Is it worthy to upgrade to 7K60 drive???

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craigg · #31 Post by **craigg** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:15 am

I had some problems with true image too. While I could easily create an image, I did have trouble restoring it. I think it has to do with some of the embedded seurity on the T43. What I ended up doing is using the IBM backup software and I backed all my files to an external hard drive. Then to restore them I first used my rescue disk to start the system and then copied files back over from the external hard drive backup. It is not as smooth of a process as I would have liked but it did work.

JonathanGennick · #32 Post by **JonathanGennick** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:22 am

CantabRich, I've had great success with a product from Apricon called EZ GIG. Or maybe it's EZ Upgrade. It's a combination external-drive case (USB) and software that clones drives. I've used it numerous times on my daughter's Thinkpad, my wife's Thinkpad, my own, and the cloning has always been painless. You boot from the CD drive, make a few choices, and off you go.

pae77 · #33 Post by **pae77** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:35 am

CantabRich wrote:I would be grateful if you would tell how you went about creating your clone

Not Craigg, but I'll tell you how I cloned a 20g over to a 7k60 in my T30. I used the IBM 2nd HDD adapter and the EZ Gig software that came with it. This is a very simple way to do it. I must have done something wrong though because although I ended up with an exact clone of the original drive on a partition on the 7k60, the rest of the 7k60 was broken up into numerous separate partitions. I merged all the partitions into one (approx) 60 gig primary partition with Partition Magic and all is working well, however, I am not sure why EZ Gig didn't just expand the primary partition on the new drive in the first place.

CantabRich · #34 Post by **CantabRich** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 7:27 pm

craigg, JonathanGennick, pae77, thanks for your responses. I have ordered the HDD adaptor and will see if the Apricorn software solves the problem. Craigg, I would love to try the Recovery Disk method, but we have an 8 week old baby and ... suffice it to say that a long Saturday afternoon spent tweaking my gadgets is no longer tolerated!

craigg · #35 Post by **craigg** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:29 pm

Does anyone know where I can get a copy of the Easy Gig utility. Is it a utility that IBM has available for download? I checked the Apricon website and it seems that they don't sell the software stand alone and that it is only bundled with their hard drives. I would really like to try this out if anyone is willing to share. Thanks in advance!

JonathanGennick · #36 Post by **JonathanGennick** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:21 pm

You don't need to buy a hard-drive per se from Apricon. You do need to buy their drive case. It's a drive-case+software bundle.

Someone here mentioned that IBM bundles the software with some of their products. I didn't know that.

To my knowledge, the software is not available stand-alone.

planetf1 · #37 Post by **planetf1** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:01 am

Has anyone managed to upgrade firmware on retail 7K60. I have A69A

pae77 · #38 Post by **pae77** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:58 am

craigg wrote:Does anyone know where I can get a copy of the Easy Gig utility. Is it a utility that IBM has available for download? I checked the Apricon website and it seems that they don't sell the software stand alone and that it is only bundled with their hard drives. I would really like to try this out if anyone is willing to share. Thanks in advance!

As I mentioned, my copy of EZ Gig came bundled with the IBM 2nd hard drive adapter purchased direct from IBM for approx. $50 a couple of years ago. At that time the software came on a bootable floppy diskette and each time you use it it checks the serial numbers of the hard drives. The software is limited to only cloning 10 different drives, although you can clone the same 10 drives an unlimited number of times, so it can't really be shared. It must also be copy protected because I was unable to even make a backup copy of the floppy.

I believe they have updated the software since I got it and the newer versions now can be installed on the hard drive and one no longer needs to boot from the floppy.

In any case, I think it is about the most fool proof and esay way of backing up your entire hard drive on a ThinkPad. It is a great comfort to know that in the event of a problem I can just swap out my hard drive and be up and running in minutes with all my data, programs, configurations, etc.

There is, however, one thing one has to beware of when using the EZ Gig software and perhaps this applies to any disc cloning software. If you fail to physically remove the second HD (i.e., the new cloned copy of the primary HD) from your system before you reboot for the first time after the cloning. Windows gets confused and puts some system files on hard disk 2 during the boot process and thereafter you can't boot without having both drives in the system. So to avoid this potential problem, it is imperative to either install the new cloned drive in the primary (HD1) slot, or if it's just a backup, make sure to remove hard disk 2 (the new cloned copy) from the system before you reboot your system. This only needs to be done one time for that first reboot after cloning. Once the system has rebooted with only one drive installed, it can thereafter be rebooted with both drives installed, (at least until the next clone is made).

pae77 · #39 Post by **pae77** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 12:39 pm

A couple more thoughts on disk cloning.

Acronis True image can also be used for disk cloning as well as making image copies. If you are just backing up data, "image" copies are fine. If you want to have an exact bootable back up of your drive ready to go with no restoring needed, "cloning" is the way to go, imho. I think the True image disk clone feature is probably better than the EZ Gig software, but a little trickier (less idiot proof) to use. Certainly it is a better value, not being limited to how many different drives you can clone. Also, you don't need to have a floppy drive connected to your TP to clone with True Image.

One of the limitations of EZ Gig (at least the old version I have) is that the destination drive must be the same size or larger than the original drive you are cloning. This does not seem to be the case with True Image. As long as the destination drive has enough room on it to fit the material on the original drive, True image will allow you to clone to it. Using True Image, I cloned my new 7k60 (only 17 gig used) over to a 20 gig drive. All appeared to go well, but I haven't actually installed the 20 gig drive in the HD1 position and tried to boot from it to test it.

Finally, I noticed that EZ Gig on a floppy with a 10 drive license is still being sold by itself on Apricorn's website for around $60. If, in fact, it still comes bundled with the IBM 2nd HD adapter(?), that would make the IBM adapter a real bargain since they sell it for less than Apricorn's price for the software alone.

ipXpert · #40 Post by **ipXpert** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:21 pm

just replying to original post.

Yes.

Is it worthy to upgrade to 7K60 drive???

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