What's the Fastest RAM that I Can Add?

[JorgeA]

dencorso,

Wonderful news, thank you!

I'll do a new backup keeping all these settings the same (except for maximum compression, and that I will exclude NOTHING) and report back.

BTW, I had the external HDD on the floor, standing on its edge with the stand attachment, and happened to knock it flat on its back as I was bringing my foot back from getting something behind it and pulled on the HDD's power cord. Are these things OK with an impact like that?

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

In principle, yes.

You may want to run a

chkdsk X: /r

(where X: is the assigned drive letter), from the MS-DOS box (a.k.a. command prompt window), just in case.

And since the disk is huge, it may be a long time before it finishes, don't worry.

My FreeAgent Go fell from the table onto the carpet last week (some 3 ft) and remained OK, according to chkdsk.

But if anything had happened, chkdsk would've found it (and fixed it, most of the time).

[JorgeA]

BTW, does Black Armor provide any method of browsing the contents of the image? I can search the manual for the answer, but maybe you've found out already, so I'm asking it. If the contents of the sector-by-sector image can be browsed, we can find out many answers on details, just by browsing inside it. But probably it's not possible. Only file-by-file backups can be browsed, usually. But one can always wish...

dencorso,

I'm going to run CHKDSK on the Seagate and then (if it reports OK) I'll do the "maximum compression" image. But first I wanted to give you the information that you asked for above.

Yes, it does appear to be possible to do this. From the BlackArmor opening screen, you select "Manage and restore," then when that comes up you select a backup and click on "Explore backup" at the top. A Windows Explorer window opens up, where you can drill deeper and deeper into the directories till you reach the file you're looking for. I didn't try to actually open any of these files (they're listed under the backup's name as being on drive C:), but there they are.

BTW, the BlackArmor software also has an intriguing "Try and Decide" feature where you can sandbox a new program. Maybe I can try running Word 2000 from there without messing up my Office 2007 installations?

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

BTW, the BlackArmor software also has an intriguing "Try and Decide" feature where you can sandbox a new program. Maybe I can try running Word 2000 from there without messing up my Office 2007 installations?

I think that is a good idea

Remember to uninstall Word 2007 first.

[JorgeA]

In principle, yes.

You may want to run a

chkdsk X: /r

(where X: is the assigned drive letter), from the MS-DOS box (a.k.a. command prompt window), just in case.

And since the disk is huge, it may be a long time before it finishes, don't worry.

My FreeAgent Go fell from the table onto the carpet last week (some 3 ft) and remained OK, according to chkdsk.

But if anything had happened, chkdsk would've found it (and fixed it, most of the time).

dencorso,

Well, finally I have something to report!

The CHKDSK of the 1TB drive took about 9 hours, but it finally finished and said that everything is all right with the drive that got knocked over. So then I could proceed to the second backup with full compression.

The first attempt, which I ran overnight, failed. When I came back in the morning it was still stuck in the first stage (creating the image). There seemed to be no way to figure out just what the problem was, so I stopped it. The backup then showed up in the backup list, saying that it had been done but with an error. No way to check that, either, at least not that I could find. So I removed it.

For good measure I also removed one of the earlier backups that I had mentioned, and then re-ran the image backup with all the settings you specified, at maximum compression.

That took another seven hours to finish, but finally it completed without a hitch. The size is 126GB (compared to the 465GB of the uncompressed backup). I'm either going to keep both, or delete the compressed one and then run a second uncompressed backup a month from now, so that I have alternating full "dumb" backups.

Whew!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

BTW, the BlackArmor software also has an intriguing "Try and Decide" feature where you can sandbox a new program. Maybe I can try running Word 2000 from there without messing up my Office 2007 installations?

I think that is a good idea

Remember to uninstall Word 2007 first.

BlouBul,

I haven't had the chance to do anything on this front yet (see my post to dencorso). If possible, I'd like to use that Try and Decide sandbox feature to install a new instance of Word 2007 on it, without either affecting the existing Word 2007 installation or having to uninstall it.

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

If possible, I'd like to use that Try and Decide sandbox feature to install a new instance of Word 2007 on it, without either affecting the existing Word 2007 installation or having to uninstall it.

