Radified Community Forums
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl
Rad Community Technical Discussion Boards (Computer Hardware + PC Software) >> Norton Ghost 2003,  Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board >> Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1302377324

Message started by voximan on Apr 9th, 2011 at 2:28pm

Title: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 9th, 2011 at 2:28pm
I'm planning to use Ghost 2003 - from the DOS version on a floppy - to clone my SATA2 hard drive to another. In other words, this will be a Disk to Disk operation. A couple of serious queries come to mind, though.

First, the single, resident hard drive now in my setup is a 1TB job and the second one (to be the recipient of cloning), which will be externally-attached and which I've not bought yet, will also be 1TB capacity. Given the controversy over whether 2003 can handle drives of this sort of capacity, do you reckon the cloning will work?

Second, assuming it WILL work, can anyone recommend a desktop USB carrier for a bare hard drive? I'm after a carrier that's known to have a proven USB interface, which isn't inordinately expensive, and which will be a temporary receptacle for the drive, not a total enclosure. For the external SATA drive (initially, the recipient drive), I'm thinking in terms of a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB.

Back in the days when I used PATA drives, I had a caddy built into one of the 5-inch bays in the PC. SATA caddies can be obtained, I think, but I don't now want to install something permanently into the PC; I prefer to use an external carrier of some kind instead, something that I can easily disconnect and re-attach whenever necessary.

Oh, and can someone remind me whether, when cloning, the recipient drive needs to formatted at all before doing so? In other words, if the Samsung drive comes formatted to FAT32, will that matter at all, given that my resident drive uses NTFS?

Note: the above-mentioned 1TB controversy is interesting, as a year or two back I had a peculiar problem where partition imaging (as opposed to disk cloning) refused to work between a resident drive and an external drive which was identical. I can't recall the details but I think they were of capacities considerably less than 1TB. But, even using Build 793, I never managed to get Ghost DOS to even see the external drive. Later, however, the problem went away when I bought and used a different marque/model of external drive. I got the feeling, at the time, that Ghost had a problem when drives in that sort of arrangement were identical, so I wonder whether more recent talk of problems with 1TB and greater drives might be being misunderstood, particularly as some respondents say they've had no problems at all.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Rad on Apr 10th, 2011 at 12:29am
have you seen this?

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1269876015/

i am curious, too.

samsung makes good shit. i always use seagate.

why are you cloning? i always create an image.

brian has thoughts on this topic of preformatting.

i forget. i think it will take the formatting of the source, but i think you may not need to format, just partition.

i think external drives stopped shipping fat32 a few years back.

no doubt you will be able to provide valuable info.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 10th, 2011 at 4:35am
Gosh, I wish respondents wouldn't go off at a tangent and start asking me all sorts of other questions, even if they are related. All I want is some quick responses to one or two specific questions, I don't want to end up having to write a thesis on why I no longer use Seagate or why I want to perform a cloning operation rather than an image. Anyone with good experience of G2003 will already know the difference and therefore why.

Sorry if I'm seeming a bit brusque but I'm time-pressured at present.

Yes, I've already read through that thread. The overall impression given is that anything over 1TB will fail, whether attempting imaging or cloning. Thus, I'm assuming for now that 1TB exactly will work. Note that one or two people have claimed that they've successfully used Ghost to partition 1.5 and 2TB drives. It's just that we don't know whether they were using G2003 at the time. Hence the doubt about this matter.

Getting to one of my important questions, can anyone recommend an external USB carrier for bare SATA drives of this sort of capacity?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Rad on Apr 11th, 2011 at 1:34pm
El_Pescador is/was the guru for external USB drive enclosures.

Some recommendations here:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1095438251/230#230

these may help, too:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1162268262/16#16

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1222387570

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1177385021

I just used the search function in/for the Ghost 2003 for terms like 'external usb enclosure'

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 11th, 2011 at 4:06pm
Thanks Rad, but I think you've misunderstood the kind of device I'm after. I think the more usual name is a hard drive docking station, USB 2.0-connectable. I'm specifically not wanting a hard drive enclosure, as that rather destroys the whole point of the exercise, which is to clone my hard drive on different occasions without using an internal caddy or by opening the PC and temporarily fitting the second drive. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that, initially. With the docking device on my desk, I can then from time to time just drop the requisite drive into it and then run G2003 DOS to do a Disk Copy. Savvy?

As I've discovered myself in the past, and others have realised more recently, G2003 DOS is particular about the drivers that come into play with various marques/models of USB-connected drives. So Ghost recognises some external drives but not others. Thus, I'm hoping for some responses from Radified individuals who've used docking stations that definitely do work with G2003 DOS, and maybe others who can inform me of those docks/drives that don't.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 14th, 2011 at 1:34am
@ voximan


Quote:
Sorry if I'm seeming a bit brusque but I'm time-pressured at present.

Hmmm....grumpy we are, are we?

How can someone using an 8-9 year old piece of software that is no longer supported by the company that made it--and asking questions for free advice on an Internet forum be *time-pressured at the present*?  :-?

Regardless.......


Quote:
why I want to perform a cloning operation rather than an image. Anyone with good experience of G2003 will already know the difference and therefore why.

Actually, anyone with experience (and good sense) would never do things the way you wish to--although your concept of doing cloning backups is the most common one we see.  You want an *exact copy* of your internal HDD ready at hand should your current internal HDD fail--you just simply put the *exact copy* in place of the failed HDD and you're up and running in minutes.  (You are aware that as soon as you complete that clone, the copies are no longer *exact copies* as soon as you boot again--right?!)

Personally, what I do--I have my current internal OS HDD, a second internal HDD to save Ghost 2003 image files to, and I have a third spare HDD on the shelf ready to replace the OS internal HDD if it fails.  I then put the replacement HDD in after removing the failed HDD (that takes the same amount of time that you will spend putting your cloned HDD in), restore the most recent Ghost image to the new HDD--10 minutes for an OS partition--longer for restoring a whole HDD of data if that's what you do--and I'm up and running.

The USB interface in DOS is *sloooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwww*--saving an image to an internal HDD is usually at least 3 times as fast--and on my newest system--it approaches 6-7 times faster!  So, all that time you think you are saving by being able to swap out an *exact clone* without taking the extra step of restoring an image file to a bare replacement HDD--really!  Do the math!  Oh, I'm sure you will say that you plan on doing those USB clones *overnight*--well, if you are going to *verify* those clones--oops--that's right, you don't get to *verify* a clone for *Integrity*--unless you take the time to swap it out with the existing HDD to make sure it actually will work if you ever need it!  (You can verify that an image file is *useable* without swapping it out or actually restoring it.....!).

So, let's get to the *meat and potatoes* of your question(s):


Quote:
First, the single, resident hard drive now in my setup is a 1TB job and the second one (to be the recipient of cloning), which will be externally-attached and which I've not bought yet, will also be 1TB capacity. Given the controversy over whether 2003 can handle drives of this sort of capacity, do you reckon the cloning will work?

What controversy?  Read the information here:

Ghost 2003 Destination Drive Size Limits?--see Dan Goodell's Reply #3!

Ghost 2003, based on known evidence presented in this forum, will work on HDDs with addressable space up to 1.099 TB  in size!  So, the answer to your question is clearly *yes*!  But, you're asking the wrong question!

Your real question should be *Will current DOS USB drivers and USB hardware handle large capacity SATA HDDs in DOS*?

I do not have a 1 TB SATA HDD to work with.  I have a 640 GB SATA HDD however.  And, I have two different USB adapters that allow attaching a SATA HDD to it for use on a USB port.  I have two desktop systems (2002, and 2010), and one laptop system (2005) to test on.

When I hook up the 640 GB SATA to either USB adapter, the HDD is accessable and the full size shows up on all three systems--in Windows (you did know that USB is a Windows based technology--and never actually developed as a DOS based technology--right?).  As soon as I boot to DOS, there are system freezes during boot, or after I attempt to load Ghost 2003--essentially whenever I attempt to load something that tries to access the *whole 650 GB HDD size*, there's a failure!  I have created a reduced partition size on the 640 GB HDD to 32 GB FAT 32 and the Ghost 2003 USB DOS drivers will successfully mount that 32 GB partition in DOS--but, the system freezes as soon as I attempt to load Ghost 2003 which is attempting to access the *whole* HDD size!

So, the answer to that *real question* I mentioned above, at least as I have discovered so far, is *No*!  Large capacity SATA HDDs do not appear to successfully work on USB adapters using DOS USB drivers in DOS.  There must be something *different* about how the drivers and adapters access SATA HDDs in DOS.  I have been successful with PATA HDDs up to 160 GB--but, I don't have a larger PATA HDD to test.

I suspect it would be best spending your time looking into the option of using an eSATA port adapter of some type.  If I understand correctly, the eSATA port will be attached internally to your standard SATA controller.  The eSATA port should allow you to hook up to an externally connected SATA HDD, it should show up as a *SATA HDD* as far as Ghost 2003 is concerned, and you will have SATA speeds (not USB speeds)!  Ghost 2003 sees SATA HDDs through SATA controllers without any problems that I have seen!

Let us know what you find out!

