Would like to create 2 hard drives that are identical

Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
monitor down from the attic and hook it up. Then I have to format the
C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
Yikes.

My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
identical. Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
to a reasonable starting point.

The question I have is how is this done? Can it be done without
purchasing special drive-duplication software?

Thanks,
Dos-Man

"dos-man" <ChairShot@mail.com> wrote in message
news:d758757a-e37a-4139-93f9-281ab2259fd0@13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
| Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
| endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
| monitor down from the attic and hook it up. Then I have to format the
| C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
| Yikes.
|
| My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
| models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
| thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
| identical. Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
| to a reasonable starting point.
|
| The question I have is how is this done? Can it be done without
| purchasing special drive-duplication software?

You might do better to use software like Acronis True Image to make a copy
of the drive, once you have it set up the way you like. You can also do
backups so you aren't starting from square one after a crash.

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:28:41 -0700 (PDT), dos-man
<ChairShot@mail.com> wrote:

>Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
>endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
>monitor down from the attic and hook it up. Then I have to format the
>C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
>Yikes.
>
>My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
>models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
>thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
>identical. Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
>to a reasonable starting point.
>
>The question I have is how is this done? Can it be done without
>purchasing special drive-duplication software?
>
>Thanks,
>Dos-Man

You do not need identical drives to do this, only that the
smaller of the two is large enough to hold all the data.
However, if both of these drives are old then their being at
end of expected lifespan already is reason enough to replace
both.

HDD manufacturers sometimes include software capable of
doing this, especially something as simple as straight dupe
of one FAT32 formatted drive to another. Seagate/Maxtor is
one example (formerly two examples but now the same company)
offering software with this capability.

How much capacity do you need on this old system? Because
of the small footprint taken up by Win98 and recent advances
in flash memory density, it is conceivable you could run the
system from an (SLC flash chip based instead of MLC type)
compact flash card (choose CF3 or CF4 spec. type to get DMA
support) and a compact flash IDE adapter (cheap from places
like ebay or http://www.dealextreme.com . Today you can get
a 4GB CF card for no more than the cost of a new hard drive
and never again have a concern about mechanical failure.

Some will be quick to point out that CF cards have write
cycle limitations due to using flash memory, but you're not
likely to exceed that limitation using an SLC based card any
year soon, especially if the system has ample memory so
there's very limited swapfile activity and ideally using a
separate low cost 1GB CF card for the swapfile... that way
even in worst case scenario if it were wore out over time
you have merely to swap a different 2nd card in, without
excessive wear to the card holding OS and documents.

You either have to buy special backup software, or you can buy a PCI RAID
card and set up a RAID 1 array. This results in all data and programs being
simultaneously being written to both drives, resulting in a mirror image on
the two drives. Either way, there is no good FREE way to do what you want
to do.

--
--DaveW


"dos-man" <ChairShot@mail.com> wrote in message
news:d758757a-e37a-4139-93f9-281ab2259fd0@13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
> endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
> monitor down from the attic and hook it up. Then I have to format the
> C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
> Yikes.
>
> My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
> models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
> thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
> identical. Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
> to a reasonable starting point.
>
> The question I have is how is this done? Can it be done without
> purchasing special drive-duplication software?
>
> Thanks,
> Dos-Man

"DaveW" <radiation@nuclear.org> wrote in message
news:0oidnQkCh8ma_GzanZ2dnUVZ_uidnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
| You either have to buy special backup software, or you can buy a PCI RAID
| card and set up a RAID 1 array. This results in all data and programs
being
| simultaneously being written to both drives, resulting in a mirror image
on
| the two drives. Either way, there is no good FREE way to do what you want
| to do.

A raid array will do a good job of protecting you from hardware failure, but
do nothing againts virii or poorly written software.

"DaveW" <radiation@nuclear.org> wrote in message
news:0oidnQkCh8ma_GzanZ2dnUVZ_uidnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> You either have to buy special backup software, or you can buy a PCI RAID
> card and set up a RAID 1 array. This results in all data and programs
> being simultaneously being written to both drives, resulting in a mirror
> image on the two drives. Either way, there is no good FREE way to do what
> you want to do.

What is this post related to? This does not follow up any other post and you
have not included any text from the original?

dos-man wrote:
> Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
> endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
> monitor down from the attic and hook it up. Then I have to format the
> C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
> Yikes.
>
> My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
> models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
> thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
> identical. Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
> to a reasonable starting point.
>
> The question I have is how is this done? Can it be done without
> purchasing special drive-duplication software?
>
> Thanks,
> Dos-Man


You could set up a RAID1 array which automatically mirrors the drives
(but if you have a software problem on one it will also be on the other
drive).

Or you could use the Seagate drive mirroring utility Disk Wizard (free
from Seagate site) and do periodic mirroring manually.

DaveW wrote:
> You either have to buy special backup software, or you can buy a PCI RAID
> card and set up a RAID 1 array. This results in all data and programs being
> simultaneously being written to both drives, resulting in a mirror image on
> the two drives. Either way, there is no good FREE way to do what you want
> to do.
>

Not exactly correct. Disk Wizard from Seagate is free and will mirror
one drive onto another. It will even compensate for different size drives.

Calab wrote:
> "DaveW" <radiation@nuclear.org> wrote in message
> news:0oidnQkCh8ma_GzanZ2dnUVZ_uidnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> | You either have to buy special backup software, or you can buy a PCI RAID
> | card and set up a RAID 1 array. This results in all data and programs
> being
> | simultaneously being written to both drives, resulting in a mirror image
> on
> | the two drives. Either way, there is no good FREE way to do what you want
> | to do.
>
> A raid array will do a good job of protecting you from hardware failure, but
> do nothing againts virii or poorly written software.
>
>
>

Mirroring will propogate virii and bad software to the back-up drive.

On Mar 30, 9:28*pm, dos-man <ChairS...@mail.com> wrote:
> Well, my win 98 PC has crashed again. When I boot it just keeps
> endlessly spinning the floppy drive. Tommorrow I have to bring the
> monitor down from the attic and hook it up. *Then I have to format the
> C: drive and reinstall everything; all the drivers; all the software.
> Yikes.
>
> My computer does have 2 hard drives in it, but they are different
> models from different companies that hold different capacities. I'm
> thinking it's about time that I bought 2 hard drives that are the
> identical. *Then when one goes down I can swap the drives and get back
> to a reasonable starting point.
>
> The question I have is how is this done? *Can it be done without
> purchasing special drive-duplication software?
>
> Thanks,
> Dos-Man

Question? What do you use the win98 system for? a server?
You may pos consider updating to xp, virus protection and ghost. A HD
system with ghost and scheduling of backups during slow activity times
will do the job.