate for about 10 Eur/month.

Ok, thought about that.

But 1,4 MB is even nothing to worry about.
That size will be downloaded via DSL in about a few seconds.

If you have DSL and NIC, and if they work.

I have rather good trust in Intel NIC's, when they don't work
error codes and behaviour has some logic for useful backtrack.

Other NIC's can't say the same but reason might be that I am
just too impatient to learn their soul and moon phase.

With even with standard floppies and floppy-drives?
USB- and network boot or CD-drives fails too often from
PC to PC so floppies are still too often the only 100% sure
way to go.
Can not be seen by me. What are Your surroundings/setups?
No, not nowadays (no data transfer problems known).
A PC to PC LAN would work with 100Mbits/sec or 1000Mbits/sec.

Please tell Your PC setup (HW and OS).

Various: MB's Intel 845, 865, 945,Asus A7V8X's, Dells,
dozen IBM laptops (T20,21,22...T43, R50-51), couple Dells and
Fujitsu-Siemens.

All HD's IDE and OS's either Windows XP or Linux.

Altogether some 30 computers around Finland, Russian and
Estonian.


Jukka

In "Jukka I Seppänen" typed:
Hi Jukka, this stands for Asynchronous-DSL = a high speed interface.
Ok, thought about that.
But 1,4 MB is even nothing to worry about.
If you have DSL and NIC, and if they work.

Hi Jukka, yes, DSL works. Not seen any severe problem so far.

Please tell Your PC setup (HW and OS).
Various: MB's Intel 845, 865, 945,Asus A7V8X's, Dells,
dozen IBM laptops (T20,21,22...T43, R50-51), couple Dells and
Fujitsu-Siemens.
All HD's IDE and OS's either Windows XP or Linux.
Altogether some 30 computers around Finland, Russian and
Estonian.

Oh, that's great. But You would'nt stay on dial up connections?
Suggest You should now look for a highspeed I-net interface.
All Your SW updates would soon equalize the extra costs.
Horst