  Crash recovery and multiple system disks? 
 The Question is:
 
I have a microvax 3100-40 running VMS 5.5-2.  I purchased a hard disk and
want to perform a disk to disk backup and want to keep the new disk in a
safe place and use it if I have a system crash.  Can I simply perform an
image backup and then turn on the V
ax with the new disk installed and the system will boot up properly or do I
need to perform additional steps.  My intention is simply to store all the
data in the new disk in case of a crash, and then quickly installed the new
disk and be online again &gt;&gt;&gt;
&gt;
 
 The Answer is:
 
  Barring any discussions of unsupported disks, the ability to bootstrap
  OpenVMS is not effected by swapping disks around -- yes, you can quite
  easily do what you want to do.
 
  The disk-to-disk BACKUP or other archival operations concerning the
  system disk or other active disk should be performed according to the
  available OpenVMS system management documentation -- see the available
  information on standalone BACKUP when working with OpenVMS VAX systems.
 
  Assuming unique SCSI unit numbers, multiple system disks can be kept
  online, with switching consisting little more than a different BOOT
  command at the console.
 
