how to use 2 hdd setup

D

dbuff

Hi,
I currently have 1-HDD dell studio 1749 laptop. I want to install FreeBSD. I read about problems with dual boot. I also wanted to build a more secure system. This is what I think. I could add a second HDD. How could I best use 2-HDD setup to safely preserve my current windows 7 machine, and also have FreeBSD? Possibly safest option? I though that first I could just use RAID 1 to mirror my current configuration. Then I could do dual boot on first disk, and if anything goes wrong with Windows 7 data I will still have another disk. And when I succeed I will then mirror the disk with dual boot and have 2 mirror disks with dual boot Windows 7/FreeBSD. Does it make sense. I am just a newbie. Thanks.
 
First step, mandatory: make a full backup of the Windows system.

After that, the safest option? Install a VM. Otherwise, if the laptop can hold two hard drives, install a second one. Temporarily remove the Windows hard drive, then install FreeBSD on the second drive. Reinstall the Windows drive. Use the BIOS boot menu to select a drive at bootup.
 
What do you mean by "full backup"? Would system image backup work? I am not sure but I thought that I could do mirror HDD with RAID as a "full backup". I hope I don't talk nonsense. Thanks a lot.
 
A full backup means if something accidentally happens to the main disk, there is another copy that has all the information.

A mirror is not really a backup. A backup can be kept separately from the computer.

Clonezilla works fairly well, although it requires a little Linux knowledge. The commercial versions are supposed to work, too.
 
Thanks. I will look into Clonezilla as a full backup solution. BTW I think I can also use a RAID array to do full backup. Thanks again.
 
I would suggest wiping Windows completely and have a soft RAID 1 if you going to use UFS. I am not sure if you want to use ZFS for the root. I use ZFS only for data storage but FreeBSD supports booting from ZFS so you might want to check that one.
 
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