For Steve Milone and anyone else interested ...

[MaxMercury]

Steve,

Fulltime dad tryin' to survive the "formative years" with twin 4-yr-olds ;)

I like your sig! I've got twin 4-year-olds too (brothers)!! Mine get into mischief but are pretty well-behaved overall. They run all over the house, wrestle with each other, play in a big tent made of paper, demand my lap half the time, and they leap about 5 ft. in the air trying to catch moths. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention... my dynamic duo are cats. :-D I have a feeling you have the tougher job.

In all seriousness, kudos to you for being willing to be a full-time dad. That's still not totally accepted in our society, so I think it's great you're doing it and serving as a pioneer and model for others. :thumbsup

-- Max

[mlbpro417]

Well said Max. I also believe thats great what you are doing. Max you had me there with the cats. I thought you were talking about little brothers :-D

[PCC-Jon]

My wife's name is Heidi, and coincidently, my very young cousins also have a cat named Heidi. Very fun conversations can happen with this mix :) Having married last August, we're starting to get nagged about kids.

Person1: Heidi had babies today!
Person2: She did?!? I didn't know she was even pregnant!
Person1: Yep, she had a bunch. 10, I think.
Person2: What?
Person1: Yeah, they couldn't keep them...so they put them in a box and gave them out to the neighborhood kids.
Person2: What?!

[SEO-Dan]

My hats off to any full-time parent. :thumbsup

[MaxMercury]

Max you had me there with the cats. I thought you were talking about little brothers.
Ahh, sorry, I should have written "boys." I actually have two brothers, but they're not twins. Right now, one of my little brothers (named Steve!) is standing in line in costume on the West Coast waiting to see the premiere of "Star Wars III." I should be there with him wearing my Wookie outfit! ;-)

My wife's name is Heidi, and coincidently, my very young cousins also have a cat named Heidi....
Jon, that was a terrific anecdote! :rofl That's a keeper! :-)

My hat's off to any full-time parent.
Yep. Mine too!

-- Max

[mlbpro417]

I wish I wouldn't have had such a terrible headache or I would have seen Star Wars at Midnight last night

[sjmilone]

In all seriousness, kudos to you for being willing to be a full-time dad. That's still not totally accepted in our society, so I think it's great you're doing it and serving as a pioneer and model for others. :thumbsup

-- Max

Wow, amazing what a signature can spark, eh?? Anyway thanks guys for the kind words :-) ... you had me going about the "boys" too, Max.

Actually we have 2 sets of twins... my first are black lab girls, gonna be 7 pretty soon. The other set, one of each flavor, are actually 5 weeks apart in age, we adopted them in Kazakhstan back in 2002 at 14 & 15 months. Technically not twins (that woulda been a HELL of a labor/delivery), but in all ways that matter, they are. 8 nephews, 4 nieces as of last night, 5 as of this morning... (YESSSSSSSSSSS, finally one on my side!! :thumbsup ) we're all about "the kids" around here :group

Jon, that was a hilarious story... wife and I both come from a big families (duplicate names are almost guaranteed in extended families...) who always had pets around, so it really strikes a chord :thumbsup

Of course, I'm the biggest kid of all... I see from fedex tracking that my Puget PC is on the truck heading for my house YAYAYAYYYYY ... "is it here yet? is it here yet? is it here yet? ..."

hehehe

[MaxMercury]

Steve,

... we adopted them in Kazakhstan back in 2002 at 14 & 15 months.
That's really interesting. One of my cousins considered doing the same but ended up adopting a boy from Korea. Anyway, how did you like Kazakhstan? I've heard it's really beautiful with a wide variety of cultures and languages.

8 nephews, 4 nieces as of last night, 5 as of this morning... (YESSSSSSSSSSS, finally one on my side!!
Congratulations! I've got a large family too, including pets. ;-)

we're all about "the kids" around here
:thumbsup Your kids are really lucky to have you!

Anyway, great post! I especially liked:
Of course, I'm the biggest kid of all ... I see from fedex tracking that my Puget PC is on the truck heading for my house YAYAYAYYYYY ... "is it here yet? is it here yet? is it here yet? ..."

And I especially especially liked:

hehehe
:-D

-- Max

[sjmilone]

Anyway, how did you like Kazakhstan? I've heard it's really beautiful with a wide variety of cultures and languages.

