Thinkpads Forum

I found the "Hard Drive Cloning" article very interesting....
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=27721

That's just what I was looking for, but I could use some pointers on getting prepared.

My T500 was just shipped today (with a 160gb drive) and now I want to order 2 hard disks. A 320gb disk to install in the Drive Bay Adapter II and to use for storing several backups of the original internal 160gb disk (backups will contain all partitions, including Lenovo's hidden partitions). The other disk will be another 160 gb disk. This disk will eventually serve as a replacement for the original 160 gb internal disk, but I'm getting it now so it can be used immediately to test the backups as well as the restore operation. This is my first laptop, so I will have a steep learning curve and probably make some mistakes along the way. One of the first things I want to do is make frequent backups and be certain they can be restored without any problems.

I currently use BING for backing up my desktop pc's, but was thinking of using Acronis for the T500. It seems that this type of backup & restore is a fairly straightforward process for Acronis, but are there any caveats to watch out for? For example, does Acronis restore Lenovo's hidden partitions properly and without issues?

Lastly, I'd like to know that the 160 & 320gb hard disks I order will be compatible with the T500. My concern stems from a link in the above article to this thread - "Problems with non-thinkpad option drives on T43 thinkpads". I don't want to pay Lenovo's high prices for disks when I can get compatible disks elsewhere for less. Are there any non-thinkpad option drives that have similar BIOS issues with the T500? I'm thinking of getting theses drives....

Seagate Momentus 7200.2 ST9160823AS 160GB Serial ATA(SATA) 7200RPM
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVTRTL 320GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Retail

Also, I've been looking only at the "retail" versions and avoiding the OEM versions whenever they are listed as such, any reason to change that thinking?

Regards,
Frank

FrankS wrote:My concern stems from a link in the above article to this thread - "Problems with non-thinkpad option drives on T43 thinkpads".

That's of no relevance at all for a T500, any 2.5" width, 9.5mm height, ( ) SATA interface drive will work.

FrankS wrote:Seagate Momentus 7200.2 ST9160823AS 160GB Serial ATA(SATA) 7200RPM
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVTRTL 320GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Retail

The price difference between 160GB and 320GB 7200 RPM drives is not that great now a days but the performance of the larger (and newer technology) drives is noticeably better, so I strongly suggest that you consider getting 2 x 320GB 7200 rpm drives. That will give you best flexibility in terms of using them for a variety of purposes over the life of your T500.

Whether you choose Seagate or WD is up to you.... I have and use both, and there is no is no detectable substantive operational differences for drives of basically equivalent specifications from either brand as far as I've ever been able to tell.

Cheers,

Bill

bill bolton wrote:...Whether you choose Seagate or WD is up to you....

Get one of each. That minimizes the chances of being affected by a bad production batch.

FrankS wrote:For example, does Acronis restore Lenovo's hidden partitions properly and without issues?

i recently used Acronis 2009 to CLONE my T61 internal drive (including original recovery partition) to a new drive placed in an Ultrabay adapter. both drives were 100 Gb. after cloning, i tested it by replacing the internal drive with the cloned drive. everything worked fine. it was painless.

i have also created images on the same system using Acronis, but i haven't tested those yet and may actually phase them out and just periodically clone my drive for backups.

FrankS wrote: Also, I've been looking only at the "retail" versions and avoiding the OEM versions whenever they are listed as such, any reason to change that thinking?

I had always thought that the difference was in the packaging and not the drives themselves. If someone knows differently, please let me know. You can usually download the manual from the manufacturer web site so I see no reason to pay more for nice packaging.

bill bolton wrote:That's of no relevance at all for a T500, any 2.5" width, 9.5mm height, ( ) SATA interface drive will work.

So the stories about limiting 3.0 GBS SATA drives to 1.5 GB speed using jumpers or software configuration need not concern me then? I did a quick search for information on the capabilities of the T500 SATA adapter and didn't find anything conclusive. (FWIW the drive that interests me is the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT)

many thanks,
hank

First, thanks to everyone for responding.

bill bolton wrote: That's of no relevance at all for a T500, any 2.5" width, 9.5mm height, ( ) SATA interface drive will work.

