Number 216 - May 2001

My Protection & Backup Procedure
by Joe Sherry - NOCCC , flaginfo@bigfoot.com - Dec 2000
It has been requested that my method of backup and my method of protection be explained in the newsletter.     As normal, my motherboard allows installation of a Primary Master and Slave and a Secondary Master and Slave. My main hard drive (26gb) (the one with all of my operating programs) is set up as the primary master. It has four partitions.     A separate hard drive, used for backup, is set as the Primary Slave. Its size Should be whatever the size of the partition on the main drive that you wish to backup.     A third smaller drive is used only for my Internet activities. It is set up as the secondary master.     The intention is as follows:     1. When I am on the Internet, it is desirable that no one be able to access my main hard drive.     2. When I am using programs on my main drive, it is possible to turn off the other drives.     3. When my backup activity is taking place, the backup drive can be activated as desired.     The activities take place as follows:     1 To turn off the main drive while on the Internet, go into the CMOS setup on startup. Set the Primary Master as None. (In your normal setup, the Primary Master should show the User preset parameters; not Auto.)     Next, see that the Primary Slave is also set with the User parameters; then set it at None. Now set the Secondary Master at User with the preset User Parameters.     Save these settings now and reboot out of the setup. Your computer now should boot into the Secondary Master, and not be able to see the Primary Master nor the Primary Slave.     With this arrangement, you will be running your Internet drive without any access to either of the other two drives. (I recommend that you preset your CD-ROM drive at a high letter, e.g. Q. This is done in the Control Panel).     To verify that this is the case, go into Windows Explorer and check it out. Sometimes mine will show the Master Drive as accessible, even though it is indicated as None in the CMOS. When this happens, it shows the master drive's position at the end of the partitions of the Internet drive, if that drive has more than one partition. This is a mystery to me but a reset of the CMOS and reboot usually changes it to how I want it.	2. When using the main drive, the Internet drive can be turned off if desired. If you have more than one partition on the main drive, you should turn off the other drives or they will upset your partitions' designations.     Simply go into the Setup and mark the Primary Master as User, showing it's preset parameters; and mark the Internet drive as None.     Again, sometimes the Internet drive still shows up as accessible in Windows Explorer. This could present a problem when the main drive has more than one partition, since a second drive's first partition would show as Drive D.     However, when it happens, the same mysterious event is there i.e.; the second drive's partitions sometimes show up after the partitions of the first drive!     When done properly, the above two situations allow you to protect your Main drive from unwanted access while on the Internet, and believe me it can happen. If you don't believe me, go to grc.com and run Steve Gibson's test. (Thank heaven for Steve Gibson!!)     3. Now about my backup procedure. This requires that you have a program such as Ghost or a similar hard drive copy program.     With the above stated setups, go into Setup. You want to have all three drives turned on i.e., set at User with their parameters showing. Save the settings with all three On..     My main hard drive has the Ghost program on it. My procedure is to start the program outside of Windows, in the DOS mode, using the Client version. My total drive is ghosted to the Primary Slave drive, which essentially gives me an exact copy of my main drive.     My intention is to do this procedure once a month (but this is procrastination territory!!) Also, until it is to be done, my Ghosted drive, the Primary Slave, is actually disconnected from the system by removing the data and power cables from that drive. This is easy for me since my computer is operated with the side panel off!     Incidentally, my CD-ROM drive is always set as the Secondary Slave and is designated as Drive Q.     Hope this is of interest to others. If you see some major potential problems, let me know at flaginfo@bigfoot.com.
Number 216 - May 2001