Walk me through your "rebuild" process...

With Windows 10 now available - I will be embarking on a huge upgrade of 5 workstations here at the house. One will be getting completely new components - while others will inherit parts of other machines and still others will be retired completely.

One priority for this job is to ensure that each workstation "retains" it's current "data" drive folder structure. Currently each box contains at least one 500GB or 1TB drive containing "stuff" that has been sitting there for at least 3 years (or more).

In some cases - it would take hours/days to move all this "stuff" elsewhere (Like a server or something) and then put it all back after the build.

My usual method of handling this in prior builds was to simply disconnect the hard drive, build the box with just a lone C drive and then reconnect the drives. In some cases it seemed to work fine - in others - I immediately started to see issues with file/folder security and had to resort to all sorts of fun trying to reset permissions to default etc etc.

I have one specific drive (on my DAW) - that contains hundreds of thousands of samples etc that is a nightmare to deal with if the permissions are wonky.

While my preference would be to simply disconnect, build and reconnect - I am open to using something like Robocopy etc to move stuff off the drive, format it and then put it back.

How to do you guys handle a complete ground up rebuild when faced with a drive full of stuff that you want to retain in the exact same structure as a prior build?

Cheers!

VP

ignatzatsonic said:

I've never had the permissions issue to which you refer.

Having said that, I don't get cute with data and try to just use multiple simple backups. Like you, I disconnect and then re-connect.

I have played with Robocopy, but it is such a powerful tool that I'm afraid of it since I'm not an expert with it and don't really need it.

I tend to make backups with 2 methods: ordinary drag and drop with a mouse and semi-automated backup with an application designed to back up while maintaining my folder structure (I use FreeFileSync).

Imaging is also a possibility, although I use it only for OS drives. I use Macrium Reflect Free Edition.

I'd just grit my teeth and use tried and true traditional methods for data backup. It's not like you rebuild every month and have to go through this constantly. I don't know enough about the permissions issue to tell you how to avoid that, but I'd rather fight that after the fact than do something exotic in an attempt to avoid permissions issues and then end up in a jam (lost data?).

While I have plenty of backups hanging around - I only backup the key stuff daily. For example - I would never backup this sample drive since the software is readily accessible should something happen and quite frankly - I don't feel the need to back up something this static with any regularity.

To the subject of permissions - I still remain confused on how a drive full of data from a prior install can exist correctly in a fresh install. All the files on the drive will have SIDs and ACLs (Access Control Lists) from the prior build.

Since all these SIDs and ACLs are unique and generated fresh at time of install - it baffles me as to how I can install Windows 10 - logically generating new master account SID's for the SYSTEM acct and internal groups like "Adminstrators" etc and then reconnect a drive full of old stuff with the old SID's/ACL's from the old machine build

Not certain how this works - and again - I have not done a rebuild in a long while - but I do remember being bit when I moved specific data drives from Vista builds to Windows 7 builds. I remember having to run the ICACLS command line tool and a bunch of other jazz to set things right.

In the interest of safety - I may just offload all the junk onto an external drive for each machine, rebuild it and format all the drives fresh and then copy the data back into position. Might take a bunch fo extra time but at least I know the permission will be correct.

VP