Whew... that's a relief. I suspected I'd be over the top worrying about this matter, but being new to the thinkpad world I figured it was safer to ask than be sorry I didn't.

I will take your advice on getting two larger drives.

basketb wrote: Get one of each. That minimizes the chances of being affected by a bad production batch.

Good idea!

PhilD wrote: i recently used Acronis 2009 to CLONE my T61 internal drive (including original recovery partition) to a new drive placed in an Ultrabay adapter. both drives were 100 Gb. after cloning, i tested it by replacing the internal drive with the cloned drive. everything worked fine. it was painless.

i have also created images on the same system using Acronis, but i haven't tested those yet and may actually phase them out and just periodically clone my drive for backups.

Another sigh of relief! This was bothering me no end, I really appreciate you confirming that the hidden partitions weren't a problem. I was worried about losing Lenovo's utilities, and although I really don't know where they're stored I assumed it would be in a hidden partition. Is there a resource you or anyone can point me to that would tell me more about the content of Lenovo's partitions, particularly the hidden ones?

Do you find a difference in the time it takes to create a clone versus an image file?

HankB wrote: I had always thought that the difference was in the packaging and not the drives themselves. If someone knows differently, please let me know. You can usually download the manual from the manufacturer web site so I see no reason to pay more for nice packaging.

I had read that in some cases there may be issues with the BIOS in OEM versions if it needs to be flashed. On some sites, like newegg, there seem to be more OEM versions offered that retail versions. So it would widen my choices if that BIOS thingy isn't true. Would appreciate comments on this?

So the stories about limiting 3.0 GBS SATA drives to 1.5 GB speed using jumpers or software configuration need not concern me then? I did a quick search for information on the capabilities of the T500 SATA adapter and didn't find anything conclusive.

Nor could I find anything. When I was comparing laptops, most others come with an eSATA port. But because I couldn't find anything about that at Lenovo's site, I assumed the T500 didn't support 3.0gbs. So even though both would probably work, does the T500 in fact support the faster interface?

Again, thanks to all for responding. I'm glad to get these issues off my mind.

Regards,
Frank

FrankS wrote: Another sigh of relief! This was bothering me no end, I really appreciate you confirming that the hidden partitions weren't a problem. I was worried about losing Lenovo's utilities, and although I really don't know where they're stored I assumed it would be in a hidden partition. Is there a resource you or anyone can point me to that would tell me more about the content of Lenovo's partitions, particularly the hidden ones?

Do you find a difference in the time it takes to create a clone versus an image file?

the recovery partition contains all of the files required to restore your machine to "factory new". you can boot into the recovery partition during the boot process (you will see a little message to press a key just after the ThinkPad logo appears). once the machine boots to this area, you can choose to recover your machine - i.e., erase all contents of your hard drive and restore as it was when you received it from the factory. this is useful if you want to start from scratch or perhaps sell your computer, but it does not serve the same purpose as a backup.

using TrueImage 2009 (boot to a thumb drive with Acronis boot media installed), cloning takes about twice as long on my machine as a full backup (100 GB drive), so speed isn't an advantage. the reason i like cloning is that i can verify my cloned drive works immediately after creation (by swapping drives). you can't do that with a normal backup image. if you prefer to create images for backups, i would recommend that you test it once by restoring to a spare drive and verifying that the system boots up. once you know your process works, you can continue creating images in the future with a reasonable level of confidence that your images will work if needed.

I too have been considering the 500GB WD Blue. A good friend just installed one in his T60, used Acronis & had great success. I have just placed my order for two of these. I plan to use them in my T60. The mainbay will be Win7, the ultrabay Unbuntu 8.10

archer6 wrote:I too have been considering the 500GB WD Blue. A good friend just installed one in his T60, used Acronis & had great success. I have just placed my order for two of these. I plan to use them in my T60. The mainbay will be Win7, the ultrabay Unbuntu 8.10

Would you mind posting HDtune/HDtach numbers of one of these drives when you get them?