We loved it, we went when spring was just arriving, so we saw some of the muddy season then some of the green-up season as well. It was truly a life-changing experience. I hear from folks who have gone after us that it's totally different now than even back in '02... they're making rapid progress in their post-USSR-era recovery. People are wonderful and quite friendly for the most part.

:thumbsup Your kids are really lucky to have you!

Yeah well I dont know about that ... it's sure challenging at times :bang
but then one of them will do something so cool or just so very off-the-wall that ya just have to think... "maybe I *am* making an impression on 'em!?!" :jaw

Anyway... you've mentioned in a few other threads about partitioning for efficiency as well as safety... and I have to say I've picked up quite a bit reading your posts :) Would you mind giving a suggestion or two on setting up a partitioning scheme for my new PCC system? I've done this in the past but I think "daddy brain" is really affecting me and I can't really think straight... Don't trust myself to even plug the machine in without having a gameplan already on paper (and I'm DYING to power her up!)

She's running XP/pro. In addition to being my main home PC (read that "docs, number crunching, some games & surfing"), I will be doing video editing (amatuer to semi-pro level) Photoshop and some deep space imaging (multi-layer imaging thru a CCD camera/telescope config). I also prepare taxes as a home-business for the first 3 months of the year, and need to keep strict access control to the client data.

I've got (2) SATA Barracuda 120's and an external USB 250gb drive, Mistsumi 7in1, internal and external DVD burners & a photosmart printer that has a card reader built in.

As far as utilities, I plan on getting both True Image and Disk Director Suite ASAP... don't want to do ANYthing to the drives till I've got a clean "base system image". I'm also dissatisfied with Symantec for anything more than Antivirus these days (and I've been using Norton since Peter's first public release), otherwise I'd give Ghost another chance.

Here's what I was thinking about partitioning... [Drive letters are arbitrarily named here, I don't even know whatall letters are taken up already... but I know I can always re-assign drive letters on the fly] Feel free to tear it apart, it's a first stab, typed in haste while the kids are napping!

Drive0 - 120gb#1
(1) C:\ - XP, Drivers & any programs/components that refuse to live on E:
(2) E:\ - "Everything else" (programs other than tax software)
(3) F:\ - "MyDocuments" - data Files for basic programs
(4) P:\ - Page/Swap file

Drive1 - 120gb#2
(1) I:\ - online image of C: drive - in addition to removable media backups, of course
(2) V:\ - Video & photo processing drive (firewire importing, rendering & temp files)

Drive2 - 250gb External ** need to be able to use tax programs/data both in home office as well as remotely with laptop... plan to be doing some outreach stuff next season at local senior centers and such...
(1) S:\ - Media storage (music, photos, video *post-editing storage*)
(2) T:\ - Tax programs and data

I also have the option of popping in an older 13gb IDE drive (5400RPM?? I doubt it's a 7200, I bought it mid'90s) and using THAT strictly for the swap file if it will help performance/reduce system drive fragging by moving it off the system drive.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts! Anyone else welcome to chime in, I'd like to get different perspectives here.

[MaxMercury]

Hi Steve!

I'll get back to you, but it may not be until tomorrow or Sunday. I've got a lot on my plate tonight and this weekend. But I'll definitely get back to you. By the way, I'm not even a fan of Norton AV. Norton used to be synonymous with quality back in the DOS days, but no longer.

Anyway, until later,
-- Max

[sjmilone]

...But I'll definitely get back to you. By the way, I'm not even a fan of Norton AV. Norton used to be synonymous with quality back in the DOS days, but no longer.

Thanks very much, Max... Whenver you have a chance is fine :thumbsup , I'd much rather take the extra time to do it right the first time. Don't want to :censored it up by rushing to play. Besides, my UV cables, cold cathode lights & 12cm case fans dont arrive till wednesday.

And I haven't even downloaded the Acronis packages yet (I'll be DL'ing them to the laptop then burning to CD). I made the bonehead :curse mistake once (ONLY once) not saving the download/install file... of course it was MS Money 2005, and well... that's certainly NOT their best version! Thankfully I have since changed back to Quicken.

