Ghost Image of Hard Drive

[leesiulung]

I'm thinking of re-installing my computer, but would like to keep my current setup if possible in the event things go very wrong.

I have a 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive adapter that I plan to connect to my desktop and boot into Ghost. Then make an image.

Do anyone know if this will retain both the windows partition and the HPA? Since I do not have the BIOS setting I won't need to set the hide HPA from OS setting.

I searched this, but did not find a conclusive answer other than Acronis True Image will do this.

[Kendas]

Well... When I upgraded my hard drive to a 60gb I used Norton Ghost 9 and the Cyberguys USB to 2.5/3.5 adapter/power supply.
Had zero problems and that's using the A30 1.1 USB through a dock II.

Never connected to any of my desktops. Just make sure that you minimize anything that acesses the OS other than Ghost.

[underclocker]

Is Ghost 9 able to copy the HPA and restore it properly?

[ashleys]

Why not do the following ?

i) Hook up the external drive 3.5" drive via your adapter.
ii) Use Rescue & Recovery to take a complete 'Base' level backup of your system to this external drive
iii) Create a RnR rescue media CD
iv) Install your new TPAD drive
v) Create a system partition on your new TPAD drive
vi) Boot RnR from the CD and restore your system from the backup you took.

I used this procedure when upgrading my TPAD disk and it worked without a hitch. The only difference in my case was my external drive was already in a USB enclosure.

PS. Why would you want to keep the hidden partition ?

[leesiulung]

I like the Hidden Partition as there are a lot of utilities that are useful. Also, you can restore windows if your computer won't boot into windows.

The rescue CD's are too slow and since I have an X31 I have to lug around the slice.

So what I want to do is:

1. Hook up the current 2.5" hard drive to the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter to my desktop computer.

2. Boot into Ghost and create one or two images of the entire drive including the HPA. Possible making separate image of HPA and the Windows partition.

3. Wipe the drive clean and re-install windows clean while keeping the HPA intact.

4. If all else fails, then revert to Ghost image.

Question is as underclocker mentioned, is Ghost able to copy the HPA and restore it properly? If so, then how does it work? Does Ghost see the HPA as a separate partition that needs to be taken as a separate image?

Note, that the adapter I have is to connect a 2.5" drive to a desktop computer. It does not have a USB plug.

[ashleys]

As I don't use any ghosting techniques I cannot answer that.

Regarding having the HPA to restore Windows, well Rescue & Recovery can do that perfectly well without the HPA.

Furthermore, when using Rescue & Recovery you don't use the recovery CD's (which are slow). You restore your system from a *DISK* based backup, in my case an external USB device. To start Rescue and Recovery in a stand-alone environment you need either a bootable drive or the recovery media CD which contains just the R&R product.

As I said before, I see no reason to have the hidden partition. Rescue & Recovery, properly used and configured, does everything I want. I have restored Windows to the same disk configuration with it and used it to restore my system after I upgraded my disk.