gawguy Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 Okay... Based on the advice of our very wise men, I have been trying to get my computer right. I have double-backed up all data files and other needed files - wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few. I have reformatted and partitioned my hard drive with three partitions. c: for programs e: for files f: for a mirror. When I did the partitions I wasn't quite sure how big to make them. For instance, I have no idea how big the mirror file will be. I made them: c - 2.79gb, e - 1.79gb, f - 1.45gb. I have Partition Magic 8 and can easily change these partition sizes, the sooner the better. The HD is 6gb. What sizes would you suggest?I don't want to waste my small space on the mirror. Oh...I don't have a CD burner, so I can's save my mirror to CD's. I have a 1gb Jaz drive. Would that be helpful or is it too small? If I had a total meltdown, would I be able to retrieve from the Jaz? I guess so, if I reinstalled windows and then did a mirror. Jaz is probably too small. ****** I installed MS Office Thai and then Switch Office. This worked fine before the reformat, but now Switch does not seem to have taken effect. The menus are all in Thai. I don't remember doing any additional setup before beyond the installation before. What to do? Anyway... That's it. Thanks, Gaw Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 I can't help with Switch Office, because I have never used it. But concerning the image, you are on the right way . Next obtain the software Drive Image. You can use your JAZZ drive to make an external image of C: with Drive Image. Start Drive Image and follow the instructions carefully. Drive Image will tell you how much storage space you will need make an image either on your JAZZ drive or on F: (Most secure solution would be to make an internal image for fast restoration and an external image in case your hard disk crashes). Max size of an image would be a 1:1 image of C: without compression. If you have a look into explorer you will see the actual size of you software on C: and therefore the max. space needed for an image. A compressed image of course is smaller and could fit on your JAZZ drive - but only Drive Image will tell you the exact size. If you have some space left in F: you can resize it and give C: or E: or both partitions more space. Good luck PS: If you resize partitions make sure to have a backup of your data and an image made before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mongatu Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 Given the relatively small total size of your hard drive, I would eliminate the third (image partition) and allocate the space saved to the other two partitions. You could then use the one gig on the jazz drive to back up your data. If you lost everything on the hard drive, you would have to reinstall windows and your programs and configure them which is not that hard to do, and you could then restore your data files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted June 23, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 Thanks Mongatu But I really want to try to have an image so I can do this as maintenance regularly. Loading the programs is too much trouble. I believe my IBM thinkpad is all proprietary components, so a bigger hard drive would probably cost a lot. Anyone know? GG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 Montagu is not wrong with his comment about lack of storage on your HDD. If you have more than one JAZ disk you could store the image on your JAZ drive and delete the partition F:. Another option could be a second external hard disk drive or an external CD burner (not necessarily from IBM). For information go on IBM storage products go to IBM.com which seems to be rather expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mongatu Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 I'm not sure which model Thinkpad you have, and whether it has limitations on how big a hard drive you can put in, but on my Thinkpad T30, it is very easy to upgrade the harddrive to a larger capacity one (if you can use a screwdriver you can do it yourself). For my Thinkpad a Hitachi Travelstar (formerly owned by IBM) 20 gig laptop hard drive can be obtained new for around $100. A site where a lot of current model hard drives can be found is www.googlegear.com. Look there under hard drives, then mobile, for a list of laptop hard drives with low prices. You should be able to look up your model Thinkpad on the IBM support website and look up which hard drives are compatible with your laptop. If you can't find out that way, try asking in the IBM Thinkpad User forum for your model thinkpad (can be found under "discussion" on the IBM web site. Someone there will probably know which type hard drives your model can use. I am a big believer in having a full mirror image backup of your drive (OS, programs, data). I make a weekly full image back up of my entire hard drive over to a second hard drive using an optional attachment that IBM makes for my laptop that enables the user to attach a second hard drive to the laptop (IBM Second Hard Drive Adapter). This adapter cost about $50 direct from IBM. Then I have an identical second 20 gig hard drive that I got from Googlegear for about $100. The IBM second hard drive adapter came with free software that makes it a snap to make a mirror image copy of your primary installed hard drive over to the second hard drive. To make this work on my laptop though, I also had to get an external floppy drive cable (another $40 or so) so I could have the floppy drive and the second hard drive attached to the laptop at the same time. The reason for this is to use the back up software, you need to be able to boot the backup software from the floppy drive with both hard drives installed in the laptop. Anyway, IBM probably makes similar products for your particular Thinkpad model. Believe me, it has been a lifesaver to have the entire image of my hard drive available on a second hard drive that I can just swap in when something bad happens or in the event the laptop got stolen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlton68 Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 Hi, lots of good advice already. I just wanna add that using Drive Image with the highest compression you should be able to get the system image to less than 1 GB. So you can store it on the JAZ drive and delete it from the hdd. When installing Drive Image don't forget to check the approriate drivers so your JAZ will be known. 6 GB hdd is quite small but should do unless you are working on big files or with video files. If you're having trouble finding a free version of Drive Image leave a message after the beep. Carlton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
short-time Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 I?ve been using Drive Image as my backup utility for over three years now and agree it is an excellent recovery tool if used regularly. I must say though I don?t see much value in using it to partition a drive in a single HD system. What happens if your drive crashes (had this happen more than once)? You guys that depend on laptops are at a great disadvantage here. When I use Drive Image I make a complete image of my C drive then store this backup on my larger D drive. I get about ten backups on an 80 G drive using 40% compression before I run out of disk space. Trying to do system backups to CD?s, Zip drives etc. is just not practical anymore even when using hi compression due to the slow data transfer rates and the huge size of today?s programs. Even using two 7200 rpm HD?s it takes my machine almost 1.5 hours to backup 8 Gigs of info. Try this to CD? Fortunately the price of HD?s is at an all time low. I recently saw name brand 3.5? 80 G drives going for just over $40. A handy addition for a second HD it to mount it in one of those removable pullout trays, then with an extra tray or two you can swap drives between machines or use different drives to backup specific info. ST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mongatu Posted June 23, 2003 Report Share Posted June 23, 2003 You hit the nail on the head. Backing up to a partition on the hard drive is not going to be much use if the hard drive crashes or becomes inaccessible for some other reason, (e.g., virus, theft). This is why I back up to a second hard drive, which can be done with most laptops, as I explained above, and is not really that expensive. If your work or business is on your machine, than a couple of hundred bucks to have a secure reliable backup solution is money well spent, imo. Of course, components for desktop machines are always cheaper than their laptop equivalents, but laptops have a lot going for them in other respects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 24, 2003 Report Share Posted June 24, 2003 Office 'switch' is called Office 2000 language Pack, it enables English language support to Thai Office. When you install it, select customize, then make sure its set to - run everything from my hard disk. when its finished it will ask you what language you want your menus in, select english ... job done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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