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 16th, 2011 at 10:38am
NightOwl,

I'll forgive the odd cheeky remark you've made about my use of time. I do have many other things to do, you know, and of late have had only a limited amount of time available to post on Radified.

That aside, thanks for your illustrative comments. Yes, you're right, it IS primarily about how the DOS drivers work. I do now have the setup I proposed earlier but - surprise, surprise - PC-DOS will not fully launch. Instead, it gets to the opening phase of the first screen of the GUI and then stops. I guess it just doesn't like the particular USB interface of the docking station. Looks like I'm stuffed for doing it that way. The station's made by Akasa and I thought their implementation of the USB interface would have been as bog-standard as just about any.

Currently, PC-DOS otherwise works fine on another external drive I've been using for the past year or two - a LaCie fully-enclosed, USB-connected drive. So, this is clearly very much device/manufacturer-dependent. I use the Lacie drive (500GB) for storing partition images made with Ghost PC-DOS. So, unlike the LaCie fully-enclosed drive, the new Samsung drive was intended as a fully cloneable one, that could be quickly swapped with my 1TB system drive in my PC, should the latter completely fail.

I think the only way open to me now is to clone the Samsung drive by temporarily installing it in the PC. But, of course, that completely defeats the object of having an external dock. It's obviously the USB interface that's the problem.

Another possible solution would be to try to find a SATA-type internal caddy. I used to use a PATA-type caddy when my drives were of that type, but the caddie had the disadvantage that it got very dust-laden inside, between cloning. You yourself have mentioned an e-SATA card maybe, but I'd prefer not to go that route, even though potentially the transfer rates would be faster. I'd perhaps end up with the same sort of incompatibility issue. At least, an internal caddy would be completely passive.

It seems to me that, for all the merits of Build 793 as regards external USB drives, it's a complete lottery when it comes to getting Ghost to work with a particular external drive. Even before the LaCie drive, a fully-enclosed Seagate external drive flatly refused to be seen by PC-DOS.

Further thoughts: I've had a look at what's available, here in the UK, as regards PCI and PCIe e-SATA cards. The impression I'm getting from reviews is one of poor compatibility and fault-ridden performance. My PC's limited to SATA 2 at best. The dock does have an e-SATA interface as well as USB. But I need convincing that use of an e-SATA PCI or PCIe card in the PC would be absolutely guaranteed to work with Ghost's PC-DOS, as I've bought several different computing items of late and have had to send almost all of them back because they simply don't work, and frankly I'm fed up with it, as each time I have to pay the carriage costs. What's so special about an internal e-SATA card that will make it work with the flakey Ghost PC-DOS drivers, compared to USB 2.0? Surely, given the respective years when these interfaces were introduced, the PC-DOS drivers are less likely to work with e-SATA?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 17th, 2011 at 12:47pm
@ voximan


Quote:
But I need convincing that use of an e-SATA PCI or PCIe card in the PC would be absolutely guaranteed to work with Ghost's PC-DOS

Wow!  Pretty high standard--given all the variability out there in the PC world--many items might work just fine--if you didn't have the wrong motherboard (i.e. old technology?), or outdated software for the current hardware.


Quote:
What's so special about an internal e-SATA card that will make it work with the flakey Ghost PC-DOS drivers, compared to USB 2.0? Surely, given the respective years when these interfaces were introduced, the PC-DOS drivers are less likely to work with e-SATA?

Well, I haven't personally used eSATA as yet--might be trying it soon, being as my 640 GB SATA HDD can not be used with a USB adapter in DOS--and I will gladly report what I find.  But, that's probably going to be weeks, if not several months (low priority--I have other solutions that are perfectly fine for now!)

But, I think you have the *wrong idea* about eSATA.  It sounds like you already have a motherboard that is SATA based.  You only have to consider a PCI card if you don't have a SATA based motherboard, or if you have already used all your motherboard's SATA controller connectors for attaching other HDDs or SATA optical drives.  If you have an available SATA connection on the motherboard, it should be easy!

Look at this item here:  VANTEC 360UFS-BK Aluminum 3.5" Black USB 2.0/eSATA/FireWire 400(1394a) External Enclosure

And look at the pictures of the included adapter and cords:  VANTEC 360UFS connecting cables

The eSATA bracket go into a expansion slot on the back of the computer.  The internal end of the eSATA bracket cord is plugged into a SATA port on your motherboard.  The eSATA cable is plugged into the eSATA port on the eSATA bracket (similar to an external USB port--just different shape), and the other end is plugged into whatever device is housing your SATA HDD--be it an enclosure type device or docking station--with its eSATA port that you hookup to.

eSATA is just a new way to connect external devices to your internal SATA controller(s)--you can connect either HDDs or SATA optical drives. 

As far as your system is concerned, I think it will *see* the external SATA HDD as if you had opened up the system and installed and attached the HDD to the internal SATA connector.  So, there are no DOS drivers involved!  If your system is configured to allow DOS access to your present internal HDD, then it should present the external SATA HDD to DOS just the same--as if you now had an internal SATA HDD installed!

However, DOS is not *hot-swapping* aware (just like it can't do hot-swapping of USB devices!), so you can not connect and disconnect your SATA devices that are connected via eSATA ports.  They have to be connected and powered up before booting to DOS just like using an external USB device.

Now, the sample above is a multi--connection enclosure for SATA HDDs--up to 2 TB in size.  As far as I know, there should not be any *intermediate conversions* going on if you are hooking up your SATA HDD to a SATA port.  If you instead are using the enclosure to hook up via USB or FireWire 400 (1394a) port--then the enclosure probably has to make compatibility translations to talk to those controllers--that's where you would need DOS drivers to successfully talk to the controller in question in order to communicate properly.

And, the above unit is more complicated than you probably need.  You can eliminate the Firewire (1394a) port--so like this:  VANTEC NST-300SU-BK Aluminum 3.5" USB & eSATA External Enclosure

There what appears to multiple *docking stations* available, as options.

Can I *absolutely guarantee* any of this will work on your system--nope--but, it looks like a promising option given what you want to do (and continue to use that old Ghost 2003 software  ;) --don't get me wrong--I'm still using that old Ghost 2003 software--but, I have to make compromises with both hardware and software, and Windows software setups to make it continue to work!)

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 18th, 2011 at 6:14am
Sorry if I'm being really dumb about this, but I don't follow your logic. Okay, it's an e-SATA bracket, rather than a card, but surely some software is involved, to make the e-SATA connection function when plugged into a SATA2 port, isn't it? If so, that'd be a risky experiment!

Surely, a USB connection eventually ends up going through the same sort of motherboard controller as any other external bus connection, so why should e-SATA be any different in principle here to USB? I don't see why, if Ghost won't even fully launch with USB, it should launch with e-SATA. Surely, there has to be a difference at the software level between SATA2 and e-SATA, as otherwise why didn't the standards bodies just adopt the SATA2 connector shell for external connectivity? Surely, the difference between SATA2 and e-SATA isn't just the connector, is it?

Another point - and I risk further criticism here - is that this will involve further expenditure and, frankly with the amount of PC hardware that I've been having to return to suppliers in the last few months because it simply doesn't work properly, I'm extremely loath to dip into my pocket once again. There's more than one e-SATA interface in circulation as well; if you don't believe me, look it up on Wikipedia. I think the one fitted to the Akasa docking station is an interim one.

Although I see where you're coming from over this, Nightowl, in trying to make the externally-mounted Samsung feel like it's fitted to one of the PC's internal SATA ports, I think you're forgetting that the docking station has an e-SATA interface in it and it's that that, in any event, Ghost would have to deal with.

Postscript: I've been doing some googling on "e-SATA  brackets" and I think you may have a good point, Nightowl as, so far, it does appear that the only difference between a SATA2 port and an e-SATA port is the physical shell. So, if I can ascertain that the e-SATA cable provided with the Akasa docking station is going to be compatible, I may well invest the small sum of money required to get one of those brackets. Startech make one that has two e-SATAs on the bracket.


 

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 18th, 2011 at 6:40am
@ voximan

I've used both in my computer. eSATA plugged into the motherboard and an eSATA card.


voximan wrote on Apr 18th, 2011 at 6:14am:
but surely some software is involved, to make the e-SATA connection function when plugged into a SATA2 port? 

No software needed. Just plug it in. For an eSATA card you only need drivers. I have a Lacie SiI3132 - PCI Express (1x) to 2 Port SATA300.

Edit....   Ghost 2003 sees the partition on the eSATA HD as 3:1 (third HD).

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 18th, 2011 at 7:48am
Yeh, the only problem I can foresee with using this e-SATA bracket thingy is that care will be needed when installing and then uninstalling the Samsung drive. Unlike USB, you can't just plug and unplug SATA connections with the PC running, not least because the system BIOS will get confused. So, when wanting to do a clone using G2003, I'm not sure of the safest way in which to power up the docking station and then, later, to power it down. Because the Samsung will be seen as a SATA-connected drive, the BIOS will need to detect it during the booting up of the PC. Unless you allow the BIOS to do so, neither Windows nor G2003 will see the drive.

