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Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 21st 12, 01:20 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it could
be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable into
windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption on my
part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have never tried
it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is some
limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to a
virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


Ads
  #2  
Old March 21st 12, 01:32 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
David H. Lipman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,185
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

  #3  
Old March 21st 12, 01:36 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On 3/20/2012 7:20 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it could
be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable into
windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption on my
part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have never tried
it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is some
limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to a
virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


If you backup just the partition, no! Although you should be able to fix
it with a XP install CD (not a recovery disc in most cases). With
Acronis True Image you need to backup the whole drive (MBR, Boot,
System, etc) except any partition (if you have more) that you don't care
about.

NOTE ABOUT ACRONIS: It will fail to restore (only) with some USB drives.
All other functions will work perfectly. So you would know until to try
to restore. So go through the motions and at the point to pick the
backup to restore and it can find the USB drive, you are good. So you
don't have to do the actual restore to find out if your USB drive will
work or not. Sometimes it will work with some one day and the next day, no.

Having said all of the above, it still can fail for veriest reasons.
Because of this, I throw in a spare drive and test it out to make sure
everything is ok when I test to see if the restores are ok. Most people
don't bother and learn the hard way like I used to.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP
  #4  
Old March 21st 12, 01:54 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

BillW50 wrote:
On 3/20/2012 7:20 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could
be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on
it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive
that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into
windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption on
my
part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have never
tried
it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is some
limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to a
virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


If you backup just the partition, no! Although you should be able to fix
it with a XP install CD (not a recovery disc in most cases). With
Acronis True Image you need to backup the whole drive (MBR, Boot,
System, etc) except any partition (if you have more) that you don't care
about.


Well, when I create an image backup in Acronis, I just select C: as the
partition, and it seems to backup everything related to that. (It seems to
know about MBR and Track 0, as I mention below):

When I use Acronis to restore, I select C: in the checkbox, and just below
that, it puts a dotted box around the MBR and Track 0, which I assume
implies it's restoring those too.

NOTE ABOUT ACRONIS: It will fail to restore (only) with some USB drives.
All other functions will work perfectly. So you would know until to try
to restore. So go through the motions and at the point to pick the
backup to restore and it can find the USB drive, you are good. So you
don't have to do the actual restore to find out if your USB drive will
work or not. Sometimes it will work with some one day and the next day,
no.

Having said all of the above, it still can fail for veriest reasons.
Because of this, I throw in a spare drive and test it out to make sure
everything is ok when I test to see if the restores are ok. Most people
don't bother and learn the hard way like I used to.


I have successfully used Acronis True Image Home (version 11) to back up my
system with both USB external and SATA internal and external drives and so
far, without issues (fortunately) in the restorations, which I have done a
lot of.


  #5  
Old March 21st 12, 02:02 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on
it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive
that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there
is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image
to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

I knew it worked well on a functional hard drive, but I didn't know if it
would work ok on a brand new, unformatted and unitialized, hard drive. From
what you're saying it does, and it takes care of all of that automatically.
Which is good to know.

So from that point of view, you don't really ever need a disk CLONE,
assuming you have some image backups, a bootable CD with ATI on it, AND a
brand new hard drive handy.

I guess the only disadvantage of this emergency backup method (i.e., for a
completely ruined defective main hard drive) is that it relies on having a
bootable ATI restore CD handy, and a good reliable image backup on another
drive, AND on having a brand new hard drive handy - instead of just
replacing the drive with a CLONE.


  #6  
Old March 21st 12, 02:04 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On 3/20/2012 7:54 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 3/20/2012 7:20 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could
be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a *completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on
it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive
that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into
windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption on
my
part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have never
tried
it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there is some
limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image to a
virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).


If you backup just the partition, no! Although you should be able to fix
it with a XP install CD (not a recovery disc in most cases). With
Acronis True Image you need to backup the whole drive (MBR, Boot,
System, etc) except any partition (if you have more) that you don't care
about.


Well, when I create an image backup in Acronis, I just select C: as the
partition, and it seems to backup everything related to that. (It seems to
know about MBR and Track 0, as I mention below):

When I use Acronis to restore, I select C: in the checkbox, and just below
that, it puts a dotted box around the MBR and Track 0, which I assume
implies it's restoring those too.

NOTE ABOUT ACRONIS: It will fail to restore (only) with some USB drives.
All other functions will work perfectly. So you would know until to try
to restore. So go through the motions and at the point to pick the
backup to restore and it can find the USB drive, you are good. So you
don't have to do the actual restore to find out if your USB drive will
work or not. Sometimes it will work with some one day and the next day,
no.

