Progress in computer hardware and software is often a leap-frog process, and this affects how users can do things.
In the early 1980s, IBM R&D provided me a model 1 Personal Computer (actually the 5150), which came with a mere 64Kb RAM and two 360Kb floppy drives, plus IBM/MS DOS 1.0. Looking back, that was pretty pathetic. I described elsewhere how my office PC was upgraded with RAM, then a 1Mb disk drive, later was replaced with an IBM-AT, then an IBM-PS/2. My personal Personal Computer at home started with a Gateway equivalent of an IBM-XT, then evolved through several no-brand clones to my present super machine with an AMD-64 bit CPU, 2 Gb DRAM, two internal 250Gb drives and 4 external 500 Gb drives. And my old eyes really love my new large flat panel digital monitor.
Backup and restore were functions that Microsoft took years to get right. In the DOS era, their backup inserted the full path and name in the top of a file, and restore could only work to the original source folder. If the user had changed the file directory before a restore, just too bad. Frustrated users with nothing to lose soon learned to remove those header inserts with “hex” editors, so the binary program and image files could again work.
Several non MS vendors provided other means for data protection. Iomega, makers of Bernoulli and Zip drives, provided system tools for backup and restore. In the Windows era, I discovered the hard way that the Iomega backup could LIE, by saying that all files had been backed up to the external drive when absolutely nothing had been copied. That became rather embarrassing when I tried to restore files after a disk disaster.
Starting in the DOS era, when I upgraded a disk drive, I kept the older, smaller drive for “C:”, set the newer as “D:”, so I could put the minimum files for Operating System (OS) on C:, data and most program files on D:. All program source files were backed up on diskettes, later to ZIP cartridges, then external CDs or hard disks. My data files were copied to external magnetic drives and to different sections of D: or other hard drive.
Side comment: I also tried several cartridge drive products from SyQuest Technology, and found them to be disasters despite the excellent technical descriptions. Cost cutting can kill.
Accelerating disk technology increased speed and capacity mostly through disk controllers, coding methods, and evolution from horizontal to vertical magnetic domains. Rotation speed has been mostly unchanged at several standard values. This meant that using my older drive for C: soon was crippling overall speed, because Windows interacts continuously with the boot drive, for temporary data files as well as program access.
The first clever solution I knew of was “Partition Magic” by PowerQuest. Unlike the destructive partitioning offered by Microsoft and initial disk formatting, PM could create and resize disk partitions on “live” data. This meant I could make partitions into “logical drives” of E:, F:, G:, with letters chosen to work with physical drives such as the CD. Software authors provided utilities to re-assign drive letters as needed. The big import of all this is that I could use a small section of the newest fastest drive for C:, such as 5 to 20 GB on a 250Gb drive.
PowerQuest also had DriveImage to make a binary image of a disk or partition, which gets around Microsoft’s impediments to backup and restore OS files. At one time, PowerQuest was the fastest growing software company in the world.
I stayed with the PowerQuest utilities through several upgrades, until I realized that not all their changes were for the better. About the time PowerQuest was bought out by Symantec, I discovered the Acronis company. True Image is fast, and lets an image be mounted as a virtual drive, to allow copy of selected files. Their Disk Director Suite allows repair and recovery of files and partitions, or sterilization of a drive to be removed from service.
With present day good disk construction and prudent backup strategy, I seldom need to use Acronis Disk Director Suite. I partition my first physical drive when I install Windows, and no longer change partition structure on live data. But I frequently use Acronis True Image on my C: drive, such as before and after any major software installation, plus periodically. This means I have never had to re-activate Windows OS through Microsoft, which was important when MS restricted that to 5 times. Windows now includes an automatic snapshot process “System Restore”, to step back one or more time levels “restore points”, but I prefer True Image. I can run True Image recovery from a CD, outside of Windows.
Acronis offers free updates within a product version, and deep discounts for version upgrades to registered users.
Copyright 2008 by Donald A. Miller, PhD / SoftWareProgs.com,
See “S/W Store” and “Specials, Limited” for good deals on software.
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