Backing up a SCADA package

Hi

I have a customer who has an old (very old) SCADA package running on an ancient PC. They are very concerned that if the PC harddrive crashes (something that happened on another PC recently of the same age) they'll lose all their SCADA package. As I mentioned, its a very old package and they have no disks or other form of backup. Its got a hardware dongle that plugs into the serial port at the back so authorisation isn't a problem.

I wondered if it would be possible to use one of these "hard drive ghost" programmes to do a full 'image' of the hard drive. Then, if the PC broke, they could simply buy another PC and burn the saved image on to it. In theory, this PC would then be a complete copy of the one they originally had.

Has anyone got any experience on this or any thoughts on whether this would work?

Thanks for any help you can give me on this.

JT

I've done something similar in the past. A lot depends on the operating system.

Ken

Ken

I'm not sure but would guess that it would be Windows NT...

Cheers

JT

What did you use when you did it? How successful was it?

Thanks

JT

I used Norton Ghost to backed up my HMI/PC drives with good results. Once even swap out the 2 drive to test. If you install the drive in a new pc, you are going to run into updating/deleting drivers, particulary video, usb, etc. Hopefully most are handle by the plug and play.

DaveW

Thanks for that. I was thinking of Norton Ghost but wasn't sure it would do the job. Cheers mate.

PS. When it backs up the drive does it zip the image? Or is the image the same size as the drive that it was taken from?

When using "ghost" software on NT machines, the new machine, must have the same hardware or you get all types of driver issues, and an unbootable PC. What Scada package are you trying to backup?
If it's Fix32 or DMACS, I can help.

Ken

The system is called Albatross. I think its an proprietary system made by OCME.

I've seen it in a couple of factories now.

It works fine but as I said, its no longer supported and the machine that its on is old. A similar aged PC just died a few weeks back so now its a panic to back up this system incase the same thing happens.

I'm considering upgrading it but I'm unsure how to 'sniff' the comms in order to find out what info is being passed backwards and forwards (but that's another post)..

I clone the drive so there's an extra drive to swap out if the 1st fail. Ghost will back it up to a file or cd if it will fit. Compression too.

Dave

Thanks for that. Will give it a go...

(Fingers crossed)

If you can get some downtime, you may want to install a removable hard drive setup. That way, if a failure occurs, you can unlock the hard drive, slide it out and swap in the new one in a few seconds without disassembling the PC. We've used ghost here on NT and W2k systems and it works even if the hard drive size is different. The removable hard drive is a real time saver too. It makes it possible for any tech to do the job even if his/her PC experience is limited.

OkiePC

Good tip mate, thanks.

You can now buy a PCI card for mirrored ATA drives. I have a few of these installed in NT machines. We purchased the cards, two drive bays and 3 hard drives for around 320.00 USD per machine (depends on what size Hard Drives you purchase). Two drives are a mirrored pair, they are hot swappable, and can be booted as a single drive. We have three drives so that we can rotate one out as a back up on a routine basis.
I used a card and drive bays from Promise Technology: LINK

Been up and running for about 30 months.

Ken

Thanks mate (again )

I'll look into that link tomorrow (off to my pit now)

Cheers

JT