And the question is: how would I later remove the Samsung from the PC? If you just power the docking station off, with the PC still on, you'll likely corrupt something, as in normal circumstances HDDs aren't hot-swappable. If you power down the PC before powering down the docking station, could the SATA interface in the PC be damaged by quiescent but nonetheless active SATA signals coming from the Samsung? Indeed, could random signals pass across the interface? Inside a standard PC, practically everything normally powers up and down simultaneously. Perhaps, for these sorts of reasons, it's better to use some sort of e-SATA PCI card?

Afterthought: Oh, I've just recalled something else that might prove problematic. It's a long time since I did a Disk-to-Disk copy of any sort where the disk interface is direct, but what I now remember about it is that, directly after cloning, you have to be ultra-careful not to allow Ghost to boot back into Windows, as otherwise you ended up with two identical drives, each claiming to be the boot drive. Result - a corrupted system. Similarly, when you later needed to re-clone, you had to never miss getting into the BIOS as, if that happened, you also got both drives each trying to boot into Windows. Also, where the two physical drives were of the same capacity, it was nigh on impossible to tell which was the source drive and which was the destination drive initially in Ghost (DOS), as Ghost doesn't show any other identifiers other than the formatted capacity. I think I've a note somewhere of a solution to this latter problem, though. It involves doing a dummy Partition-to-Image, having previously put a dated folder into the root partition of the source drive, and then reading that date while in Ghost. Having identified which drive is which, you can then proceed instead with Disk-to-Disk.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Rad on Apr 18th, 2011 at 9:04pm
I see you have NightOwl & Brian helping. That's about as good as it gets.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 19th, 2011 at 11:17am
@ voximan

eSATA = *external SATA*


Quote:
Unlike USB, you can't just plug and unplug SATA connections with the PC running

Well, technically, all my USB devices are listed in the System Tray under *Safely Remove Hardware*--unless you use that method to disconnect, your USB attached HDD could also experience data corruption if Windows has not finished any pending writes to it.


Quote:
not least because the system BIOS will get confused

Why do you say that?  Have you had such a problem?  My BIOS detects whatever I attach--and if later a device has been removed, then the BIOS does not report the presence of a device--I've never had any confusion!


Quote:
I'm not sure of the safest way in which to power up the docking station and then, later, to power it down

Any documentation with your Akasa docking station?  Does it recommend *best practice* regarding connecting and disconnecting and powering up and down?

As best I can guess--with the system powered down, I would connect the external HDD that is attached to the docking station or enclosure that is connected via the eSATA cabling to the system and then power the docking station up so the HDD is running.  Then power up the system.  Perform whatever cloning that I needed to do either directly booting to DOS (or it looks like you first load Windows and use the Ghost 2003 Ghost interface in Windows to set up your cloning and then let Ghost close out Windows and re-boot to DOS where Ghost does its thing--and then Ghost boots back to Windows--is that what you normally do?).  Then I would power down the system.  And then power down the docking station and disconnect it--before powering back up to Windows.


Quote:
If you power down the PC before powering down the docking station, could the SATA interface in the PC be damaged by quiescent but nonetheless active SATA signals coming from the Samsung?

This seems unlikely--if this was a problem, then eSATA docking stations would not exist--you have to be able to attach and detach an external device somehow--my best guess!


Quote:
what I now remember about it is that, directly after cloning, you have to be ultra-careful not to allow Ghost to boot back into Windows, as otherwise you ended up with two identical drives, each claiming to be the boot drive. Result - a corrupted system.

I think that problem began back when the first NT versions of Windows came out, and pre-Ghost 2003--the NT systems began using the NT-signature in the Master Boot Record to identify which drive was which so the assigned drive letters could be remembered whether you move the drive from one HDD controller to another. 

Ghost 2003's default behavior is to erase the NT-signature on the destination HDD--this forces Windows to re-assign drive letters to that HDD--and not see it as *identical* to the source drive that it was cloned from.  So, I think that problem does not actually exist any longer--unless you use cloning switches that force Ghost to preserve that NT-signature on the destination drive.


Quote:
when you later needed to re-clone, you had to never miss getting into the BIOS as, if that happened, you also got both drives each trying to boot into Windows

Not sure here what you are talking about--on my newer system you go into the BIOS and tell it which HDD (i.e. connected to a specific controller) is to be the boot HDD.  Once that's set, you can have as many other HDDs on the system as you want (all bootable)--but, the one you have set is the one that will boot.  Those other HDDs are listed to choose from--but, they will not change the BIOS settings behind your back--you're in charge--at least on my system! 

On my older systems, you had to connect a boot HDD to the primary PATA controller in the Master position on the cable in order for it to be the boot drive--you could not enter the BIOS and select which HDD on which controller would be bootable!


Quote:
where the two physical drives were of the same capacity, it was nigh on impossible to tell which was the source drive and which was the destination drive initially in Ghost

Yes, you do have to figure those things out.  The order of the HDDs in the DOS Ghost interface will be based on the order that the BIOS sees each of the SATA ports.  So if you hook up your internal main HDD to SATA port 0 (or 1--depending on how your BIOS reports the ports) and the eSATA port is the next available port--then the first HDD (at the top) should be your main HDD--and the second listed HDD should be the eSATA connected HDD.  Of course, if the first time you do this, the eSATA HDD should be blank--so if you go into the *Local > Partition >  To Image* you will see your partition(s) listed for you existing main HDD--and nothing will show up if you select the blank destination HDD.  Once you know the correct order--write it down, and unless you change your cabling--that order should be the same each time you use Ghost on that system.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 20th, 2011 at 11:56am
@ Brian


Quote:
I've used both in my computer. eSATA plugged into the motherboard and an eSATA card.

So, you have experience!  Any thoughts on *hot swapping* and powering up and down and connecting and disconnecting eSATA devices on a system?

The SATA protocols allow for hot swapping--but, how is that implemented on a system?  Do the HDDs show up in the System Tray *Safely Remove Hardware* application. 

And, do I remember correctly--do you have to configure the HDDs to use AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) in the BIOS for hot swapping to work? 

I don't think DOS--or at least DOS Ghost-- will not work if AHCI is active in the BIOS for SATA HDDs.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 20th, 2011 at 3:36pm
@ NightOwl

I haven't used an eSATA HD plugged directly into the MB for a few years. I didn't try hot swapping. On my system it was a pain. I had to shut down, connect the eSATA HD, turn the SATA port ON in the BIOS and boot into Windows. When finished with the eSATA HD I shut down, disconnected the eSATA HD and turned the SATA port OFF in the BIOS. If I didn't turn the port OFF I'd get a warning message at each boot about a HD not being connected (or something similar).

I now use an eSATA card and it is as simple as using a USB HD. When needed I hot plug the eSATA HD. To disconnect the eSATA HD I use Hot Swap.

http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm#download

My BIOS is set to AHCI and Ghost 2003 sees the internal SATA HDs and the eSATA HD. The eSATA card has its own BIOS and I used to know what this enabled but I've forgotten. We had a thread where someone had an eSATA card without a BIOS and couldn't do "something".

Edit... I found this.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1248583770/18#18

Maybe the card needs a BIOS to work with Ghost 2003.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 21st, 2011 at 4:45am
NightOwl and Brian,

If you google AHCI and hot-swapping, you'll find that there's fevered debate on the subject. With Windows XP, some people falsely believe that all they have to do to put their HDDs into AHCI mode is to change the settiing in the BIOS. This isn't always the case, by any means. Yes, you can do it and take a gamble and you may be lucky in not corrupting one or more HDDs in the process, but with my motherboard and operating system the proper method is to do a floppy or USB-stick F6 instalment of Windows XP. That entails putting additional files on to the floppy or USB-stick and has to be done prior to installing Windows XP. Therefore, if the machine's not already working in AHCI and you didn't do an F6 install, you have to wipe the system drive first, before you can then do it. If you're not specifically running AHCI for RAID, then this isn't worth doing retrospectively, in my view. However, I can believe that some people will take a difference stance.

The literature with some products - my Akasa docking station, for instance - claims, without reference to any OS, that hot-swapping of the drive can be done on both the USB and eSATA connections to it. This is quite untrue. It can be done with USB (provided you demount beforehand using the systray icon) but cannot be done with eSATA. That is, you'd no more disconnect the docked drive than disconnect any other hard drive in your machine while they were running, would you, unless AHCI had been properly set up beforehand?

Brian's findings with using plain vanilla eSATA are precisely what I would have predicted. Like he did, if you use eSATA without an eSATA card, you have to be prepared to power the various drives up and down in a specific order and also have to be careful about getting into the BIOS at the appropriate times, otherwise things can get messy. For me, the eSATA card route is probably going to prove unnecessary, as I'll be cloning/recloning only 2 - 3 times a year and each time will be referring to procedural notes. Otherwise, he's right; use of an eSATA card is better.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 21st, 2011 at 5:12am
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 21st, 2011 at 4:45am:
Therefore, if the machine's not already working in AHCI and you didn't do an F6 install, you have to wipe the system drive first, before you can then do it. 