PhilD wrote: the recovery partition contains all of the files required to restore your machine to "factory new". you can boot into the recovery partition during the boot process (you will see a little message to press a key just after the ThinkPad logo appears). once the machine boots to this area, you can choose to recover your machine - i.e., erase all contents of your hard drive and restore as it was when you received it from the factory. this is useful if you want to start from scratch or perhaps sell your computer, but it does not serve the same purpose as a backup.

Thanks for the info on the recovery partition. I understand that it does not serve the same purpose as a backup, as I would lose all the work I've done when restoring to the "factory new" condition. I want to avoid that, that's why I'm so interested in making sure I have viable backups of my work and be able to recover from those backups.

I ordered my T500 with the Vista Business Downgrade to XP Pro. Am I correct in saying that it will come with only 1 hidden partition, the recovery partition? In some previous reading I've done I was left with the impression there are 2 hidden partitions on thinkpads, but now it seems that only applies if Vista was preinstalled on the machine. I've done so much reading from different sources that it's all becoming a blur. Am I correct... 1 hidden partition with XP Pro... 2 hidden partitions with Vista?

using TrueImage 2009 (boot to a thumb drive with Acronis boot media installed), cloning takes about twice as long on my machine as a full backup (100 GB drive), so speed isn't an advantage. the reason i like cloning is that i can verify my cloned drive works immediately after creation (by swapping drives). you can't do that with a normal backup image. if you prefer to create images for backups, i would recommend that you test it once by restoring to a spare drive and verifying that the system boots up. once you know your process works, you can continue creating images in the future with a reasonable level of confidence that your images will work if needed.

I like the idea of simply replacing the original disk with the clone. And though my intent for getting two spare hard disks was to have one so I could test the restore operation, I really don't like the idea of relying on image backups for an entire disk because the restore operation can be so tricky, like walking on thin ice. I once had to use Ghost to perform a restore and did not like it at all. The extra time it takes to clone isn't so bad compared to the aggravation and anxiety a troublesome restore can cause.

What I don't like about cloning is the thought of accidentally leaving the Drive Bay Adapter in the machine with the target clone disk still inside and then rebooting the machine. Although I thought an accidental reboot could leave both disks in an unreliable condition, from reading the Cloning HOW TO article it seems I was wrong about that. It appears that only the clone disk would be affected due to WinXP modifying its drive letters. If that is correct, then such an accidental reboot is not the disaster I thought it would be, but just an inconvenience as it should easily be fixed by running another cloning operation. Could you, or someone else, please confirm that my present thinking about this is correct? It would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for all your help.

Regards,
Frank

PS: anyone wish to comment about whether or not it's worth considering OEM versions due to the "firmware flashing" thingy I mentioned in my previous post. Hard disk mfrs do on occasion offer firmware fixes, the quesion is... is it common not to be able to apply the fix because you have an OEM version of the disk?

>...Whether you choose Seagate or WD is up to you....

Get one of each. That minimizes the chances of being affected by a bad production batch.

Actually, getting one of each would, on average, double the chance of being affected by a bad production batch. Think about it...

Hello again,

I ended up getting 3 disks. All 320gb 7200rpm 3.0gb/s. Two Western Digital, one Seagate. The extra wiggle room appealed to me:-)

I chose not to clone at this time and started to prepare for making image backups.

Using the Hard Drive Bay Adapter I had no problems creating and formatting two partitions on one of the WD disks. One named Backups, the other Storage.

I purchased Acronis True Image Home 2009, installed it, made a bootable rescue disk (DVD) and tested it. I then made a full backup of the T500's 160gb disk to the backup partition I just created on the new WD. The backup took only 7 minutes. So far, so good.

Looking forward to testing the restore operation I questioned how I was going to have the Hard Drive Bay (containing the backups) *AND* the DVD Bay (needed to boot) in the adapter at the same time. I know the adapter is hot swappable but felt a swap could present problems once the Acronis bootable environment had already loaded. Then I remembered what PhilD said earlier....

using TrueImage 2009 (boot to a thumb drive with Acronis boot media installed)

As it turned out for me, while Acronis could create a bootable DVD, it failed to create a bootable thumb drive. Couldn't do it on my SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4gb USB flash drive. Acronis support has the following article on the subject....