Having said all of the above, it still can fail for veriest reasons.
Because of this, I throw in a spare drive and test it out to make sure
everything is ok when I test to see if the restores are ok. Most people
don't bother and learn the hard way like I used to.


I have successfully used Acronis True Image Home (version 11) to back up my
system with both USB external and SATA internal and external drives and so
far, without issues (fortunately) in the restorations, which I have done a
lot of.


I have Acronis True Image 2009, 2011, and the free WD and Seagate
versions. And these all have problems with some USB drives. But if it
passes this test and everything you have stated, it sounds like you are
good to go. ;-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP
  #7  
Old March 21st 12, 02:06 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
David H. Lipman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,185
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

From: "Bill in Co"

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a
*completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD
that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on
it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into
the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive
that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an
assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there
is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image
to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).

Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

I knew it worked well on a functional hard drive, but I didn't know if it
would work ok on a brand new, unformatted and unitialized, hard drive.
From what you're saying it does, and it takes care of all of that
automatically. Which is good to know.

So from that point of view, you don't really ever need a disk CLONE,
assuming you have some image backups, a bootable CD with ATI on it, AND a
brand new hard drive handy.

I guess the only disadvantage of this emergency backup method (i.e., for a
completely ruined defective main hard drive) is that it relies on having a
bootable ATI restore CD handy, and a good reliable image backup on another
drive, AND on having a brand new hard drive handy - instead of just
replacing the drive with a CLONE.


A clone is disk to disk.

An image is the disk made to a disk file.

I can clone a drive goingf from disk to disk but I can also clone a drive
going from disk to image and then from image to disk.


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

  #8  
Old March 21st 12, 02:11 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On 3/20/2012 8:06 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a
*completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD
that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored
on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up
into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to
restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard
drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if
there is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an
image to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).

Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have
the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

I knew it worked well on a functional hard drive, but I didn't know if
it would work ok on a brand new, unformatted and unitialized, hard
drive. From what you're saying it does, and it takes care of all of
that automatically. Which is good to know.

So from that point of view, you don't really ever need a disk CLONE,
assuming you have some image backups, a bootable CD with ATI on it,
AND a brand new hard drive handy.

I guess the only disadvantage of this emergency backup method (i.e.,
for a completely ruined defective main hard drive) is that it relies
on having a bootable ATI restore CD handy, and a good reliable image
backup on another drive, AND on having a brand new hard drive handy -
instead of just replacing the drive with a CLONE.


A clone is disk to disk.

An image is the disk made to a disk file.

I can clone a drive goingf from disk to disk but I can also clone a
drive going from disk to image and then from image to disk.


True, but the latter takes twice as long. Plus in the time you can do a
backup image, you could be testing the clone to see if everything is ok.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 8 CP
  #9  
Old March 21st 12, 02:58 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
David H. Lipman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,185
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

From: "BillW50"

On 3/20/2012 8:06 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a
*completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD
that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored
on it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally
is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up
into the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to
restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard
drive that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive
bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an
assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if
there is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an
image to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).

Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have
the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

I knew it worked well on a functional hard drive, but I didn't know if
it would work ok on a brand new, unformatted and unitialized, hard
drive. From what you're saying it does, and it takes care of all of
that automatically. Which is good to know.

So from that point of view, you don't really ever need a disk CLONE,
assuming you have some image backups, a bootable CD with ATI on it,
AND a brand new hard drive handy.

I guess the only disadvantage of this emergency backup method (i.e.,
for a completely ruined defective main hard drive) is that it relies
on having a bootable ATI restore CD handy, and a good reliable image
backup on another drive, AND on having a brand new hard drive handy -
instead of just replacing the drive with a CLONE.


A clone is disk to disk.

An image is the disk made to a disk file.

I can clone a drive goingf from disk to disk but I can also clone a
drive going from disk to image and then from image to disk.


True, but the latter takes twice as long. Plus in the time you can do a
backup image, you could be testing the clone to see if everything is ok.


Yes, it takes longer but there are advantages.

For example you can't clone an 80GB drive with 40GB free to a 60GB drive but
you can image that 80GB drive with 40GB free and then restore that image to
a 60GB drive.

Then there is the concept of image distribution. Software can use multicast
IP to restore one image to multiple computers at the same time.