Having installed AHCI drivers many times to a non booting system (missing AHCI drivers) I know this is not true. The easy way to do this is with the OSDTool which is part of TBOSDT Pro but here is an early description of the process. This was written prior to the OSDTool being used.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/howto-drvins-tbosdt-dos.htm

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 21st, 2011 at 10:35am
Brian,

Thus far, I've not needed to configure my motherboard for AHCI and so currently it's operated in just Native IDE mode (for its SATA2 HDD). As I wrote, I'm not convinced yet, either way, as some people have had disasterous results when moving from IDE to AHCI mode, whereas others have had no problems at all. And there are those who say that AHCI mode gives faster HDD operation as well, and yet most of the forums I've come across that have discussed IDE v AHCI have reported either the opposite or no detectable increase in speed at all.

I have to confess that my user manual on my motherboard is completely ambiguous about the matter. It doesn't make a clear distinction between plain vanilla AHCI and AHCI when used with RAID. It seems to say that, for both AHCI and RAID modes, you cannot just alter the BIOS settings from IDE to AHCI, you have to reinstall the OS (applies to WinXP and Win Vista), at the same time doing an F6 install.

I'll see what my motherboard's own forum says about this. A number of confused users on that forum have recently raised the issue again, I think.

So ....... you may well be correct. (I always approach these sorts of things with some caution, as quite often whether certain functions are possible can depend on the particular chipset your board uses, or the way in which the BIOS has been written).

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 21st, 2011 at 3:51pm
@ voximan

Much of my testing has been with imaging an OS on an IDE HD in one computer and restoring the image to another computer with SATA HDs and AHCI BIOS. The restored OS fails to boot with a 7B BSOD. As expected. This OS can be fixed and booting into Windows in minutes.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 5:16am
I've already had some feedback from the forum concerning the type of motherboard I now use. I'm reliably informed that it's NOT possible to properly run my motherboard in AHCI mode, Windows XP having already been installed, without wiping the system drive and reinstalling everything using an 'F6 pre-install'. One other method has been suggested by experts on the forum (moderators who are employed because of their in-depth knowledge of these particular motherboards) but this involves not only some Windows Registry mods but also the applying of some modified drivers. I've been warned that users have had varying success with the latter.

All things considered, my preference is to stay with IDE mode for my SATA ports. When doing Disk-to-Disk copying in G2003 (DOS), as long as I'm careful about the order in which things are powered up and down, working in just IDE mode should be okay.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 5:27am
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 5:16am:
without performing a modification to the Windows Registry.

How will that be that done? If it can be done before changing to AHCI mode that is a plus.

By the way, OSDTool installs the drivers and modifies the registry.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 5:39am
You managed to get in your response before I then modified my last entry, Brian. When I went back to my motherboard forum, a couple of experts there retracted their advice, having realised that changing to AHCI in that simple way was possible only in Windows Vista and Windows 7. It's not workable in Windows XP. With Windows XP, the only recourse is to wipe the disc and do an F6 pre-install.

If you yourself are using Vista or 7 and want to try the simple Registry mod, let me know and I'll pass on the information I've gained from my mobo forum.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 5:54am
@ voximan

Can you ask the forum members if they have tried using the OSDTool (TBOSDT Pro) with WinXP to install AHCI drivers after changing the BIOS to AHCI?

I'm mainly using XP but I do have 4 Win7 partitions on this computer for my testing. This computer multi-boots about 20 partitions. I'm interested to hear more about the registry mod.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 6:09am
Brian,

I've left a reply in the mobo forum. It's one that discusses a broad range of Gigabyte mobos, incidentally.

If the two relevant contributors agree to it, I'll paste their recommendation into this forum. I may have to wait, though, as the principal protagonist gives advice on both the american and UK versions of the forum.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 22nd, 2011 at 6:40am
Brian,

I've managed to get a quick response and have got their agreement to copy and paste the bulk of their replies here.

The first set of instructions below is from one adviser, the second set is from the other adviser. The first set doesn't apply in the case of Windows XP having already been installed (as pointed out in the second set). They tell me that these mods are universal.

How to change IDE mode to AHCI after OS installation.

1. Exit all Windows-based programs.

2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

3. If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.

4. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesMsahci

5. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.

6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

7. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

After this you’ll have to restart your computer, go to BIOS and enable AHCI. When you log in to Windows again, you’ll notice the installation of drivers for AHCI. Another restart will be required to finish the driver installation.


Response from the other expert:

Those registry edits only apply to Windows Vista or Windows 7, for XP a clean install is easiest, XP can be a huge hassle.   Some have success by just updating the driver in device manager to Intel AHCI driver or MS AHCI Driver, but I've never done it personally and I've heard the outcome go both ways.

Or you could use an old outdated program to enable RAID Mode, this will setup the correct drivers and registry entries, and then you can switch the BIOS to AHCI mode instead of RAID once you install the updated RST program mentioned below.
http://mike.geek-republic.com/software/raidfix/

If you use that, I highly suggest you update to the latest RST Drivers and programs right after you get it going though, then switch BIOS to AHCI:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Rapid+Storage+Technology

You may also need to do a manual registry edit after installing the latest RST, before you switch to AHCI:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IaStorV << Set start type to 0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci << Set start type to 0

A clean install using F6 to install drivers from a floppy disk, or a clean install of XP with slipstreamed drivers would be best though, and possibly easier for you to do.
 


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 23rd, 2011 at 2:24am
@ voximan

Is anyone in the motherboard forum familiar with using TBOSDT Pro to install AHCI drivers to a non booting system?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 23rd, 2011 at 8:37am
Not that I'm aware of. I've yet to hear again from the second expert, though. Be assured that if I get any news on the TBOSDT front, I'll let you know.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 24th, 2011 at 6:14am
Brian,

Earlier in this thread you described how you used to have to do disc cloning, before you finally bought an eSATA card. In it, you stated "When finished, shut down, disconnect eSATA HDD ...... ".

How exactly did you "shut down"? I presume you were performing the cloning exercise using the DOS environment of G2003 and therefore I assume that what you did at the end of the cloning was to Quit, Change directory to A:, Remove the floppy, Power down the PC, then Remove the destination drive. Is this correct?

What I've described above is what I myself used to do when I used to use PATA drives. It worked fine but I was never really happy about powering off the PC. Mind you, at that point, the machine was in just a DOS mode (so not in Windows) and furthermore was in the A: directory, so powering off could do little harm, at least in theory.

Your current solution aside, I'm just wondering if you ever found a more sanitary way of being able to safely remove the destination drive. The trouble is that, when you come out of G2003 DOS, the system will (if you let it) boot straight back into Windows (which you must not let happen, with the two drives still connected up). There's no opportunity to get into the BIOS at that point. So, the only way out of this is to get out of G2003 to the A: prompt and then power off the machine.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 24th, 2011 at 12:24pm
@ voximan


Quote:
The trouble is that, when you come out of G2003 DOS, the system will (if you let it) boot straight back into Windows (which you must not let happen, with the two drives still connected up). There's no opportunity to get into the BIOS at that point.

So, I still need clarification.  I asked back in reply #12:


Quote:
Perform whatever cloning that I needed to do either directly booting to DOS (or it looks like you first load Windows and use the Ghost 2003 Ghost interface in Windows to set up your cloning and then let Ghost close out Windows and re-boot to DOS where Ghost does its thing--and then Ghost boots back to Windows--is that what you normally do?).

That was in response to your reply #10:


Quote:
what I now remember about it is that, directly after cloning, you have to be ultra-careful not to allow Ghost to boot back into Windows, as otherwise you ended up with two identical drives, each claiming to be the boot drive. Result - a corrupted system. Similarly, when you later needed to re-clone, you had to never miss getting into the BIOS as, if that happened, you also got both drives each trying to boot into Windows.

To my knowledge, the only way to have Ghost 2003 *automatically* boot back to Windows is if you have set up your cloning operations in the Ghost Windows interface, let it close out Windows, re-boot to DOS via the *virtual partition* route, do the cloning operation, then Ghost will shut itself down, switch out of the *virtual partition*, and then re-boot back to Windows.

The only other way I'm aware of is by using a DOS Ghost *switch* to start Ghost that tells Ghost to re-boot after completion of whatever procedure you have set up.  (One can also, after booting to DOS and starting Ghost--go to the *Options* menu item on the opening screen, select the *Misc.* tab, and you can put a check in the *reboot* box*--if you *save* that change--then Ghost will always re-boot the system after whatever procedure it performs--but, you need to have removed a bootable floppy disk or optical disc if your system is set to boot from one of those, and you have used one of those to originally boot to DOS Ghost--being as you will simply return to the DOS prompt if they are still in the boot drive.).

But, with either of the options above, you should be aware that you have set things up that way--nothing should be happening unless you made those things happen!  If your Ghost boot disks or discs are just the plain default versions, then when Ghost is done with the procedure, it just sits there waiting for your next command.  If you elect to *Quit* Ghost, then you are returned to the DOS prompt, and then the system just sits there waiting for next command.  If you press the *Off* button on your system, it powers down--pretty much end of story.