[MaxMercury]

Steve,

OK, I've read through your post a few times now; looked at your system specs (in another thread here: http://forums.pugetsystems.com/viewtopic.php?t=1416); and read one of your other posts where you were asking about GoBack and Ghost (here: http://forums.pugetsystems.com/viewtopic.php?t=754). Personally, I think it sounds like you really know what you're doing, i.e. making sure you have a "game plan" and that you'll have a "clean base system image" before you do anything. Good planning and reliable utilities are half the battle. :thumbsup

Part 1 - Partitioning
Even though you're using XP Pro, I'm assuming your disk structure is basic rather than dynamic, since you've got an external HD (which won't work with a dynamic disk structure), and True Image will only work with basic disks. So, all of the following only pertains to basic disks.

As I'm sure you know, every hard drive has to have one primary, active partition. Beyond that, I'm among those who feel that there's no one best way to partition drives, and to a large degree, it's a matter of personal preference. I think the best advice I have is to make sure you have a proven, reliable backup strategy in place, and it sounds like you already do. :thumbsup It's possible, especially if you're a creative person or someone who likes to tinker, that whatever partitioning scheme you choose now may not be what you want a few months from now or a year from now. Having a good backup/imaging strategy not only keeps your data/apps safe but allows for a lot of flexibility if you end up wanting to completely re-design your scheme.

That said, let's look at what you propose. One thing that stands out is that it looks like you want to put your page file in the last (innermost) partition of your system (OS)/boot drive. Ahh, the page file. A hotly debated topic.

For example, some people advocate dedicating a HD to the page file; others say that's a waste of perfectly good HD space. Some say it's best not to mess around with the page file and just let XP handle it; others insist that "tweaking" (in various ways) will improve performance. Some people say you have to be concerned about page file fragmentation; others say that's a myth or that it just doesn't fragment much. I've got so-called authoritative books on XP from Microsoft Press, and the advice therein has been counter to that of other experts. Feel like :stare :wig yet? ;-)

So, what do you do? Well, my approach is to experiment to see what works best for me, and if you're so inclined, that approach might work for you. I'd monitor page file function via Task Manager, just because I like to do such things. (There are also utilities, and one of them is called "Page File Monitor for Windows XP," which you can download here: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm ).

You do a lot of RAM-intensive activity, (video and photo-editing), and you work with large files, so I do think that's important and needs to be taken into consideration. What are XP's default settings? Since you have 1GB of RAM, your initial page file size would be 1.5GB and the maximum would be 4GB. That could work out just fine for you. But what are your other options? I honestly don't see a lot of benefit in having it in its own partition on your system drive. If you do want to try that, I'd create a partition for it right after the "C" partition. That will get it as close to the outermost (fastest) part of the drive as possible. You can also put it on your 2nd 120GB drive, but that drive will be accessed a lot since it's primarily your video/photo processing drive, so that's not really optimal, according to most sources. You could also split the page file across both 120GB drives and see how that works. You could use your old drive and dedicate it to the page file, but since it's so old, I'd be concerned about its reliability and compatibility with your system. And if it's slow, well, that seems to defeat the purpose of a dedicated space for the page file. If I were you, I wouldn't worry much about the page file for now. I'd leave it alone (not putting it in its own partition) and see how your system functions with the default settings. If you're unhappy with performance, you can try other options.

If you'd like links to some of the many articles I've read on this, let me know. I decided not to provide them automatically since there's so much conflicting information, and often, you just have to do your own testing to find out what's accurate.

As for the rest of your proposed partitioning plan, given your needs, it looks fine to me. Ideally, I'd say it'd be nice if you had a 3rd internal drive for storage of partition images and other things so that you could dedicate one of your 120GB drives solely to "video & photo processing (firewire importing, rendering & temp files)." Or a future upgrade could include a 74GB Raptor as your system/boot drive, which you could dedicate to XP Pro and your applications; then one of your 120GB drives could be dedicated to video & photo processing; the other 120GB drive could be used for documents; storage of partition images; storage of downloaded programs; etc.

Basically, the consensus seems to be the more drives you have, the fewer partitions you need in each drive, but again it's really up to you. For me, I like to keep XP and my critical apps in a partition no larger than 20GB for easy imaging.

Part 2 -- Software
I'd like to clarify that even though I've bad-mouthed Symantec, I do have some products that they acquired from other companies -- Partition Magic, DriveImage (both from PowerQuest) and GoBack (unsure who originally developed it; the 1st version I used was 2.1, put out by a company called Wild File.) I also have Norton AV 2002, but no longer use it since Symantec no longer supports it, i.e. they don't update the AV scanning engine. In terms of Ghost, it may very well be simply DriveImage re-named. If it is, then it could be an excellent product, as DriveImage was. I just can't vouch for it since I've never used it under the Ghost name. I'm very happy with Acronis' True Image, though, and it sounds like you've already bought it along with their Disk Director suite.