Then there is the concept of a failing drive. It is better to get an iumage
than a clone because you want to get that image down and onece you have it
you can use it over and over. You might get one cahnce from the failing
drive. Make a mistake that causes you to repeat the process and if that
drive fails, you are too late.

Then there is the concept of disater recovery. You have that image for the
recovery.


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

  #10  
Old March 21st 12, 03:59 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Bill in Co"

I'm a little confused about this seemingly basic issue, in this case
involving the use of Acronis True Image and its backup images, but it
could be more general, too.

Is it possible to restore an image backup of your system to a
*completely
brand new hard drive* that has never been used or initialized? Let me
explain further:

Suppose your main hard drive dies, and that you also have another HD
that
only contains some Acronis True Image backups of your system stored on
it,
AND that you also have an Acronis True Image Boot CD handy.

So you replace the bad drive with a brand new drive (which naturally is
unbootable if you just tried to boot up on it).

However, using your Acronis boot CD, you can use that to boot up into
the
boot CD, and then presumably select a backup image you'd like to
restore
from the other HD.

BUT will the restore operation work for a brand new virgin hard drive
that
has never been used before (i.e. make the brand new hard drive bootable
into windows, etc)? I'm guessing it will, but that's only an
assumption
on my part. I know the operation works well on a normal HD, but have
never tried it out on a brand new hard drive, and am wondering if there
is
some limitation there I'm not aware of (like you can't restore an image
to
a virgin hard drive that has never been initialized or whatever).

Yes. That's the whole idea of an "image".

In fact you can have a 80GB hard disk with 10GB free and image it.

The install a 250GB bare hard disk and restore the image and now have
the
same OS on that 250GB hard disk with 180GB free.

I knew it worked well on a functional hard drive, but I didn't know if it
would work ok on a brand new, unformatted and unitialized, hard drive.
From what you're saying it does, and it takes care of all of that
automatically. Which is good to know.

So from that point of view, you don't really ever need a disk CLONE,
assuming you have some image backups, a bootable CD with ATI on it, AND a
brand new hard drive handy.

I guess the only disadvantage of this emergency backup method (i.e., for
a
completely ruined defective main hard drive) is that it relies on having
a
bootable ATI restore CD handy, and a good reliable image backup on
another
drive, AND on having a brand new hard drive handy - instead of just
replacing the drive with a CLONE.


A clone is disk to disk.

An image is the disk made to a disk file.

I can clone a drive goingf from disk to disk but I can also clone a drive
going from disk to image and then from image to disk.


Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple operation,
unless I'm missing something.


  #11  
Old March 21st 12, 04:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:59:32 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple operation,
unless I'm missing something.


Yes, you're missing something. When you choose to create an image, you
can select one partition, multiple partitions, all partitions, or the
entire disk.

  #12  
Old March 21st 12, 04:51 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:59:32 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple operation,
unless I'm missing something.


Yes, you're missing something. When you choose to create an image, you
can select one partition, multiple partitions, all partitions, or the
entire disk.


Some irrelevant trivia. (This is for CHS compliant hard drives,
rather than a layout for an SSD. A good SSD layout, doesn't use
multiples of 63.)

MBR GRUB Boot Stage First Partition Starts
Sector 0 Sector 1..62 Sector 63... etc.

If you back up an operating system partition, that misses the MBR,
which has an initial element used for booting. There is 440 bytes
of code in there. For WinXP (this group), it can be put back
with "fixmbr c:" from the recovery console.

There might be other things hiding in sector 1 to 62, so you
have to be careful about those as well. If some OS needs something
from there, then again, failure to back that up, may require a
"repair" procedure to put it back. I understand one of the two
versions of GRUB for Linux, puts something in there. A tool
like "dd", for either Windows or Linux, can surgically back up
chunks like that, if you need it done.

Some OSes, have geometry or offset information stored in the
OS partition. The result of moving the partition, like offsetting
it a different amount on the new hard drive, may be a failure to boot.

So while you can fool around at the single partition level, you need
a good understanding if any other dependencies.

*******

Some partitioning or cloning software, is pretty clever. Let us
say WinXP is on the third partition on the disk. In boot.ini,
is an ARC, a specification of where the OS is located. If the
partition is restored into a different numbered partition
on the new disk, then boot.ini needs to be repaired.

