hard drive syncronsing?

manbearpig · 30 Nov 2009 at 22:17

hi,
if i have 2 hard drives, 1 with windows installed on and the other an exact copy of the other one. if the first hard drive fails can i boot to the second hard drive and carry on using my games and software as usual until i replace the hard drive?

sorry if i have made it confusing..

thanks

lsg1r · 30 Nov 2009 at 22:36

wouldn't that just be the same as a mirrored raid (raid 1) which would actually give some physical benefits too.

manbearpig · 30 Nov 2009 at 22:39

lsg1r said:
wouldn't that just be the same as a mirrored raid (raid 1) which would actually give some physical benefits too.

it would be the same as raid 1, but i want to know if i can use a hard drive with a copy of another hard drive, to boot from.

biuro74 · 1 Dec 2009 at 02:25

manbearpig said:
it would be the same as raid 1, but i want to know if i can use a hard drive with a copy of another hard drive, to boot from.

AFAIK in Raid-1 array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning, so answer is yes.
But if one disk fails, just rebuild the array putting a new drive there.

SMAndy · 1 Dec 2009 at 10:07

To actually answer your question, yes. But that would be a waste of money...

Just save all important data to another drive or to removeable media. Have a regular backup, so if you do lose a disk, you can just reinstall on a new one. Disks last a long time though, and SMART data usually tells you when there's a failure imminent. You can just copy the backup data over...

You can't just "copy" the disk. The boot sector, boot information and stuff won't be copied, neither will in-use, protected system files. What you need is to take an Image Burning tool like Acronis or Norton Ghost. Either of those can copy disk images to and from drives. Make sure you check the settings in either for copying Boot Data.

manbearpig · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:37

SMAndy said:
To actually answer your question, yes. But that would be a waste of money...

Just save all important data to another drive or to removeable media. Have a regular backup, so if you do lose a disk, you can just reinstall on a new one. Disks last a long time though, and SMART data usually tells you when there's a failure imminent. You can just copy the backup data over...

You can't just "copy" the disk. The boot sector, boot information and stuff won't be copied, neither will in-use, protected system files. What you need is to take an Image Burning tool like Acronis or Norton Ghost. Either of those can copy disk images to and from drives. Make sure you check the settings in either for copying Boot Data.

ok thanks, i already have a spare drive that i wont be using for anything. and i already have two external hard drives that i back up all important data to.