As for GoBack, it sounds like you've used it in the past, or tried to, on your ThinkPad, so you know how it works and what it does. It's a program that I like having around, but currently, I've only got it installed on one system -- an old one that can't run WinXP and therefore doesn't have XP's System Restore feature. I'm not using it on any other PC at the moment because I don't feel I need it, and I just don't like having it run in the background, even though today's systems can easily handle its CPU overhead. In fact, after thinking about it, I've withdrawn my recommendation that Puget carry GoBack, mainly because I have a feeling most of Puget's customers are those that like to maximize performance. But I think GoBack is valuable for novices, people with computer anxiety, people who want an "install it and forget about it" solution to disaster recovery, people who want more protection than System Restore provides, people who only have one hard drive, people who don't like to perform routine maintenance, like backups, and so on. As you know, unlike System Restore, GoBack monitors everything (including data files) down to a gnat's eyebrow and therefore allows you to recover even the tiny hairs in the eyebrow ;-), in the event that something goes wrong. I find it very interesting to view GoBack's logs, especially when I'm helping someone and trying to determine what might have precipitated a problem. GoBack shouldn't be considered a substitute for data backups, but lots of people are lax about doing that and then accidentally delete important stuff (and empty their Recycle Bin) and GoBack makes it easy to retrieve such data without having to use a separate file recovery utility. Anyway, it's a good program but probably would irritate anyone interested in maximizing performance.

OK, I hope that helps a little. :-)
-- Max

[sjmilone]

Part 1 - Partitioning
Even though you're using XP Pro, I'm assuming your disk structure is basic rather than dynamicYes, that's correct.

especially if you're a creative person or someone who likes to tinkerYeah, that would be me... I like my toys :-D

it looks like you want to put your page file in the last (innermost) partition of your system (OS)/boot drive. :shock
Good catch!! :thumbsup Like I said, the post was done in haste, with the naptime clock running

"Page File Monitor for Windows XP," which you can download here: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm ).Thanks, I've downloaded it to the laptop, will tinker there before bringing it over to the PCC system.

a future upgrade could include a 74GB Raptor as your system/boot drive, which you could dedicate to XP Pro and your applicationsYes, that's in the plan for upgrades... along with the other CPU and another gig of RAM.

Part 2 -- Software
I'd like to clarify that even though I've bad-mouthed Symantec, I do have some products that they acquired from other companies
Didn't mean to indicate a blanket distrust/dislike for Symantec, I've just found Ghost and GoBack didn't work well on/for the config I was using for the past 5 years. Of course I was pushing it to the extreme :wig I'm pretty much a once-burnt/twice-shy kinda guy so it will be a while before I attempt Norton stuff on the new machine :compow ... but it's even money that it'll be within a year, as I do like to tinker. I've already imaged the new system drive with Acronis, as well as the external drive. Haven't put any burning software on the machine yet (plan on using Nero 6 Ultra), so the system is bombing when I try to burn the image to a dvd. Just keeping it online for now on the 2nd HDD.

OK, I hope that helps a little. :-)
-- MaxWow Max, it helps a great deal! :thumbsup Thank you very much, you obviously put quite a bit of thought and time into the post and helping out here on the forum too!

[sjmilone]

OK now that I've had a chance to digest Max's observations and recommendations, I've re-thought the partitioning a bit, and have installed that old 13gb drive to pull off some of the stuff that was sitting there unused since we fried our old packard-bell 4 years ago.