In your original post you said:


Quote:
I'm planning to use Ghost 2003 - from the DOS version on a floppy

So, please clarify--are you booting from a floppy disk to DOS Ghost?

Or, are you using the Windows Ghost interface to preform your Ghost cloning operation?

And, does your system have a floppy drive--even if you are not booting from a floppy disk to DOS Ghost?

***************************************************************************


Quote:
Mind you, at that point, the machine was in just a DOS mode (so not in Windows) and furthermore was in the A: directory, so powering off could do little harm, at least in theory.

In DOS, at the DOS prompt, and with no other DOS programs running in the background that would access the HDDs (you should know if you have loaded any other programs!), then the system is at *idle* and there should be no HDD activity (look at your HDD activity light to confirm!).  If powering off at the DOS prompt did (could) cause harm, that would be fairly common knowledge because it's been done for 20 + years now!  I have never seen any indication that that's a problem!


Quote:
Your current solution aside, I'm just wondering if you ever found a more sanitary way of being able to safely remove the destination drive.

I'm still not sure *what* you're looking for!  You are using a DOS based cloning program!  You power down the system when done, power down the external docking station, and disconnect whatever communication cords are hooked up.  And you power up the system to Windows.

The next time you want to clone--you power down the system, hook up the communication cords from the docking station, turn on the docking station's power and power up the system booting to DOS!

To my knowledge (unless someone has programed a driver that I'm not aware of for DOS), there is no *hot swapping* in DOS, and there is no *AHCI* functions in DOS.  So, those items are *off the table* for DOS cloning!


Quote:
but I was never really happy about powering off the PC

Why?!  What's the problem?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 24th, 2011 at 4:27pm
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 24th, 2011 at 6:14am:
So, the only way out of this is to get out of G2003 to the A: prompt and then power off the machine.


Yes, that's what I do when I use Ghost 2003. Just as NightOwl has described above. However I almost exclusively use my eSATA HDs when I'm in Windows, for secondary backup purposes such as copying a backup image from the second HD to the eSATA HD. Or doing a secondary backup of the Data partition.

In Reply #5, NightOwl explained how he uses images rather than clones for backup. I agree. I've never created a clone as a backup. I'd only clone when upgrading to a larger HD but in practice I do this with images. Dan Goodell has written some points about why clones should be avoided for backup purposes. See Reply #7.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1132968474;start=7#7


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 24th, 2011 at 11:52pm
@ voximan


Quote:
Currently, PC-DOS otherwise works fine on another external drive I've been using for the past year or two - a LaCie fully-enclosed, USB-connected drive. So, this is clearly very much device/manufacturer-dependent. I use the Lacie drive (500GB) for storing partition images made with Ghost PC-DOS.

Do you have the model number for that USB external HDD enclosure?

Any idea what *internal* interface is used by the HDD--PATA or SATA?

Are there instructions on replacing the enclosed HDD with any other size HDD--i.e. does it say what type (PATA or SATA) HDD you would use if you did want to replace it?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 25th, 2011 at 4:30am
NightOwl, let me address your latest set of questions first. I'll come to your earlier ones later. Brian, I'll reply a bit later, if I may. Got lots of other computing and non-computing tasks to get through today.

The LaCie enclosure is a 500GB Neil Poulton model (no model no., as such), the one with the gimmicky blue light. It's not a particularly quiet hard drive but that doesn't matter in my case, as this drive's used only as a destination drive when making G2003 images of my system partition. This model has an on/off switch, so that you can have it there, permanently connected up on the desk, switched off for most of the time, but have it readily accessible.

The one and only interface on it is a USB 2.0 interface. By looking at its drive's Properties, I've managed to ascertain that it uses an Hitachi HDT721050SLA380. (The drive's name comes up briefly, anyway, during the boot into PC-DOS). I suppose you could look that up on the Web to see if it's a SATA or PATA drive; I've not hitherto done so, but my guess would be that it's a SATA drive. Being a permanently-enclosed drive, one that you're not meant to ever remove from its casing, the type of drive is somewhat immaterial to me. Perhaps what's more important to me is that its USB interface is compatible with G2003 Build 793.

There are most certainly no instructions in the small leaflet that came with it for replacing the drive inside.

After an awful lot of searching and analysing of specns., I bought this about 18 months ago. I think LaCie may now have stopped marketing it, though. They make a similar one now, called the Neil Poulton Quadra, which has a variety of interfaces - 3Gbps eSATA, Firewire 400 and 800, and USB 2.0. Am not sure what the drive size is, in the Quadra, but googling for it will give you those details. Or, of course, you can go to LaCie's site. It's almost bound to be 500GB or greater.

If you think you might want to get a Quadra, then bear in mind that you might be taking a chance with one or more of those interfaces working properly with G2003. Just because my 500GB USB model works with G2003, it doesn't automatically follow that the Quadra will, because manufacturers have a habit of tweaking and re-designing interfaces.

Postscript: Have just done a quick google and the drive's one of the Deskstar 7K1000.B types. 7200 rpm, SATA 300, 8MB buffer, 8.5m sec av. seek.

In its Properties In Windows, I've got it set up for 'Optimise for quick removal', rather than 'Optimise for performance'.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 25th, 2011 at 7:19am
Brian,

Thanks for confirming what I too found I had to do, to safely remove the destination drive.

Having learnt some bitter lessons in the past, what I do nowadays, using G2003, is:

1) Imaging my system partition to a reserved partition on the same physical drive.
2) Imaging my system partition to my external USB-connected hard drive enclosure.
3) Occasionally cloning my hard drive to another physical hard drive that I keep aside. This is why I recently invested in the Akasa docking station I've mentioned.

By doing this, I think I cover the possibilities of different failures quite well.

I usually partition my main drive and so can make images and can restore quite quickly, especially if I use a reserved destination partition on the main drive for it. Imaging in this way not only allows me to quickly test new apps or utilities but also enables me to return to much earlier incrarnations of my system partition, if that becomes necessary.

I don't place 100% reliance on the main hard drive, though. That is, drives do fail, and they can get corrupted in other ways. They are, after all, electro-mechanical in nature. I don't place 100% faith for all time in my external drive either (the LaCie enclosure). I fully anticipate that, in time, that too will fail. All mass-produced hard drives have a finite life and, in my experience, that's no more than about 3 years.

If anything, the main drive , inside the PC, is likely to fail the quickest, as it runs for far, far longer than the external drive and gets switched on and off the most often. For that reason, I prefer to also do cloning of the entire main drive inside the PC, and that's where the newly-acquired Akasa docking station and Samsung drive will come in.

Even way back in 2003, I never managed to get G2003 to work properly in the Windows environment so, ever since, I've always stuck to using it instead in the DOS mode. And even with Ghost updated to Build 793, G2003 DOS can be very choosy as with which USB interfaces it'll work. Evidentially, the Ghost DOS drivers aren't fully compatible with all USB interfaces.

I've left the Windows version of G2003 on my old PC (a machine barely used at all now and no longer online). About the only use I make of it is to make/re-make the floppy bootdisks. On the newly-built machine, I don't even bother to install the app. When I need to do a backup or restore on the new machine, all I need use is a bootdisk (floppy). People may laugh at me for purposely installing a FDD on a new machine but it's simple and, for the mostpart, G2003 DOS works.

As ever, I can only relate what works for me. But people have different PC setups and consequently different preferences. And given that official support for G2003 ended a long time ago, I don't find it surprising that it occasionally fails to work with some memory devices/interfaces. But at least this G2003 forum can point the way to usefully prolonging its use. I've yet to come across an alternative and bug-free app of this kind that has the same versatility.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 25th, 2011 at 4:24pm
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 25th, 2011 at 7:19am:
I've yet to come across an alternative and bug-free app of this kind that has the same versatility. 


I like Image for Linux. It works from a CD, USB flash drive or from a HD partition. It can create/restore partition and entire drive images, clone partitions and entire drives, wired and wireless network support, USB HD support, can do automated images/restores even across a network, does sector based restores, is compatible with 2048 sector alignment, has different geometry options, is updated regularly.

Despite the Linux name, it is mainly used on Windows OS.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 25th, 2011 at 5:27pm
NightOwl,

To get back to some of the questions you posed:

There's no great mystery about the stupidity of allowing two physical system drives to boot with the same copy of Windows on them - just don't do it! Not unless you want to risk corrupting one or both of them. Why would you ever want to allow two identical drives to try to boot at the same time anyway? In fact, Symantec warned about this, both in their G2003 user manual and later in various Ghost articles on the Web. When you clone a complete drive, therefore, you have to be especially careful to remove the destination drive afterward in a sanitary way. When cloning a drive, quitting Ghost DOS in the normal way is inadvisable, as the destination drive will otherwise then boot automatically back into Windows, giving you the unwanted double-boot situation.

I think I made it clear from the very start of this thread that I don't use the Windows  version of G2003. I never had much success with the Windows version, so for years I've just used the DOS version. It's Build 793, which is the latest ever issued by Symantec. Yes, it's a floppy I use.

