My Streak Is Over

[crokett]

It finally happened to me - HDD crash on our desktop downstairs. I came downstairs the other night and saw a Boot Disk Failure Message. I didn't think much of it since I'd been working with a floppy disk the night before. Rebooted and it came up ok. Tonight, same message only this time it is failed. I have a second drive in there and have most everything backed up so as soon as I can download a Linux live CD so I can move some things around on the 2nd drive I will restore the Ghost image and be up and running again.

[pelligrini]

Sorry to hear that, even with backups it's not fun stuff.

Thanks for the reminder to run some new images here.

[crokett]

Actually what I think I am gonna do is just go get a new drive. They are cheap enough, even if I buy a SATA controller at the same time. The 2nd drive I have now is a twin to the first and just as old - they are ultra SCSI and at the time were some of the fastest out there. Now the trick will be taking my current XP install and injecting SATA drivers into it so I can boot from a SATA drive.

[rjwaldren]

Now the trick will be taking my current XP install and injecting SATA drivers into it so I can boot from a SATA drive.

Ouch, changing interface types during a recovery on XP does not sound fun. Doable but a PITA. Will the failed drive boot at all? Is the other drive a mirror set?

Linux would just be a couple text edits.

[crokett]

Old drive doesn't even spin up - it is SCSI. I went and got a new SATA drive today. 60 bucks for a 300GB. Amazingly cheap. I haven't put it in yet. Not sure I am going to bother to try and inject the SATA drivers into XP because I don't know if the version of Ghost I have supports SATA. I will probably install the drive, boot the Ghost recovery CD and see if it can see the drive. If it can't, then I will just reinstall XP.

Actually moving to a new controller is not that big a deal. I've done it more than once. Just load the driver for the new controller into the curent install and move the install over. The trick is moving it. Windows 2000 used a simple mirror setup so you could mirror to the new drive, then break the mirror and you were good to go. More than once I moved a system from IDE to SCSI or straight SCSI to HW RAID this way. I did it several times at home to add a bigger HDD. In XP you have to upgrade from basic disk to do a mirror and breaking it is harder.

[pelligrini]

The 2nd drive I have now is a twin to the first and just as old - they are ultra SCSI and at the time were some of the fastest out there.

Yep, my storage shelves are lousy with them. I've also got a stack of 10K 36gig Ultra 160s. I just wish they weren't half height SCAs. They don't really fit in much anymore. Can't really justify the cost of running them anymore.

[crokett]

Well I took a look at the Ghost CD and the good news is I think I can get it to support the SATA controller. I am creating a CD image and will find a way to inject the driver into the image. I am betting that when the recovery CD boots it just attempts to load whatever drivers are on the CD.