There is another workaround if you don't want to mess with your Windows partitions.. The distro's I have been trying lately (Suse, Novell, RHAT) all let you choose where to put Grub - I just put it on the dedicated /boot partition of that Linux distribution.. then you can get a utility called bootpart.exe http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm, which will create a small file based on the beginning of your Linux /boot partition, and add a line to your Windows boot.ini file. The added line references the created file and switches to your Grub bootloader... this way, the only thing you are changing on your Windows partition is the boot.ini file, which is cake to modify - should you ever want to.. You can configure Grub to switch back to Windows, which will just bring you back to the Windows bootloader. I installed Linux on a computer with just Windows and the Windows bootloader in the MBR, and originally had Grub replace the Windows bootloader.. Then after re-installing Windows - ran into trouble - so this way make sense for my setup. Windows is not flexible at all during installation, in terms of the bootloader.
Here is the exact procedure: Windows is installed on your primary disk. Install Linux on a separate partition and/or disk. Be sure to have Grub installed on one of your new Linux partitions. (I create a dedicated /boot partition for bootloader/kernel). After installation is complete and you are asked to re-boot, load windows and run bootpart from the command prompt. You will see a number next to each partition - identify the one that you have installed Grub to. Let's say that it is #5, and you have installed Suse. You type: bootpart 5 suse.lnx "Suse Linux 10.0 rocks" And you're done. You can modify the Windows boot.ini manually: Start->Control Panel->System->Advanced->Startup and Recovery Setting->Edit You might need to do this if you want to move your (for example) suse.lnx file, rename the Linux label in your Windows bootloader, change the order, delete it, or whatever.
This is OK Many boot schemes can be thought of. For simplicity, I suggested to let your distro do its thing, without worrying about anything further (Suse, Ubuntu, I've tried myself many times) . Let Grub install the new MBR. It will pick up windoz without trouble. Keep the more fancy things for later (if you ever have to)
Something else going on here than just cloning... No, I am sure I cloned the hd. I'll try it again. I am using Office 2003 and Win 2000 Pro. I downloaded all the updates before I cloned. What office versions have you guys had success with. I may go to linux. I'll try the links previously posted first. tia, nt
http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx Check out the last item I copied below: Can hardware components be changed and upgraded? Product Activation is able to tolerate a certain degree of change in a hardware configuration by allowing a current hash value to have a degree of difference from the hash value that was originally activated. As a result, users can change their hardware without the product believing it is on a different PC than the one it was activated on. If the user completely overhauls the hardware making substantial hardware changes (even over long periods of time), reactivation may be required. In that case, users may need to contact to contact a Microsoft customer service representative by telephone to reactivate. How does product activation determine tolerance? In other words, how many components of the PC must change before I am required to reactivate? Common changes to hardware such as upgrading a video card, adding a second hard disk drive, adding RAM or upgrading a CD-ROM device will not require the system to be reactivated. Specifically, product activation determines tolerance through a voting mechanism. There are 10 hardware characteristics used in creating the hardware hash. Each characteristic is worth one vote, except the network card which is worth three votes. When thinking of tolerance, it's easiest to think about what has not changed instead of what has changed. When the current hardware hash is compared to the original hardware hash, there must be 7 or more matching points for the two hardware hashes to be considered in tolerance. If the network card is the same, then only 4 additional characteristics must match (because the network card is worth 3, for a total of 7). If the network card is not the same, then a total of 7 characteristics other than the network card must be the same. If the device is a laptop (specifically a dockable device), additional tolerance is allotted and there need be only 4 or more matching points. Therefore, if the device is dockable and the network card is the same, only one other characteristic must be the same for a total vote of 4. If the device is dockable and the network card is not the same, then a total of 4 characteristics other than the network card must be the same. Are the changes cumulative? In other words, if I change one component today and one tomorrow, is that two component changes? The changes are cumulative; however, if a user is asked to reactivate, the hardware profile is reset to that new configuration. What are the 10 hardware characteristics used to determine the hardware hash? The 10 hardware characteristics used to determine the hardware hash are: Display Adapter, SCSI Adapter, IDE Adapter, Network Adapter MAC Address, RAM Amount Range (i.e. 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc), Processor Type, Processor Serial Number, Hard Drive Device, Hard Drive Volume Serial Number, CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM. Does product activation deter hard disk cloning by comparing these hard disk hashes? One of the forms of piracy that Product Activation guards against is hard disk cloning. Not all forms of hard disk cloning are illegal. However, by comparing the hardware hash originally activated to the current hardware hash, hard disk cloning can be deterred by requiring re-activation if the hardware hashes are substantially different.
I am going to ask a dumb question please don't slam me........ Why would I want to back up my hard drive for trading? For saved charts or what? How would this help me? I would sincerly like to know. I am honestly somewhat tech savy, believe it or not, but I have never backed up a hard drive before. Thank you in advance. Dan
If you have a lot of configuration settings that took some time to get them "just right" and you would like to be able to recover from a drive failure quickly, rather than having to reinstall the OS, all apps and all settings manually then an image backup could be useful.
Acronis Question After reading this thread, the conclusion is that an extra hard drive or two for backup is in order. The back up would be removed from the machine after backup using Acronis True Image. Right now the machine has Raid 1 on a Promise Raid PCI card. Each of the two parallel drives have been partitioned into C and D. I will be backing up C to D every few weeks after performing virus scan, defrag etc. reasoning that in the event a virus would corrupt C, that D could be used. Never having done this before, the plan is to run the backup drive off the primary IDE slot as a slave. Then use Acronis to create an image of C and D on the backup drive. It appears that Acronis True Image 9 can do differential backups, capturing only the changes made since the last backup. But there appears to be a limitation in that Acronis "cannot create and restore a disk image when launched from the bootable rescue media." What does this limitation mean? Does the rescue media mean the backup drive that you have created, or does it mean the windows backup system restore disks? Let's say that in the event of a crash of the primary hard drive and an attempt to restore to a replacement primary hard drive from the back up hard drive, does this mean that the user cannot create or restore from the backup to a new replacement primary drive? Or would you simply physically replace the crashed hard drive with the backup hard drive? Any comments on the above would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2236.html:
CompUSA selling samsung 80 gb internal HD for $ 10 after rebate. perfect for backup. http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=338453&ref=cj&pfp=cj http://www.alltechdeals.com/