Back in the day, courtesy of the old 2gb partition size limits, I had to split that drive into 7 partitions, and it required a bootstrap program to get the bios to recognize it properly as well. :loco

<Fast forward to 2005> Talk about plug-and-play.. just physically installed it, hooked up the power and IDE cable, powered up and it recognized it right off the bat, no need for the bootstrap translator. Gotta love technology :)

Anyway, it's a 5400 RPM (checked the Mod# on Maxtors site) drive that so it will be strictly for infrequently-accessed storage - most likely online partition images. We bought it about a year before the machine died, :anger and it's just sat in an antistat bag since. So, it's not really that "old" in its lifecycle, just technologically and chronologically. It'll be a good drive to play with the Acronis stuff. First trial after imaging the contents... re-combining those partitions into one :-)

Now, on to installing some of the software that came with the system so I can start playing... :type ...and get back to ordering a couple more cables and paint for the case mods :thumbsup

[MaxMercury]

Hi Steve,

First, it sounds like you're having a lot of fun with your new computer! :thumbsup

Yes, that's in the plan for upgrades (74GB Raptor) ... along with the other (Xeon) CPU and another gig of RAM.
Ah, I misunderstood your post in the other thread. I thought you were getting the other Xeon pretty soon. At any rate, you've already got a great configuration, but with those upgrades -- well, as the younger folks say, woo-hoo! ;-)

I've already imaged the new system drive with Acronis, as well as the external drive. Haven't put any burning software on the machine yet (plan on using Nero 6 Ultra), so the system is bombing when I try to burn the image to a dvd.
Yeah, I use Nero 6 Ultra also. By the way, the build I have of True Image is 774. It's a few months old and might not be their latest build. But build 774 doesn't support booting Acronis from any kind of DVD drive unless your BIOS recognizes it as a CD drive. For example, my laptop just has a combo DVD/CD-RW. Acronis boots fine from it because my BIOS sees the drive as a CD rather than DVD drive. I'll eventually get around to checking Acronis' website to see if they've updated the program, but just thought I'd let you know. So, I hope you have some kind of CD drive.

EDIT: I just saw their latest build is 826. I knew they updated frequently, but yikes! Anyway, I'm downloading it now to update my own build. Also, thinking it over, you can probably create a bootable DVD for Acronis. I just haven't tried since I've got a CD-RW drive. If I find out, I'll update this thread again.

Anyway, it's a 5400 RPM (checked the Mod# on Maxtors site) drive that so it will be strictly for infrequently-accessed storage - most likely online partition images. We bought it about a year before the machine died, and it's just sat in an antistat bag since. So, it's not really that "old" in its lifecycle, just technologically and chronologically.
OK, I see. I mistakenly assumed that it had been used a lot. Still, if you don't mind me meddling a little more ;-), before you store anything important on it, I'd check it for errors and bad sectors, etc., maybe even run a burn-in program for HDs on it if you have one. Maxtor may have a diagnostic program specifically for their drives on their site. It's clear you know what you're doing, and you may have already tested your drive, but I figured I might as well make a friendly suggestion.

By the way, how do you like your Lian-Li 7H+ case? I've been thinking of getting one of those.

Also, I meant to comment on this from your earlier post:
...deep space imaging (multi-layer imaging thru a CCD camera/telescope config)
Wow, very cool! I wish I had something more intelligent to say, but about all I know are the planets and a few constellations. My mom is the true astronomy buff in the family. But I love fiction set in space. ;-)

Have fun with your case mods!
-- Max

[MaxMercury]

Steve,

One thing I should have mentioned earlier is that Wilders Security Forums (great overall site) has an Official Acronis Support Forum: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php?

Lots of people have requested that Acronis TI support booting the program from DVD (in addition to CD). Anyway, I found the following thread at Wilders, which should be helpful, and which I'll try myself:

How to create bootable rescue DVD(s) (for True Image) (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=48186&highlight=bootable)

Also, you've probably read that Acronis TI supports writing images to various external devices, but sometimes there can be file corruption. Since I know you've got an external HD (and so do I), I just saw this thread over at Wilders, which might interest you:

External hard drive recommendations (to work with True Image) (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=81259)

As a matter of fact, today, I just received some very cool stuff -- a 120GB SATA hard drive, a SATA external enclosure, SATA ports on a PCMCIA card (for my laptop) and a SATA pass-through cable for my main desktop, which will plug into a motherboard header. So, I'll be able to use the hard drive with my laptop and desktop. I wanted to get a SATA, so the drive could be bootable, and of course, for more speed with file transfers. It'll be interesting to see how True Image works with it.

More on the Page File:
I know I said I wasn't going to provide links, but while looking around at Acronis' website for their latest update to TI, I happened to notice they have a good, accurate article on virtual memory, IMO. Maybe I think it's good, though, because it pretty much supports what I told you, ;-) i.e. might as well keep the page file on your system drive since you don't have a fast drive to put it on that's not accessed frequently. There's a typo, though, in the article: In paragraph 10, they write: ...don't bother with fault-tolerant storage schemes like RAID 0 or RAID 5.
They mean RAID 1, not RAID 0. RAID 0 isn't fault tolerant.