Hi JorgeA,

I think you will have less problems if you uninstall Word 2007 first, and then reinstall it. With both try and decide and a full backup, you can't go too far wrong, but multiple instances of Word will confuse your system more than one instance.

[JorgeA]

Hi BlouBul,

The BlackArmor manual claims that, with this feature. "You can perform various system operations not worrying that you might damage your operating system, programs or data." You can see why, for my purposes, it's so alluring!

I wish that there were a way to find out ahead of time whether setting up a "virtual" Word 2007 installation inside Try&Decide will in fact not mess with the Registry or my existing Word installation.

The reason I'm reluctant to uninstall Word is that, over the past two years, I've made a number of tweaks and adjustments to the default Word settings, and I'd hate like heck to lose them. I couldn't even go in anymore to determine what changes I've made -- all I know is that I made them for a reason, and I'm not exactly eager to discover why all over again.

Now, if there is a "Word settings file" that keeps track of all this, and which I could save separately and then somehow re-apply to a fresh Word installation so that it goes back to the way I had it -- in that case we wouldn't be risking anything. We could uninstall and re-install as many times as necessary.

The alternative would be a sandbox such as we're talking about, where I might install a fresh "virtual" Word in isolation from the "real" Word.

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

With Try and decide (or your image), you can get your settings easy back. The experiment might work better with only one Word installed. The two versions of the same program might confuse the living daylights out of your computer. See here to save your settings.

[JorgeA]

BlouBul,

Sadly, the Save My Settings Wizard is gone with Office 2007. When I couldn't get to it by following the instructions on the link, I did a Web search and found this.

I heard back from Seagate tech support. FWIW, they say that, "The point of try and decide is to create a virtual machine on your backup drive to make changes that don't actually effect [sic] your PC." When I get the chance to, I'm going to try installing Word 2007 within Try&Decide. But you can bet I'll be creating a restore point just before doing that!

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

From your link:

FWIW, They didn't supply the Save My Setting Wizard for Office 2007 since

the functionality is available in Windows. If you have Vista use the Windows

Easy Transfer Wizard. Of course if you are using Windows XP then...

[JorgeA]

BlouBul,

AFAIK, WET is designed for moving settings from an old PC to a new PC. That's not what I wish to do.

In any case, even if it works, as a writer said in one of the pages I saw when looking into this, he couldn't believe that MS would recommend using such a "clumsy tool" for this purpose.

And, it's uncertain what the process might do to my existing PC. This page seems to say that the data is not erased from the source, but that you would need to reinstall the programs -- which is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. And restoring a HDD image (as suggested in one reply) is serious overkill for the sake of saving a couple of minutes on loading a document.

Plus, the WET process appears to be difficult and error-prone.

I am definitely skipping that one. Saving it for emergencies and new PCs only!

--JorgeA

Edited December 9, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

BlouBul,

Well, today I used that "Try&Decide" feature from Seagate. Interesting, but it has its limitations.

With the associated "Secure Zone" feature, it takes an amount of disk space from a drive that you specify, and uses it to create a kind of partition. (I say a "kind of" partition because you can't see it via normal means, although your regular disk does appear smaller in Windows Explorer.) Then, anything that you do while Try&Decide is working, happens in that secure zone without (they say) affecting anything on your actual PC. When you turn Try&Decide off, you get the choice to accept whatever changes took place while you were in it, or to discard everything and revert to the PC's previous state. (Except that you still have to tell it separately to delete the hidden partition.)

Creating the hidden partition was a bit frightening, since as it updated you on progress it reported that the D: (recovery) partition was being "moved." (Why would it have to move that partition? Couldn't it just work around it -- there was plenty of space on the physical disk.) But anyway, the process concluded and I installed a downloaded trial version of MS Office 2007, then watched it install.

That part of the experiment went well (apparently). What didn't go so well was the test-opening of the original big file. The BlackArmor manual does warn you that the system will work more slowly while Try&Decide is active -- and they weren't kidding. The test load took 5:43 to finish. Far off enough into the woods (and time-consuming enough) that I decided that a second test was not necessary.

So I stopped Try&Decide and then removed the Secure Zone hidden partition the recommended way.

Everything appears to have gone back to the way it was before. The HDD has regained its full size. The only difference is that the apparent space used on my C: drive has gone down from ~137GB to about 77GB -- yet, nothing seems to be missing, either data or applications! What might account for that?