Starting Acronis Product from USB Flash Drive
http://www.acronis.com/support/kb/artic ... index.html

Unfortunately, the article does not address the issue in Windows XP, for that I had to contact support and reference the article. That was a day ago, but still no word. In the meantime I searched elsewhere and found these articles....

Cloning Lenovo ThinkPad T500 2nd hard drive in ultra bay adapter
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthre ... able+flash

Troubleshooting: Why won't my Flashdrive or USB Hard Disk boot?
http://www.purviancecs.com/acronis.htm#booting

In the first article the author mentions that he had to boot from a flash drive in order to work with Acronis and the disk in the Hard Drive Bay Adapter. So my question to the group now is... Has anyone been able to boot Acronis from the CD/DVD drive, then replace the hot swappable CD/DVD adapter with the Hard Drive Bay adapter, and then complete a successful restore operation or cloning operation?

FrankS wrote:As it turned out for me, while Acronis could create a bootable DVD, it failed to create a bootable thumb drive. Couldn't do it on my SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4gb USB flash drive.

So my question to the group now is... Has anyone been able to boot Acronis from the CD/DVD drive, then replace the hot swappable CD/DVD adapter with the Hard Drive Bay adapter, and then complete a successful restore operation or cloning operation?

i never tried swapping drives like that, don't know if it would work.

as far as booting from a USB flash drive is concerned, you may have to enter your BIOS setup program to enable booting from a USB drive and modify the boot order (press F1 when the ThinkPad logo appears on the screen). there will be a boot sequence list of available devices. make sure the USB device is listed BEFORE the internal drive and ultrabay adapter.

PhilD wrote: i never tried swapping drives like that, don't know if it would work.

as far as booting from a USB flash drive is concerned, you may have to enter your BIOS setup program to enable booting from a USB drive and modify the boot order (press F1 when the ThinkPad logo appears on the screen). there will be a boot sequence list of available devices. make sure the USB device is listed BEFORE the internal drive and ultrabay adapter.

Judging from what the author of that article said, my guess is that it wouldn't work. But it's hard to tell if his issue was with the normal Windows install of Acronis not being able to handle the ThinkPad Hard Drive Bay during his clone operation (unlikely), or because he booted Acronis first using the CD/DVD adapter and then later swapped it for the Hard Drive Bay adapter.

In the latter case, I would suspect that once the Acronis bootable environment is loaded that the program might have difficulty detecting a drive that was inserted afterwards, and as a result may not appear in Acronis select lists. IOW a drive may have to be present BEFORE the Acronis bootable environment loads in order for it to be detected by the program. I also wonder at which point the CD/DVD is no longer needed, remove it prematurely and one could be asked to swap drives again.

When Acronis put the files on your flash drive did it also make the drive bootable? Did you use Win XP?

FWIW During boot, hitting F12 produces a temporary boot device menu on my T500. From it I was able to select the USB SanDisk flash drive and boot from it without making any changes to the BIOS settings.

FrankS wrote:When Acronis put the files on your flash drive did it also make the drive bootable? Did you use Win XP?

FWIW During boot, hitting F12 produces a temporary boot device menu on my T500. From it I was able to select the USB SanDisk flash drive and boot from it without making any changes to the BIOS settings.

i forgot about F12, that's definitely easier than going into the BIOS!

i run Vista Business 32. as far as the USB flash drive is concerned, i selected "Bootable Rescue Media Builder" from the Start Menu / Programs Foder Acronis TI 2009 created on installation. the USB flash drive is a cheap Kingston 512MB "DataTraveler", i booted directly from it several times.

i have done the same thing in the past with Windows XP using Acronis TI 10 (before i upgraded to 2009) and a 1GB Kinsgton USB flash drive. i dunno why your setup doesn't work...