I don't understand why you've been making such a fuss of my comment that I disliked just powering off after performing cloning. It's just that, to me, it's always seemed a bit of a dirty solution the need to remove the destination drive, that's all. The only thing I was seeking was whether Brian or someone else had discovered a more elegant way of doing it, when coming out of the DOS environment. But it appears that neither he nor anyone else had. That's fine by me. I'll continue to do it that way. End of story.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 26th, 2011 at 12:55am
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 25th, 2011 at 5:27pm:
When you clone a complete drive, therefore, you have to be especially careful to remove the destination drive afterward in a sanitary way.


Not necessarily. I can't speak for Ghost 2003 but this isn't an issue with the Windows hot imaging Ghosts. You can leave the new HD in place and continue booting from the old HD. At a later time you can remove the old HD and boot from the new HD.

What you must not do is boot from the new HD while the old HD is still in the computer. After a single boot from the new HD, the old HD can be reinstalled in the computer if desired.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.shtml


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 26th, 2011 at 6:14am
 
Brian wrote on Apr 26th, 2011 at 12:55am:
What you must not do is boot from the new HD while the old HD is still in the computer.


This is precisely what I meant.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 26th, 2011 at 11:13am
@ voximan


Quote:
I don't understand why you've been making such a fuss of my comment that I disliked just powering off after performing cloning.

Hmmmm.....maybe, because you kept making a *fuss* about how possible data corruption might occur to the external HDD if the *proper* way to power down and disconnect peripheral items when in DOS is used.  I've never had that happen.  I was trying to understand your situation, and if you have had such a problem occur.  Apparently not.  So, as you have said, *End of story*!


Quote:
There's no great mystery about the stupidity of allowing two physical system drives to boot with the same copy of Windows on them

Well, ... I don't!  I use Ghost image files--I never clone *disk>to disk*--so I'm never in risk of any OS corruption due to two identical drives on the same system.

But, as I mentioned in reply #12:


Quote:
Ghost 2003's default behavior is to erase the NT-signature on the destination HDD--this forces Windows to re-assign drive letters to that HDD--and not see it as *identical* to the source drive that it was cloned from.  So, I think that problem does not actually exist any longer--unless you use cloning switches that force Ghost to preserve that NT-signature on the destination drive.

I have not done the actual experimenting to be absolutely sure of that statement--but the testing could be done if you are using *disk > to disk* cloning and leaving the external HDD connected--just need a spare HDD, and then removing the actual *good* OS HDD and then performing *disk > to disk* cloning and re-booting to see what happens.  If one of the drives (or both drives) gets corrupted--remove the corrupt one where you would normally connect the OS HDD, reconnect your *good* HDD that you removed, and just re-clone to the *backup* drive as before--if corruption actually is a problem, then just make sure you don't boot with both HDDs up and running--as you have said!


Quote:
When cloning a drive, quitting Ghost DOS in the normal way is inadvisable, as the destination drive will otherwise then boot automatically back into Windows, giving you the unwanted double-boot situation.

But, I just don't understand!  You continue to make this statement.  When I use Ghost 2003 in DOS from a floppy disk, there is no such behavior.  So, I have to assume your version of Ghost 2003 must behave in a different manner than what I'm familiar with!

On my oldest system, I can change the boot priority to be the one of the following:  floppy drive, optical drive, or HDD.  If I choose HDD, then the only drive that will boot is the drive connected to the *Primary IDE Controller*, and it must be the *Master* HDD (either by using the jumper to set it as Master, or if *Cable Select* is used, then it has to be on the *Master* position of the communication cable).

On my next newer system, I can add an external USB HDD or USB Flashdrive to the boot priority list--but, only if the device is actually connected prior to booting--and then I have to bring up the *Boot Priority List* during boot and manually select the USB device in order to boot from it.  Otherwise, the only HDD that will be bootable, is the HDD connected to the Primary IDE Controller, and as Master--similar to my oldest system.

On my newest system, the BIOS lets me choose from a bunch of different boot devices for the Boot Priority list:  floppy, LS120, Hard Disk, CDROM, ZIP, USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, and Legacy LAN.

And, after selecting the *Hard Disk*, if I have more than one HDD hooked up (I do!), then in a separate BIOS setting, I have to choose the *Hard Disk Boot Priority* setting, and there, choose the specific HDD on a specific HDD controller--this includes any external USB HDD that the system detects during boot!  Again, once that HDD is set, the only way that I can change the boot device is by manually using the *Boot Menu* during boot, or by entering the BIOS and making a change there--on my system, Ghost 2003 does not make any changes to the BIOS Boot Priority, or to the boot device during re-boot.


Quote:
I think I made it clear from the very start of this thread that I don't use the Windows  version of G2003.

Initially, I glossed over your statement in your first post saying: *I'm planning to use Ghost 2003 - from the DOS version on a floppy*. 

As I said in reply #28: 


Quote:
To my knowledge, the only way to have Ghost 2003 *automatically* boot back to Windows is if you have set up your cloning operations in the Ghost Windows interface, let it close out Windows, re-boot to DOS via the *virtual partition* route, do the cloning operation, then Ghost will shut itself down, switch out of the *virtual partition*, and then re-boot back to Windows.

That's why I became confused about whether you were using the Windows Ghost interface--or, booting from a DOS boot disk or disc.

For me, Ghost 2003 booted directly to DOS from a bootable floppy or optical disc, has never *automatically* re-booted the system back to Windows.  And DOS Ghost 2003 has never made any changes to my BIOS Boot Priority settings.

So, I'm still interested in how your version of Ghost 2003 behaves differently!

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 26th, 2011 at 5:03pm
@ voximan

If the new HD is left in place after the clone and you boot from the old HD it is interesting how different OS handle the situation. If both HDs have the same Disk Signature, WinXP changes the Disk Signature on the non booting HD. If both HDs have the same Disk Signature, Win7 doesn't change the Disk Signature on the non booting HD but it takes that HD "Offline".

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 26th, 2011 at 5:40pm
A extra feature of Image for Linux. It has USB3 support.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 27th, 2011 at 8:47am
@ Brian


Quote:
If the new HD is left in place after the clone and you boot from the old HD it is interesting how different OS handle the situation. If both HDs have the same Disk Signature, WinXP changes the Disk Signature on the non booting HD.

So, you have done the *testing*--great!  Interesting results.  What program did you use to preserve the disk ID--TeraByte's?

I wonder if Microsoft updated the WinXP behavior when it sees an identical disk ID--back in the early days of WinXP I think there were a number of corrupt systems reported.  That seems to have become a non-issue as time went by.  I always thought it was Ghost's zeroing out the disk ID that was responsible.  But, maybe it was a change in WinXP!


Quote:
A extra feature of Image for Linux. It has USB3 support.

Thanks for the heads up!

Being as I have no USB 3 devices, I haven't tried looking to see if there are any DOS drivers being developed for USB 3.  I wonder if there will be any support in the future?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 27th, 2011 at 9:12am
NightOwl,

Possibly, the reason you're being so perplexed about the possibility of my G2003 automatically booting straight back into Windows after a Disk-to-Disk operation is partly because I've perhaps not qualified that statement properly. What I meant by "automatically" is that, yes, you the user still have to do the one or two operations to exit from G2003 DOS mode (eg. to get to an A: prompt again) but that, other than making the system then boot back into Windows (which is inadvisable, anyway, under those circumstances) there is no intermediate stage available in which to re-enter the BIOS. That is, when having got back to the A: prompt and removed the floppy disc and I do a Cntrl Alt Del, the system would otherwise boot straight to Windows; there's no opportunity to boot first to the BIOS. If you try, it simply doesn't work and the system will continue to boot to Windows.

Perhaps you've not noticed this because, as you say, you never do Disk-to-Disk copies? Regardless, though, when doing Disk-to-Disk copying, you must not allow the system to boot back into Windows with both physical drives still attached anyway.

When cloning using Disk-to-Disk, therefore, the best compromise seems to be to power off the PC, once you've safely put G2003 DOS to the A: prompt, then remove the destination drive. Then power up the PC once more, this time forcing it to enter the BIOS so that the drive(s) can be reconfigured back to normal and the boot order also put back to normal.

Now do you understand?

I can't vouch for what happens on your setup but certainly this is the procedure I had to use when I last did Disk-to-Disk cloning (with WinXP) - which was over some years and using PATA drives. I'm anticipating having to do the same on this new machine, using SATA drives. (I've only just taken delivery of the 'eSATA PCI bracket', so haven't had a chance yet to try it in earnest).

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 27th, 2011 at 9:30am
Brian,

Thanks for those interesting test observations.

Back when I used to clone my PATA drives (under WinXP), I had no special trouble with them afterward. But I've a vague recollection that when I subsequently ran the destination drive (having removed the source drive from the machine), the latter would boot up noticeably slower than normal. Also, during the bootup, Windows would put a message onscreen to the effect that 'the hardware had changed'. This slowness disappeared the second time it booted, and the drive was always perfectly okay after that. Have never figured out what caused that slowness but, in any event, it didn't seem to matter. Perhaps it was just the BIOS 'reassigning' the drive and its partitions in some way?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 27th, 2011 at 12:00pm
Just tried out the eSATA PCI bracket. That is, connected up the Samsung drive, with it sitting in the Akasa docking station.

