hey all
Came up on another thread and thought I'd post it here as a tip for everyone just in case anyone wasn't aware of it.
And the tip is........Make an image of your hard disk and keep it with you
What this means is using a program such as Norton Ghost (or mac equivalent) you can take a copy of your whole hard drive, bit for bit, and store it separately on a CD or other hard drive. Then if you have any problems, hard disk crashes or things aren't working correctly you can just copy the image back onto your drive rather than having to go through the process of reinstalling the OS from scratch and then installing programs and then fixing all your settings and stuff.
Turns a job which is normally a couple of hours into 10 mins and your back up and running
Its also good to do anyway every 6 months or so, year tops, to keep your system nice and fresh as no matter what system your using over time bumf fills up in the OS that gradually slows it down, and this allows you to go back to a fresh, clean and fast computer.
the steps would be, quickly:
1. If your music is on the internal hard drive, make a partition of about 20GB for your OS, system and program files (or a bit more if you have lots of other software on your computer and its not just for DJing). Then make a second partition that uses the remaining space on your hard disk and use this second one to keep your music files on. This just means the image can be kept to just the system and applications and nice and small (and you should have your music backed up somewhere else anyway! )
2. Install a fresh copy of your OS, and the applications you need, so that your image will be nice and clean, and spend the time getting all the settings correct an organizing everything so its ready to go.
3. Once your happy that its all set up the way you like then create your back up image and store it either on an external drive or on DVD's.
4. The program will also usually have a facility to create a boot disk, and its a good idea to do this now as well so you're all ready.
thats it
Now if you ever cant boot, the hard drive dies or you have any other problems, you just boot from the boot disk and then copy over the image you've created and in 10 or 15 mins your back up and running with all your settings and everything all in place and sorted.
k
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