I've experienced a case, where the partitioning tool knows it
needs to match the partition number, to avoid grief. But, in
the process of meeting that requirement, it swaps position.
It puts the third partition, in the second partition table
slot, and the second partition, in the third partition table
slot. Normally, most people expect the physical order of the
disk (partition 1,2,3,4) to be stored in order in the table
as well (slot 1,2,3,4). I got a rude surprise, when that was
no longer true. Fortunately, after recognizing why the stupid
tool did it that way, I was able to undo it with PTEDIT32 and
some editing of boot.ini. I put the entries back in order,
as well as changing the ARC in the boot.ini, and all was
"linear" again. The reason "linear" is important, is being
able to easily identify which partition is which, and not
delete or format the wrong one.

*******

So, if you didn't want any "rotten" experiences, there are
certain reasons for cloning an entire disk, from sector 0 to n.
If the new disk is larger than the old disk, no problem, you
can simply expand the fourth partition to use the slack space
at the end. I always put my "big file storage" area down the
end, and if the disk is cloned to a bigger drive (160, 250, 500
is the progression so far), it just means the junk storage area
down near the end gets bigger. Which suits me fine (as a junk
collector).

Paul
  #13  
Old March 21st 12, 04:57 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:59:32 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple
operation,
unless I'm missing something.


Yes, you're missing something. When you choose to create an image, you
can select one partition, multiple partitions, all partitions, or the
entire disk.


OK, I looked again at Acronis True Image, and the only way I see to do that
is by individually selecting each partition in its own separate checkbox.
There was no "entire disk" image selection, per se (unlike for cloning), but
selecting ALL the partitions would presumably be doing that (i.e imaging
the entire disk stucture). (MBR and Track0 are not listed as selections, so
I guess that's automatically taken care of when you backup C


  #14  
Old March 21st 12, 05:12 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:59:32 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple
operation,
unless I'm missing something.


Yes, you're missing something. When you choose to create an image, you
can select one partition, multiple partitions, all partitions, or the
entire disk.


Some irrelevant trivia. (This is for CHS compliant hard drives,
rather than a layout for an SSD. A good SSD layout, doesn't use
multiples of 63.)

MBR GRUB Boot Stage First Partition Starts
Sector 0 Sector 1..62 Sector 63... etc.

If you back up an operating system partition, that misses the MBR,
which has an initial element used for booting. There is 440 bytes
of code in there. For WinXP (this group), it can be put back
with "fixmbr c:" from the recovery console.

There might be other things hiding in sector 1 to 62, so you
have to be careful about those as well. If some OS needs something
from there, then again, failure to back that up, may require a
"repair" procedure to put it back. I understand one of the two
versions of GRUB for Linux, puts something in there. A tool
like "dd", for either Windows or Linux, can surgically back up
chunks like that, if you need it done.

Some OSes, have geometry or offset information stored in the
OS partition. The result of moving the partition, like offsetting
it a different amount on the new hard drive, may be a failure to boot.

So while you can fool around at the single partition level, you need
a good understanding if any other dependencies.


So this is what is worrying me. This at least suggests the possibility
that restoring an image backup of your system to a brand new hard drive may
not result in a bootable drive (assuming you simply selected C: as the
partition to backup, which is what the choice available is in ATI (Acronis
True Image). (i.e. there is no option shown to backup MBR and Track0,
explicitly. HOWEVER, when you open ATI and choose to restore the C: backup
image, ATI puts a dotted line box around the MBR and Track0 display line,
implying it will also restore those.

I want to avoid having to use fixmbr, etc (and the Recovery Console) here.

snip


  #15  
Old March 21st 12, 05:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Restoring an image backup to a brand new HD?

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:57:26 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:59:32 -0600, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

Let's suppose you have a disk with 4 partitions on it. AFAIK, you can
either clone the disk (the entire disk), or choose which partitions to
image, but not image the whole disk in one image, and one simple
operation,
unless I'm missing something.


Yes, you're missing something. When you choose to create an image, you
can select one partition, multiple partitions, all partitions, or the
entire disk.


OK, I looked again at Acronis True Image, and the only way I see to do that
is by individually selecting each partition in its own separate checkbox.
There was no "entire disk" image selection, per se (unlike for cloning), but
selecting ALL the partitions would presumably be doing that (i.e imaging
the entire disk stucture). (MBR and Track0 are not listed as selections, so
I guess that's automatically taken care of when you backup C


Look closer when you open ATI. The Backup section defaults to
"partition mode", which is what you described above, but you can also
switch to "disk mode".

In my experience, using anything from the partition mode will result
in a restored system that needs to be repaired before it'll boot.
Using disk mode (on the system drive) will result in a restored system
that's essentially a clone of the backed up drive, bootable as
expected.

 




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