Is there some software to save drivers to disk?

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?
With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.
Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?
I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone" :-)

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just
takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be
booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Paul

I think I have a simpler suggestion for you Paul, if you happen to have
Acronis True Image or any partition copying program: Just make an image of
C: and restore that. (I think that would be simpler and perhaps quicker,
unless I've missed something, which is indeed possible).

I do this C: system image/restore fair amount of time after testing out some
new software, and want to restore my system to the exact pre-test condition.

Many schemes do not "defrag" for you.

Robocopying the files off, reformatting the partition, then
copying the files back, achieved defragmentation.

If you image with many of these tools, the fragmentation
level is preserved. No "free filtering" results from a
restoration.

Paul

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?
With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure
out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk
is
not full.
Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?
I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone" :-)

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just
takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be
booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Paul

I think I have a simpler suggestion for you Paul, if you happen to have
Acronis True Image or any partition copying program: Just make an image
of
C: and restore that. (I think that would be simpler and perhaps quicker,
unless I've missed something, which is indeed possible).

I do this C: system image/restore fair amount of time after testing out
some
new software, and want to restore my system to the exact pre-test
condition.

Many schemes do not "defrag" for you.

Robocopying the files off, reformatting the partition, then
copying the files back, achieved defragmentation.

If you image with many of these tools, the fragmentation
level is preserved. No "free filtering" results from a
restoration.

Paul

OK. It seems that with Acronis True Image Home, at least, the
fragmentation is removed, since if I run Defrag just after restoring an
image, it's perfectly clean (as shown on the display) and it quickly
terminates. (And prior to that image restore operation you could really see
the fragmentation).

I'm not sure if you have ATI, but if you do, you might give it a shot, and
be pleasantly surprised!

Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?
With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.
Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

And setting the partition flag to be Active, amongst maybe some other
things. And maybe that's part (or all?) of what "fixboot" does (see Paul's
response).


If I reformat an active partition, the boot flag stays put.
So I don't have to repair that as part of my "procedure".

The handling of the boot flag is rather sloppy. Linux doesn't
use the boot flag, and uses things like GUID for identifiers.
In Windows land, I think you could set the boot flag on
more than one primary partition. Although tools to do that are
relatively scarce (PTEDIT32 could). It's a good thing,
that not too many things fool around with that MBR
boot flag. Or there'd be more trouble.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files -
or, rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted
(let's say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer)
result in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving
active sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone" :-)

I don't blame you (-:!

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just

I think that just about answers my question - more than just all the
files is needed to "move" an OS.

takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be

Sounds good.

booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Does it work regardless of what version (e. g. "SP0") the installation
disc is?

Paul
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Can a blue man sing the whites?

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:

snip

booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Does it work regardless of what version (e. g. "SP0") the installation
disc is?


As far as I know, "fixboot" is a built-in command of the recovery console.
The feature set of the recovery console, should have been set in
stone when SP0 was released. I don't have all the versions here, so
it would be kinda hard to check. The only ISO I have, is of my SP3 disc.

Paul