Being careful to ensure I powered on the Samsung before the PC, I've just tried out the connection (not involving Ghost at all). The Samsung's automatically detected by the BIOS, which I think is how it should be. As Windows came to screen, I got the "Found New Disc Drive" alert in the systray. Again, normal, I think, for WinXP. Then looking in Disk Management and in Windows Explorer, I was able to see the Samsung. Last week, I partitioned and formatted some of it, just to see that, as a newly-bought drive, it was okay.

I then shut down Windows (turning the PC off). I then powered off the Samsung.

So, thus far, no problems. After a second run of doing this, however, I've noticed that, when I finally shut Windows down, the Samsung drive itself also shuts down without me needing to press the on/off button on the docking station. Nice!

The Samsung drive showed in Disk Management as Drive K, which seems a bit adrift but might have resulted from my playing around with the Samsung last week.

Tomorrow, I'll run Ghost DOS (as usual, from the floppy) and see if Ghost recognises the Samsung. It jolly well should, as the Samsung should be appear as just another hard disc, connected as it is into one of the six SATA ports on the PC's motherboard.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 27th, 2011 at 3:57pm
@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Apr 27th, 2011 at 8:47am:
What program did you use to preserve the disk ID--TeraByte's?


Yes. My test computer has 3 HDs. In BootIt BM I edited the Disk Signature of the third HD so it matched the first HD.

Have you downloaded your free copy of BootIt BM? There are changes from BING, subtle, but I think major changes will come later. It contains a GUI IFD which is nice. It is more compatible with my USB devices. When creating partitions you can now choose the offset in MB so the partition can be positioned anywhere you like. Before you only had the option of the start or end of the unallocated space. You can use GPT. I don't have any HDs larger than 2 TB but I had fun learning to use GPT with a 20 GB HD. WinXP can't see these partitions. Win7 can.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 27th, 2011 at 4:09pm
@ voximan


voximan wrote on Apr 27th, 2011 at 9:12am:
Regardless, though, when doing Disk-to-Disk copying, you must not allow the system to boot back into Windows with both physical drives still attached anyway.


I think we differ because I don't make BIOS changes before of after the clone process so the new HD remains the slave. So for me, booting back into Windows with both physical drives still attached is no problem. I think you are using the BIOS to make the new HD the boot drive and I agree that would be a problem if you then booted with both HDs attached. If it happens the new HD will not fully load into Windows because of the drive letter issue. It is easy to fix in WinXP by zeroing the Disk Signature. In Win7 the fix is a little more complicated. You have to zero the Disk Signature and do two Win7 Startup Repairs. Instead of the Startup Repairs you can do a BCD Edit in BootIt. This is much faster than the  Startup Repairs.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 27th, 2011 at 10:54pm
@ voximan


Quote:
Possibly, the reason you're being so perplexed about the possibility of my G2003 automatically booting straight back into Windows after a Disk-to-Disk operation is partly because I've perhaps not qualified that statement properly.

Ah....*the rest of the story!*  Now I understand what you have been talking about.  But, that's the behavior of the BIOS--and not DOS or Ghost!

My oldest system did the same thing--if *Ctrl-Alt-Del* was used (a *warm re-boot*), then the POST (Power On Self Test) was by-passed--and that included being able to enter the BIOS.  You might find that if you use the *Reset* button (not the Power button), than you might be able to force the system to do a full POST, and you can then enter the BIOS without having to power down the system completely with the *Power Button* (a *cold re-boot*).  My newer systems do the full POST regardless of whether I use the *Ctrl-Alt-Del*, Reset button, or the Power button--I get the option to enter the BIOS under any of those options.  So, it all depends on the BIOS that's in use on a particular system.


Quote:
Now do you understand?

Well, sort of--I still do not know why, in your situation, you need to enter the BIOS after cloning to an attached USB external HDD.  You seem to indicate that something had been changed in the BIOS:


Quote:
once you've safely put G2003 DOS to the A: prompt, then remove the destination drive. Then power up the PC once more, this time forcing it to enter the BIOS so that the drive(s) can be reconfigured back to normal and the boot order also put back to normal.

Did you make changes in the BIOS before doing the cloning?  If *yes*--why?

I usually have the *default* boot order set in the BIOS as 1st boot device = floppy drive, 2nd boot device = CD-ROM drive, and 3rd boot device = internal HDD.  If no floppy is found, it looks for a bootable optical disc, and if that's not found, then the system boots from the HDD that has been set as the boot HDD.

On my newer systems, one can press one of the *F* keys (usually F8 or F12) and bring up a Boot Device Menu that allows for a one time temporary boot device selection if I want to change the boot device for this one time boot from what's been set in the BIOS--so, I don't have to make any changes in the BIOS.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 27th, 2011 at 11:27pm
@ voximan

Well, as indicated in the last few posts, you are not actually experiencing *automatic* re-boots to Windows after using Ghost--and, you are not using the Windows based Ghost interface that *automatically* closes down Windows, boots to the *virtual DOS partition*, performs the Ghost procedure, and then *automatically* re-boots to Windows.

But, for completeness, I want to explain the reason for asking about the presence of a floppy drive, and why I wanted to know if you were actually using the Windows Ghost interface, or not.

One of our moderators, El Pescador, has a preference for using the Windows 2003 Ghost interface.  And, for the reasons you have mentioned, did not want his system to *automatically* re-boot to Windows after doing a *disk > to disk* cloning procedure ( he did not want to re-boot to Windows with two *identical* HDDs present on the system--primarily, if he had both HDDs hooked up directly to the motherboard--not necessarily hooked up to an external USB HDD enclosure--and, he was not concerned about the BIOS boot order being changed, or wishing to re-enter the BIOS after cloning).

So, he developed the technique of making sure the floppy drive was listed as the first boot device in the BIOS.  He would then set up the cloning procedure in the Windows Ghost interface, allow Windows to shut down and re-boot to DOS, Ghost loaded and the procedure began.  He would then put a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive--he could then *walk away* from the system and let it perform the cloning without further user observation or intervention (for now). 

When the cloning was done, the system closed out DOS Ghost, and the system attempted to re-boot *automatically* to Windows.  But, because the 1st boot device was the floppy drive, and the drive had a blank floppy disk in it, the system would error out saying something to the effect *Non-System Disk--Please Replace with a System Disk*.  And the system halted waiting for user intervention and Windows was not able to be re-booted *automatically*--and thus two *identical* HDDs were not presented to Windows to deal with.

When he came back, he would power down the system, remove the destination cloned HDD for safe-keeping, and then booted the system back to Windows.

So, you could use that technique--if you were using the Windows Ghost interface for *disk > to disk* cloning, and you needed to avoid the *automatic* re-boot to Windows.

But, again, that was not the problem you were experiencing.




Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 28th, 2011 at 1:18am
@ voximan


Quote:
If you think you might want to get a Quadra....

Not really the reason I asked about your La Cie external USB HDD!


Quote:
bear in mind that you might be taking a chance with one or more of those interfaces working properly with G2003. Just because my 500GB USB model works with G2003, it doesn't automatically follow that the Quadra will, because manufacturers have a habit of tweaking and re-designing interfaces.

Precisely the *problem*!


Quote:
Being a permanently-enclosed drive, one that you're not meant to ever remove from its casing

Probably, almost no enclosure is actually *permanently-enclosed*--perhaps that's what the manufacturer would like you to think, but, it ain't necessarily so......


Quote:
Perhaps what's more important to me is that its USB interface is compatible with G2003 Build 793.

Now, that's the *important* fact--and why I'm asking about your enclosure!


Quote:
the type of drive is somewhat immaterial to me


You need to *think more outside the box*, or is that *outside the enclosure*--or, should that be *inside the enclosure*--would that make it *thinking more inside the box*?!  Hmmmm.........

So, here's the deal......

My first USB external enclosure was a 40 GB Iomega drive (included Ghost 2003--this is how I got started using Ghost back in 2002!).  After about a year I got an Adaptec enclosure that I had to supply my own HDD for it.  It said it could handle up to 1 TB PATA HDDs.  That Adaptec enclosure did not look much different from the Iomega enclosure--but there were no obvious screws to open the Iomega.

Finally discovered that the screws were *hidden* under the glued on rubber feet.  The Iomega was now *out of warranty*, so I popped it open and there was a Seagate 40 GB PATA HDD.  Well, I tried a 60 GB HDD in it and it worked fine.  Tried an 80 GB HDD and it worked fine.  Then 120 GB HDD--still fine.  Then 160 GB HDD--that was a *no-go*!  The 160 GB HDD size was now reported incorrectly both in Windows and DOS!  So, the Iomega had a size limit of greater than 120 GB, but less than 160 GB--probably has the 128 GB size limitation in its logic chip. 

The Adaptec handles the 160 GB PATA HDD just fine.  I have replaced HDDs for this enclosure many times.

