Following is a lot of tech crap, but submitted as possible interest to computer wizards who are more whizzy than I.
After a lot of waiting, a great deal came up on Amazon for external backup drives. I have two computers where I’ve never “ghosted” the startup/program drives (I’ve backed up data drives, of course.)
My XP system doesn’t have a disk image built in, so I’m exploring 3rd party stuff, but my Win7/64 does have a disk image setup, so I started doing my first C-drive backup.
My 64 bit system has three physical hard drives (it came that way). Drive 0 is the C drive, where my operating system lives and all my programs.
Drive D is my data drive. All my work is here, and it is backed up on three different computers and Carbonite.
Drive E was just there. I used it to store raw video files and a few other archival things that take up space. A Captain Dunsel Drive.
Behold, the disk image software insisted on backing up my C drive AND my E drive. Both apparently essential parts of my startup system.
When I adjusted my folder viewing options to show hidden system files, I had a boot folder and files on the E Drive. I have no idea why or how.
I couldn’t delete them. Wouldn’t let me. I copied the data files to my new external drive, and tried reformating it. Wouldn’t let me. I renamed the boot folder to disable it, and restarted to figure out how to clean this thing off so I wouldn’t have it on my disk image.
Computer wouldn’t start.
Son of a bitch, that little hidden boot thing on my extraneous drive has apparently been starting my computer for me all this time instead of the Windows installation on drive C.
This is like finding out a car you’ve been driving for years has a little engine in the trunk that’s been running your car all this time.
Restarts with the Windows DVD and a few repair tweaks to the C drive got me to where the C drive starts me up now. I’m reformatting drive E from a command prompt to clear out all confusion. Hopefully, back to normal soon.
Typing this on my old Pentium III XP engine.