Txx Best way to image drive?

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dd · #1 Post by dd » Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:13 pm

Hi

Any advice on the best way to image drive?

Thanks

dd

meditate2001 · #2 Post by **meditate2001** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:23 pm

After trying out some programs, I use a long time now acronis true image, it is fast, simple and reliable.

jsteele · #3 Post by **jsteele** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:30 pm

Will Acronis clone the hidden partition?

Leon · #4 Post by **Leon** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:04 pm

second vote for acronis..it's the best.... yes, it will recognize/clone that partition if you wish... I prefer to keep the recovery cd's for that....

dd · #5 Post by dd » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:05 pm

Good question !

I'd be interested in that answer also..........

kjarrett · #6 Post by **kjarrett** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:15 pm

I use and like Norton Ghost, though TrueImage seems to have more of a fan base. I use a 2nd HDD adapter and the thing FLIES. Very nice.

jsteele · #7 Post by **jsteele** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:25 pm

Thanks, I've downloaded the demo and I'll see if that does better than the nonsense I've been going thought with the recovery CDs and Rescue and Recovery...

stgreek · #8 Post by **stgreek** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:35 pm

Norton Ghost is by far the best and most reliable method, but it is not free. I would, however, recommend buying it as it is not so expensive and it makes backing/restoring stuff piece of cake.

dd · #9 Post by dd » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:41 pm

jsteele

Can you let me know how you get on...........please

thanks

dd

jsteele · #10 Post by **jsteele** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:59 pm

Happy to. The demo is apparently functionally limited but maybe enough to show what will happen. And the thing is $49.00 so it isn't like its going to break the bank in any event

dd · #11 Post by dd » Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:18 pm

cool...........

jsteele · #12 Post by **jsteele** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:05 pm

From my standpoint it isn't any better or worse than any other approach. I had to change the status of the PreDesktop Area to disabled so that TrueImage would see it.

When I ran the disk clone it worked fine but TrueImage apparently did not copy the contents of the PDA.

Back to the drawing board.

dd · #13 Post by dd » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:12 am

Sorry to hear that............

True Image recognises EXT2 and EXT3 (Linux) filetypes ?

Does Norton Ghost also recognise these?

jsteele · #14 Post by **jsteele** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:20 pm

"Does Norton Ghost also recognise these?"

I don't know for sure. I'd REALLY like to find a backup/clone program that would copy the whole drive, as is, hidden partitions, HPA, etc.

tselling · #15 Post by **tselling** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:03 pm

I would try this one. Its shareware with free 30 day trial.

http://www.bootitng.com/bootitng.html

I used to use it all the time, but not recently. It had an option for sector copying that might manage to get the PreDesktop area if its unhidden.

stgreek · #16 Post by **stgreek** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:12 pm

jsteele wrote:"Does Norton Ghost also recognise these?"

I don't know for sure. I'd REALLY like to find a backup/clone program that would copy the whole drive, as is, hidden partitions, HPA, etc.

Norton Ghost recognises everything, including Reiser partitions.

jsteele · #17 Post by **jsteele** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:32 pm

Teresa

Thanks I'll check it out.

John

jim121 · #18 Post by **jim121** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:48 am

did acronis copy the hidden partition? and could you tell me if the ibm recovery works for your new harddisk? thanks

jsteele · #19 Post by **jsteele** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 10:45 am

Hi, sorry to to have updated, I've been up to my backside in alligators.

No, Acronis did not copy the PDA/HPA partition. I disabled it in the BIOS and tried again and it did pickup the partition, but does not appear to have copied the contents! When I went through the restore process with the new disk and then restarted it went to Rescue and Recovery and then rebooted --- looped like this for a while until I gave up. From this behavior I interpret that it either did not copy or restore the PDA/HPA content so the Rescue/Recovery process didn't have anything to work with.

Thus far I have not found a backup/image process that copies the drive without disabling the HPA/PDA in the BIOS first. In the case of Acronis it does not appear to have done any better, or worse for that matter, than Ghost or anything else I've tried, so I gave up on it.

As to getting the new drive installed I am still coming up blank. The IBM Recovery CD set will simply NOT boot with the new drive installed. I've tried making it the second HDD and running Disk Administrator to 'initialize' it and that didn't help.

Now I've run into a problem with the USB. I've been using a USB HDD to copy the Rescue/Rapid Restore backups with an eye to using them to reconstruct the main disk if and when I manage to get the d**n thing accepted by the Recovery CD set. But now every time I plug in the USB HDd I get an error that I've 'plugged a HiSpeed device into a Non-HiSpeed port'.

This started happening since the latest BIOS/Embedded Controller version so I fell back to the previous version and it didn't fix it. I went back one version further and it still didn't fix it so I came forward again and the problem went away --- until last week when it suddenly came back again all by itself.

I've talked to IBM several times and one of their techs even told me that one of the USB plugs is USB 2 and the other is USB 1.1 so make sure to plug the HDD in correctly. But that isn't the case as I never had the problem before regardless of which port I used and it doesn't make much sense for them to implement USB 2.0 and 1.1 on separate ports since 2.0 is backward compatible anyway.

I love the T-40 but the CD Recovery and USB problems are beginning to p**s me off.

Chacal · #20 Post by **Chacal** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:17 pm

jsteele wrote:Thus far I have not found a backup/image process that copies the drive without disabling the HPA/PDA in the BIOS first.

Just by thinking with common sense I'm not actually very surprised by that. If the partition is hidden at the BIOS level could ANY program really see it? Can programs somehow bypass the BIOS when accessing drives? (Yes I know that at least they can bypass the BIOS information about heads/sectors etc., but is it enough?)

Chacal · #21 Post by **Chacal** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:22 pm

I tried also this Acronis True Image (version 8.0) mentioned in this thread previously. Problem I encountered is that when I try to create a bootable rescue media with Thinkpad's (t42p) CD-RW drive it gives me an error "Error burning the bootable CD-R/CD-RW" immediately after I press "Proceed" in the creation wizard.

Has anyone succeeded creating the rescue media with Thinkpad's drive? Any ideas what might be the reason for the failure?

mrbjr · #22 Post by **mrbjr** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:39 pm

I use Acronis, current version and just checked, it shows the IBM partion without enabling it in the BIOS.

Leon · #23 Post by **Leon** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:54 pm

"Shows" it, but will it back it up?

jsteele · #24 Post by **jsteele** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:59 pm

I use Acronis, current version and just checked, it shows the IBM partion without enabling it in the BIOS.

If you have Rescue and Recovery installed there is ANOTHER IBM partition created where RR stores its backups. Acronis saw this one, but not the HPA/PDA unless it was disabled in the BIOS. In this it showed both

mrbjr · #25 Post by **mrbjr** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:06 pm

Leon, yes it backed it up on my system

You need to check the appropriate box to image either the whole disk or the partion only.

Leon · #26 Post by **Leon** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:21 pm

Do you mean the R&R Partition or the HPA?

mrbjr · #27 Post by **mrbjr** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:26 pm

The HPA. I have not used the R&R program, so have not created a R&R partition.

Danny Manabat · #28 Post by **Danny Manabat** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 12:25 pm

i was able to copy the HPA using IBM tools FWBACKUP and FWRESTORE.
i used FWBACKUP and the process created 5 image files, 4 of them 640MB and the 5th about 440MB. the procedure is outline in a document by IBM describing the HPA.

i am still in the process of burning the image files to cdroms. i haven't tried the FWRESTORE yet.

Txx Best way to image drive?

Txx Best way to image drive?

Copying the HPA using IBM tools

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