My point--you have an enclosure that probably has an internal SATA interface and it's a 500 GB HDD.  You already know the enclosure works with that SATA HDD with USB 2.  You want to use a 1 TB SATA HDD on USB 2.  No guarantees, but there's a good chance that the internal workings of that enclosure will handle a 1 TB SATA HDD.  If it does, then the only thing you need to do is replace that 500 GB SATA HDD with your 1 TB HDD in that enclosure, and you are probably good to go without any additional purchase!  Of course, it won't be a *docking station*--and I think you specifically said you don't want an *enclosure* type solution--but, it's likely to be compatible with SATA and USB 2!

Most likely, the only thing that will happen if it can not handle the larger size HDD is it will report the wrong size similar to what happened with my Iomega unit.

Is this what you have?:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154205

Here's what's available now--1 TB and 2 TB drives:  http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10270

How to open La Cie enclosures--I think the last one is probably most like yours: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax390l2A-AY&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOAgmWrH_bw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv7hLsFSeEQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kncUosYp0HI&feature=related

You will have to decide what your comfort level is as far as opening the La Cie up, your willingness to *void* the warranty (if any at this time), and if you're willing to risk any negative effects it might have on the 1 TB HDD--but, I suspect those are very unlikely!

But, if the eSATA works out okay--well, then you probably are not interested in the 1 TB SATA HDD in a La Cie USB 2 enclosure!

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 28th, 2011 at 4:44am
I've just done some tests on Disk to Disk cloning with Ghost 2003. I'm afraid Pesky's trick isn't needed. You can boot from the old HD as many times as you like with the new HD still installed. If you look in the registry of the new HD, no drive letter has been assigned to the OS partition and when the old HD is eventually removed, the new HD boots normally. I only tested with WinXP, not Win7.

I did Disk to Disk cloning where the target HD was unallocated space or already partitioned. The results were the same. It is interesting that Ghost 2003 zeroes the Disk Signature on the target HD during the clone procedure so when you boot the old HD after the clone has completed you aren't booting with two HDs that have the same Disk Signature.

Another cloning Old Wive's Tale exposed.


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on Apr 28th, 2011 at 11:03am
@ Brian


Quote:
Another cloning Old Wive's Tale exposed.

Well, that confirms my suspicion that Ghost 2003's default behavior of blanking the destination's disk ID probably eliminated the problem of OS corruption if two *identical* HDDs were seen by a WinNT based OS immediately after *disk > to disk* cloning.  Thanks for the testing and reporting your results!

But, it probably wasn't a *Wives's Tale*.  I think up to version Ghost 2002--the disk ID was not being blanked by Ghost--so the corruption probably did actually occur--the Ghost folks just finally *fixed it*!  But, as is often the case, Symantec technical writers are not frequently up-to-date.  They probably continued to *cut and paste* information from one version to another, and were not informed about the engineering changes  ::)  , so, what's new about that  ;) !


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by voximan on Apr 28th, 2011 at 11:57am
NightOwl and Brian,

Thanks for your latest inputs, especially yours, NightOwl.

I've now been able to test my eSATA setup and am pleased to report that Ghost DOS definitely sees the Samsung drive. Indeed, I've taken it to the stage where it asks me 'Start the Cloning?'. So, thanks NightOwl for giving me that idea about using an eSATA PCI bracket. The only reason I hadn't twigged that one myself was my comparative ignorance of eSATA.

The procedures I've evolved for doing Disk-to-Disk cloning and for also doing Partition-to-Imaging are now well-tested for my particular setup and so I see no reason to now start fiddling with them and experimenting any further, especially as I'm pushed for time. I've no desire to install the Windows form of Ghost. It's unnecessary for my setup. Using just the floppy disc (Bootdisk), all that I need to do now gets done.

As far as my recollection serves me, with the PATA drives that I used to clone, after performing the clone, I could immediately physically replace the source drive with the destination drive and the destination drive would boot as per the former; there were no tweaks or mods to then perform. Driveletters of the various partitions were preserved. The only unanticipated occurrence was a boot sector query that came up onscreen, but it was just a matter of agreeing to its proposition and the booting continued successfully into Windows. The message never recurred. My notes at the time suggest that this was something to do with "unspecified hardware settings, but may have ensued as a result of the disparity between the serial nos. and firmware versions of the two drives". Also, with PATA drives, in some circumstances, the drive could have required temprary re-jumpering to Master, in order to fully boot. I'd also observed that when then testing a destination PATA drive as a Primary Slave, the bootup was a lot slower than was the case with the source drive. However, this was corrected when the destination drive was then rightly used as Primary Master.

All rather confusing, I think. That was PATA, anyway, not SATA, so I've no idea whether I'll get anything comparable happening when, in due course, I clone my SATA drive.

Again, I think it all illustrates that no two systems seem to work identically. There are lots of variables involved. It's a matter of finding what works for you.




Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by U Look Like U Saw A Ghost on Apr 28th, 2011 at 12:59pm
For those using the virtual partition to do their cloning, you can use the Create Virtual Partition option from the Windows gui, to achieve the same control over the reboot, as with a boot floppy.

Doing this, also makes Gdisk & Ghstwalk available.

Just my 2 cents.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on Apr 28th, 2011 at 4:35pm
@ NightOwl

More tests. After a Disk to Disk clone I noted the Disk Signature on the new HD was zeroed. I gave the new HD the same Disk Signature as the old HD and booted the old HD for the first time. After a restart the Disk Signature on the new HD was noted to be different (changed by WinXP). A few more boots were made from the old HD but the partition signatures in the new HD remained zeroed. The old HD was removed and the new HD booted normally.

Clever Ghost 2003. By zeroing the Disk Signature, the partition signatures were zeroed and they remained zeroed until the first boot from the new HD.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on May 1st, 2011 at 11:46am
@ Brian


Quote:
Disk Signature on the new HD was noted to be different (changed by WinXP). A few more boots were made from the old HD but the partition signatures in the new HD remained zeroed.

I'm going to have to claim *ignorance* here--is that something new  ::) ?!  I know about the *Disk Signature*--but I have to admit I'm not sure what the *partition signatures* refer to.

When you booted from the *source HDD*, the *destination HDD* was given a new *Disk Signature*, but the partitions were not given new *partition signatures?  Were you able to access the partitions when booted from the *source HDD*?  If *yes*, what role is being played by the *partition signatures*?

Is the *partition signature* the same as the *Volume Serial Number* that you see if you do a *directory* command in DOS?

But, if you remove the *source HDD* and then boot from the *destination HDD*, now the *partition signatures* get assigned?  Again, what's the function of the *partition signatures* that explain that behavior?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on May 1st, 2011 at 12:04pm
@ U Look Like U Saw A Ghost


Quote:
For those using the virtual partition to do their cloning, you can use the Create Virtual Partition option from the Windows gui

Interesting!  I've not used that Window's Ghost 2003 interface *feature* before--found under the *Ghost Advanced* menu item on the left side of the Ghost GUI.  Looking at the User Guide, looks like you have to manually run the *ghreboot.exe* program to switch back to the Windows partition from the *virtual partition*.


Quote:
Doing this, also makes Gdisk & Ghstwalk available

Don't you have to add those programs to the *virtual partition folder* in order to have those available in the virtual partition--they're not *automatically* available--correct?

You might get a similar effect if you use the *Run Ghost Interactively* found under that same *Ghost Advanced* menu option.  It's been a long time since I experimented with that option--can't remember for sure, but I think you have to manually tell Ghost to re-boot to the Windows partition  when done using that options as well.

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by NightOwl on May 1st, 2011 at 12:11pm
@ voximan


Quote:
I've now been able to test my eSATA setup and am pleased to report that Ghost DOS definitely sees the Samsung drive. Indeed, I've taken it to the stage where it asks me 'Start the Cloning?'

We're all waiting to hear your report on whether eSATA has worked out for you!

What procedure(s) did you do to prep for cloning, doing the cloning, and then powering down and disconnecting after cloning?

Any errors or problems encountered?

Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by Brian on May 1st, 2011 at 6:03pm
@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on May 1st, 2011 at 11:46am:
*partition signatures*


TeraByte has a script that can show the drive letter in the partition signature of an offline OS. (setwindl.tbs)

Dan Goodell has a web page explaining Partition Signature so rather than more typing....

See "How does Windows XP remember drive letters? "

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.shtml


NightOwl wrote on May 1st, 2011 at 11:46am:
Were you able to access the partitions when booted from the *source HDD*?If *yes*, what role is being played by the *partition signatures*?

Yes. The new XP partition had a drive letter assigned by old XP. I think F: in my case. Files and folders can be viewed. The partition signature for this partition is in the registry of old XP. When the old HD is removed and the new HD is booted on its own, partition signatures are assigned and new XP becomes C: drive. The booting OS assigns the drive letters.


Title: Re: Planning to clone a whole SATA drive: any recommendations?
Post by U Look Like U Saw A Ghost on May 4th, 2011 at 8:56am
nightowl, you are correct, "Run Ghost Interactively" is similar to "Create Virtual Partition".

When you select that option, you are prompted to browse to a folder, from where files are automatically copied to the partition.

Yes, Ghreboot must also be in that folder.

If you slipped up, FDISK will bail you out.

Radified Community Forums » Powered by YaBB 2.4!
YaBB © 2000-2009. All Rights Reserved.