How to Configure Second Hard Drive

[Carbo]

Got a new rig, and now I find myself with a spare second hard drive. Never having run a set up like this before I have a few questions. The new PC is a Dell Dimension 4600, with a P4 3GHz, and 1024MB memory. More juice than I'll ever need. This is a home office set up, used only for surfing the 'net, emails, Word docs, and harrasing folks on ATOT.
Next, some details about the disks: the primary hard drive is a WD Caviar, 80GB. I have four partitions on it: the OS, and three additional partitions for various data and files.
The second drive is also a WD Caviar, but 40GB. It is completely wiped clean at this point. Nothing at all on it. They are configured in a Cable Select setup.
So, how best to utilize this second disk? Storage space is not at all a concern. I'll never come close to needing all those GB's. If need be I could get by with one 40GB drive and have 20GB's spare.
However, I feel like I should do something with this disk. I was thinking of using it as a backup disk for my data, (in addition to my routine backups onto DVD's).
What's important to me is not losing any data. I have files, contracts, etc. that I can't afford to lose under any circumstances. What about partitioning that second disk and backing up entire partitions from drive one to drive two?
Can I install XP Pro again in a partition on that second drive, to have in the event the first one takes a dirt nap?
Should I just yank it out of the case and toss it in my closet? I'm open to suggestions.........thanks.

 

[mechBgon]

Here's my suggestion:

Format the 40GB drive and make some folders on it labelled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Use Windows Backup to back up your My Documents folder and whatever other folders contain important stuff. Schedule recurring Backup jobs for Monday, for Tuesday, for Wednesday, etc.

Now you can recover an earlier version of a file for up to a week back. If the primary drive fails, you're covered. If the 40GB drive fails, replace it. If both fail at once... just change careers or something 😉

You could also put the 40GB drive in a removable caddy and store it off-site in a bank-deposit box if you wanted to make a weekly trip to the bank to fetch it for a fresh backup job.

 

[Carbo]

Interesting suggestion, mech. Particularly about changing careers. 🙂
I'll consider it. The hard drive suggestion, not the career change.
Also, what about installing a "backup" OS in a partition on that second disk? In the event of a complete failure of the primary drive, I can just fire up the second. Is this possible?

 

[ZachMarius]

Yes it is possible to set up the second drive with a fresh new copy of Win XP Pro.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I like mechBgon's suggestion, but with a twist - since your "backup" HD is about half the size of your primary HD, this is perfect - use Norton Ghost to do a compressed image backup of your primary HD, or of each of its partitions. That way if your system gets corrupted, you can use the backup image file to "roll back" the system to a working state. (There are some things that even XP's System Restore can't handle.. but Ghost always does the job for me.)

Since you would be imaging between drives, it should go quite fast, especially on a fairly powerful machine like that. I estimate, at most, perhaps 25-40 min for imaging the entire 80GB, or roughly 10-12 min per partition, if they average 20GB each. (On my XP2000 system, I can make an image of my 8GB partitions in under 7 min.)

If you want to make a more permanent off-line backup, then you can just split the image into chunks and burn them, or have Ghost split them itself.

 

[Carbo]

Can I/should I Ghost the C drive, (the OS), onto a partition on the second disk? Or is it better to simply install XP Pro a second time from the CD? Will this second install be bootable if/when the first disk ever dies?