So we're down to the option of uninstalling and reinstalling Word. As I wrote this, though, it occurred to me that another alternative that would not disrupt the existing installation would be to get an identical (if possible) second HDD, remove the existing HDD, put the new one in, and do fresh (trial/experimental) installs of both Vista and Office on it. I might have to deal with some BIOS issues, but somehow this process seems less risky and disruptive to the system than uninstalling one of my most important and often-used applications.

What do you think?

--JorgeA

[puntoMX]

Creating the hidden partition was a bit frightening, since as it updated you on progress it reported that the D: (recovery) partition was being "moved." (Why would it have to move that partition? Couldn't it just work around it -- there was plenty of space on the physical disk.) But anyway, the process concluded and I installed a downloaded trial version of MS Office 2007, then watched it install...

... Everything appears to have gone back to the way it was before. The HDD has regained its full size. The only difference is that the apparent space used on my C: drive has gone down from ~137GB to about 77GB -- yet, nothing seems to be missing, either data or applications! What might account for that?

All normal what you saw there; as I remember you can manually select the partition to shrink IF there is enough space, so, in this case the program did it for you and decided that D was too full so it was better to move D and shrink C, or you picked C to use its space to make that recovery partition, one of both.

[BlouBul]

BlouBul,

Well, today I used that "Try&Decide" feature from Seagate. Interesting, but it has its limitations.

With the associated "Secure Zone" feature, it takes an amount of disk space from a drive that you specify, and uses it to create a kind of partition. (I say a "kind of" partition because you can't see it via normal means, although your regular disk does appear smaller in Windows Explorer.) Then, anything that you do while Try&Decide is working, happens in that secure zone without (they say) affecting anything on your actual PC. When you turn Try&Decide off, you get the choice to accept whatever changes took place while you were in it, or to discard everything and revert to the PC's previous state. (Except that you still have to tell it separately to delete the hidden partition.)

That part of the experiment went well (apparently). What didn't go so well was the test-opening of the original big file. The BlackArmor manual does warn you that the system will work more slowly while Try&Decide is active -- and they weren't kidding. The test load took 5:43 to finish. Far off enough into the woods (and time-consuming enough) that I decided that a second test was not necessary.

Hi JorgeA,

Sorry for the late reply. My December (Read Summer ) holidays started on Friday and the whole process of moving the whole family to the nice sunny coasts of South Africa started . We just arrived and I managed to find an internet connection (not the fastest, but workable). I'll try to pop in a couple of times. If I do not reply too often it means the weather is still good.

Anyway, I think it creates an image of your system (or just track the changes) and if you want to change back it just either restores the image or undo the changes. It still works from your current registry, so two versions of the same program will still confuse it (so I am not too surprised at the slow result). A better option if you want to use try&decide is to uninstall Word and reinstall it. Since you have a full image of your computer anyway, you can even do it without try&decide.

So I stopped Try&Decide and then removed the Secure Zone hidden partition the recommended way.

Everything appears to have gone back to the way it was before. The HDD has regained its full size. The only difference is that the apparent space used on my C: drive has gone down from ~137GB to about 77GB -- yet, nothing seems to be missing, either data or applications! What might account for that?

That is strange 50GB of data missing with everything still there? Not sure about that one. Did it maybe emptied your recycle bin?

So we're down to the option of uninstalling and reinstalling Word. As I wrote this, though, it occurred to me that another alternative that would not disrupt the existing installation would be to get an identical (if possible) second HDD, remove the existing HDD, put the new one in, and do fresh (trial/experimental) installs of both Vista and Office on it. I might have to deal with some BIOS issues, but somehow this process seems less risky and disruptive to the system than uninstalling one of my most important and often-used applications.

What do you think?

--JorgeA

You know what I think, just do it (you have a full image). But understanding your unwillingness to muck with a working system, that would be a good idea. You do not need an identical drive for that. Any old drive would work for that (bigger than 20 gb). If you get a drive bigger than 500 GB, you can test your image there .A reinstall on an empty drive will also show you that a reformat and reinstall is not so difficult. Without laying out money for a new internal hdd to do the test on, I wonder if we cannot create a new partition (say 50 GB) on your current hdd, make that partition active and install a fresh system there (maybe dual boot)? Does anyone know of specific dangers involved in that?