Format new drive in Ultrabay caddy before cloning?

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fredstev · #1 Post by **fredstev** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:31 pm

I've been following every thread I can find about cloning the windows xp operating system and the "hidden" IBM partition onto a new drive in a Ultrabay caddy. I'll be having a go at this in the next day or so on my friend's R40.

The one thing I'm unclear on is whether or not the new drive should be formatted first? Does Acronis Trueimage also do that when it is creating partitions? Also, I think I read somewheres that it is best to format in fat32 format then convert after you are done. No good explanation why, though.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

proaudioguy · #2 Post by **proaudioguy** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 9:53 pm

fredstev wrote:I've been following every thread I can find about cloning the windows xp operating system and the "hidden" IBM partition onto a new drive in a Ultrabay caddy. I'll be having a go at this in the next day or so on my friend's R40.

The one thing I'm unclear on is whether or not the new drive should be formatted first? Does Acronis Trueimage also do that when it is creating partitions? Also, I think I read somewheres that it is best to format in fat32 format then convert after you are done. No good explanation why, though.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

I did not find it necessary to format the drive. The software on the floppy disk was some sort of trial version too. It only lets you clone a drive a limited number of times. I suppose it's writing something either on the floppy or on the drives that are being cloned. I really don't know. Is there some other free utility for doing this?

#3 Post by **Kyocera** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:23 pm

I have never cloned an ultra bay, but here is some information about cloning to an external drive using acronis 9.0, check out this thread,

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=20766

Download TrueImage 9.0
http://www.acronis.com/

Chiana · #4 Post by **Chiana** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:21 am

I did this recently on an IBM R40. Used the ultrabay caddy. However I wasn't able to transfer the IBM partition, but I really don't need it as I have XP Pro and the partition contains XP Home.

1) Install new drive in ultrabay caddy
2) Download Acronis software in previous post
3) Install Acronis software
4) Transfer the partition (mine took about 40 minutes, it runs from windows then reboots to finish the job)
5) Reboot machine (IIRC it runs a chack att his point)
6) Shut down machine
7) Remove battery, power plug

Remove drive caddy from ultrabay
9) remove old harddrive from drive holder (behind audio jacks, secured w/ one screw)
10) Swap hard drives
11) Install new harddrive into machine
12) Boot machine

One of teh easiser harddrive swaps I have done. Only problem I has was with Adobe Photoshop. It detected the different drive and wanted me to reactivate it. Nasty software.

SeanM · #5 Post by **SeanM** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:04 pm

Once you've completed the copy, don't boot the machine into windows with both drives in. You'll cause yourself problems.

d lehmann · #6 Post by **d lehmann** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 1:59 am

In order for ou to image the hidden partition to the new drive you must first go into bios and unhide it first.

Chiana · #7 Post by **Chiana** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:42 am

d lehmann wrote:In order for ou to image the hidden partition to the new drive you must first go into bios and unhide it first.

No, that still won't work, atleast with Acronis it won't. It just intreprets it as blank space.

d lehmann · #8 Post by **d lehmann** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:35 am

Chiana wrote:
d lehmann wrote:In order for ou to image the hidden partition to the new drive you must first go into bios and unhide it first.
No, that still won't work, atleast with Acronis it won't. It just intreprets it as blank space.

It certainly works for me, but I am still using Ti7. Acronis sees it as a fat32 partition.

4) Transfer the partition (mine took about 40 minutes, it runs from windows then reboots to finish the job)

If, by this you meant cloning to the ultrabay drive, then, as SeanM stated, you can not let it initially boot with 2 drives. You will have problems.

If you meant creating an image, then you must choose the complete drive, and not just partitions.

I don't intall Acronis nor use it thru windows. I just boot with the Rescue cd and do the imaging and cloning from the linux version on the cd.
Have never had problems with Acronis seeing the hidden partition files.

After unhiding your hidden partition, try copying a file from it to test it thru windows to see if it is truly accessable.

Keep in mind that the laest Ti9 is still buggy so test it fully before possibly creating a mess.

Chiana · #9 Post by **Chiana** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:48 am

d lehmann wrote:
It certainly works for me, but I am still using Ti7. Acronis sees it as a fat32 partition.

It didn't identify it as anything when I did mine.

If, by this you meant cloning to the ultrabay drive, then, as SeanM stated, you can not let it initially boot with 2 drives. You will have problems.

No, you won't. That is how I did mine and it worked fine. I booted with two drives both before and after the cloning took place. I would expect it to have an error with two OSes, but it didn't.

After unhiding your hidden partition, try copying a file from it to test it thru windows to see if it is truly accessable.

So, you can actually see that partition in windows after you unhide it? That isn't how it worked for me. Windows(XP Pro) reported it as unallocated space, same as Acronis. I would think it was corrupted, but once it was hidden i was able to run the diagnostic tools from it. Odd.

Format new drive in Ultrabay caddy before cloning?

Format new drive in Ultrabay caddy before cloning?

Re: Format new drive in Ultrabay caddy before cloning?

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