Link: Making the Most of Virtual Memory, Acronis Resource Center (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/resource/tips-tricks/2005/making-the-most-of-virtual-memory.html)

There's also another article that, based on my own experience, provides accurate information about virtual memory. Unfortunately, I don't think it's written very well, and the style is a bit too dogmatic with too much in all caps. (Maybe it's dogmatic since it's on a site called Tweakhound. ;-) ) Anyway, it's certainly more for techies than others, IMO, but since you sound pretty techie-ish (that's a compliment! ;-) ), you might find it interesting.

Some exceprts:
For best performance, you need to make your page file so large that the operating system never needs to expand it ... In other words, your virtual memory must be more abundant than the OS will request (soooo obvious, isn't it). This will be known as your initial minimum. Then, for good measure you need to leave expansion available to about three times this initial minimum. Thus the OS will be able to keep you working in case your needs grow, i.e.: you start using some of those very sophisticated programs that get written more and more every day, or you create more user accounts, (user accounts invoke page file for fast user switching), or for whatever, there is no penalty leaving expansion enabled.

NOW YOU HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS. A page file that is static, because you have made the initial minimum so large the OS will never need to expand it, and, expansion enabled just in case you are wrong in your evaluation of what kind of power user you are or become.

USUALLY THE DEFAULT SETTINGS OF XP ACCOMPLISH THIS GOAL. Most users do not need to be concerned or proactive setting their virtual memory. In other words, leave it alone.

Link: Understanding Virtual Memory, May 2004, by Perris Calderon (http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/virtualmemory.htm)

As I said, you can easily find plenty of opposing views and lots of debate on this subject. As noted, I just figure out what works best for me.

OK, that's it for now. Good luck, and I hope all of this added info hasn't driven you :loco.

-- Max :-D

[sjmilone]

By the way, how do you like your Lian-Li 7H+ case? I've been thinking of getting one of those. I like it so far. I may have mentioned that with my mobo, we needed to run some frontx cables out the back to fire up the front usb ports by routing the signal from the rear through the case... Also very good cooling... (2) 12cm fans (upper rear and lower front) and mounting holes in place on the top of the case for another (? 8 or 9.2cm). Plenty of room for anything I'll be putting in there :thumbsup The only downside I can see is the brushed black finish is already attracting fingerprints ... and showcasing them :anger

Also, I meant to comment on this from your earlier post:
Quote:
...deep space imaging (multi-layer imaging thru a CCD camera/telescope config)

Wow, very cool! Yeah, I can't wait to try it out actually. have had the gizmos just waiting for a system that wouldn't throw up all over the idea of the RAM/Disk intensive-ness

Thanks for the links about working with TI, I'll definitely check them out.

Sounds like you're doing some tinkering of your own there with all your new SATA cables 'n gadgets ;-) Have fun, hope it works out the way you expect it to.

I'll also check out the articles about the page file, and yes in a previous life I would have considered myself a techie :-)

I come from the land of Intellivision, Apple II, TRaSh80's... have seen floppy disks shrink from 8" to 5-1/4 to 3.5 to all-but-obsolete, and "state-of-the-art-RAM" jump from 16k to 16gb... have programmed my share of cobol, fortran, pascal & C... and I too started out using a "screaming fast" 300bd modem attached to my old HP Vectra Portable (dare not call it a laptop, but it wasn't quite a lunchbox)... it's been a while though.

A few career sidetracks and a couple of kids later, well, lets just say I'm otherwise occupied most of the time.

Anyway, have a great one!

[MaxMercury]

Steve,
I just realized, I think I misread part of one of your posts. I always run TI from a CD-RW rather than keeping the program on a HD, so I thought you meant you were having trouble creating a bootable TI DVD. Now I think you simply meant that since you didn't have Nero installed yet, you weren't able to burn images to DVD. Is that right? If so, sorry about that. Is your DVD writer internal or external? If external, hopefully Acronis supports it. I know they've added support for various external devices recently.

I know what you mean about priorities changing in different stages of life.

No need to answer this post. I'm sure you've got your hands full. Thanks for the discussion, and have fun with your new system, your kids, critters, and so on!

-- Max