Hello there, Please advise me the procedure to take a Mark-V backup so that I can re-install the entire stuff in the event of HMI crash as we have already lost the installation CD

 

samson16,

Your best, and simplest, solution is to use Acronis TrueImage software to "ghost" the entire hard drive to optical media (CD; DVD) in a bootable format. This has been covered in several previous threads in control.com. (There is a 'Search' field cleverly hidden at the far right edge of the Menu bar of every control.com webpage. It's recommended to use the Search 'Help" before attempting a search as it's not as intuitive as other search engines--but it is as fast or faster and when used properly will quickly return results.)

TrueImage is usually provided on most GE Mark V HMIs (the ones that run MS-Windows and CIMPLICITY). It's not very expensive and can be downloaded from several World Wide Web sellers (including Amazon.com) rather than having to go to a retail store to purchase a copy. It's very easy to use, and works very well--though there are other similar products on the market.

The ONE thing you need to do before running any product like this is: <b>STOP</b> CIMPLICITY. You can leave TCI running (though I usually stop it as well), but CIMPLICITY opens a couple of files and locks them so most software balks at copying those files and so a full back-up is not really created.

Another thing that many sites do is to purchase and install another hard drive in the GE Mark V HMI CPU and use Acronis TrueImage or similar product to ghost the existing hard drive to the new hard drive. Then the new hard drive can either be removed and stored in a safe, dry, humidity-controlled environment or it can be left in the HMI CPU, disconnected, until a new ghost image is required to be made or some issue occurs with the existing hard drive, at which time the hard drive can be quickly reconnected.

These are the two best "back-up" options. Restoring from original distribution disks is fraught with problems--as rarely are all of the required parameters and software on the original distribution disks. Making some kind of "ghost" image either to optical media or another hard drive is always the most expedient and best option now and if the time arises when a re-install is required.

Also, depending on the version of MS-Windows installed on the GE Mark V HMI, it's always a good idea to periodically (once per year, at a minimum) to defragment the hard drive--again, after stopping CIMPLICITY, and also TCI in this case. Do a full defragment for best results. And, it's best to do this AFTER making the "ghost" image--so that in case something goes awry with the defragmentation (or an impatient person "accidentally" aborts the defragmentation before it's complete...!) there is a recovery method quickly available from a known good configuration.

If you're still using an <I> (which does NOT use MS-Windows and CIMPLICITY) and you want to back-up the <I>, that's another, much longer process--and usually requires a working floppy disk drive, and most floppy disk drives in older GE Mark V operator interfaces have long since quit working (dust; interrupt problems (usually caused by MODBUS); etc.). This is really difficult to describe and implement, so unless you're using an <I> I'm not going to detail this now or in the future, either--since using an <I> is just begging for problems <b>WHEN</b> the ARCnet interface card dies, or the CPU dies.