@ roxe and @ Brian

I am calling an *Admin* audible--this topic has changed from *Ghost For Win7* to something more along the line of *Using TeraByte's BIBM for MultiBooting*.

So I am going to split this topic off to a new thread.

I have left the original posts below on the other thread.  I copied the posts starting at Reply #21 thru Reply #33 to this new thread.

This Topic was moved here from Norton Ghost 2003,  Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board by NightOwl.

@ roxe

BIBM is my favourite app and is installed in all of my computers. I use unlimited partitions but I don't expect you to use them. It took me 6 months before I was confident enough to leave limited primaries behind. So I'll discuss limited primaries.

Dan Goodell likes XOSL as a free boot manager. I have some good instructions if you would like to try it but I think BIBM is easier to setup and is well worth the money.

Yes, if you are limiting primaries you can just uninstall BIBM. The 8 MB partition is removed. If you are using unlimited primaries you have to reduce your primary partition count to 4 before BIBM can be uninstalled. BIBM doesn't write anything to the partitions so after uninstalling BIBM the partitions are unchanged.

You have 3 HDs with 3 OS. On your new big HD you would have 2 OS in Primary partitions, 1 OS in the extended partition along with a data partition. And the BIBM partition. You could have dozens of OS in the extended partition if you like.

When booted into Windows you will have a C: drive letter for the relevant OS and a drive letter for the data partition. All other partitions will be hidden.

Using Ghost 2003 from a boot disk you will have access to all partitions. BIBM included. You don't need to uninstall BIBM to use Ghost.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-bare-metal.htm

BIBM will do a thousand more things which aren't relevant to this discussion.

As mentioned earlier, you don't have to install OS on the new HD. Just copy the current OS to the new HD. You could use BIBM for this as it is a two click copy process. Or you could restore Ghost images.

roxe wrote on Sep 21^st, 2013 at 10:26pm:

question:  how do I do the "red" @ sign??

Click the down arrow to the left of a member's name.

@Brian...

Can I use 3 primary partitions and one extended?

#1 XP pro sp3
#2 XP pro sp3
#3 w7pro sp1
#4 extended logical-docs, logical-BIBM

is that the way?

You stated only two primaries... why?


Does the BIBM partition take one of the primaries or go into a logical by itself??


----------------------------------------------------

Quote:

Click the down arrow to the left of a member's name.

OK... I remember now!!!! :) :)     THX !

roxe wrote on Sep 21^st, 2013 at 10:57pm:

Does the BIBM partition take one of the primaries or go into a logical by itself??

BIBM needs a primary partition. There is no problem with copying one of your OS into a logical volume in the extended partition. Let's say you would have one WinXP and one data partition in the extended partition.

@ Brian

OK... sounding better and better...

are you willing to give me a step by step of how to do what I want with one hdd holding 2 OSs and BIBM in primary partitions... and one OS and docs in the extended logicals???

I want to partition my drive before doing this... so how does the partitioning go for this??

This way I can see how this happens and then decide to bite my wallet :)

@ roxe

Standby.

So your computer is a laptop? Do you have a USB caddy to hold the current HDs for the copy process to the new HD or would you rather restore images?

@ Brian


I'd rather restore images at first till I get used to this program and what all it can do...

OK. Do you have a spare HD so we could install BIBM and run some tests? BIBM has a free trial for 30 days so you only have to buy it if it works.

Download the trial from here....

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-bootit-bare-metal.htm

Now make a boot CD...

Unzip
double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in BootIt Bare Metal, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
select Image for DOS (GUI), next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Video Mode 1024*768 - 64K Colors, next
dot in Normal, next
don't choose any Device Options, next
tick in Enable USB 1.1 (UHCI), next
tick in Align partitions on Cylinders, next
ignore Additional bootitbm.ini Options, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish

You can use the CD without installing BIBM. Use it with any of your HDs...

Boot from the BIBM CD and click Cancel
Click OK to enter Maintenance Mode

OK... will do tomorrow  -  Sunday...
it's already past my bedtime here...

I'll copy all instructions and try it tomorrow... and let you know how it goes... then when you come back online we can go from there...

thanks for all your patience and help :)

We can do the entire setup with the trial BIBM as it is fully functional. After 30 days you start to get Warnings. Activating with a registered CD is all you need to do to become registered. One click and you are registered. No further setup.

If you don't like it, uninstall and don't buy it.

When you are ready, can you let me know the size of each of the three OS partitions and the amount of Free Space in each partition? Also the size of your intended Data partition.

The last 13 Posts were moved here from Norton Ghost 2003,  Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board by NightOwl.

@ NightOwl


I'm sorry... should have started a new thread...

and I'm not finished yet with my original question... I still want to know how-to generalize w7pro in order to use ghost 2003 without switches...

NightOwl, do you want me to start another thread for the original topic, or can you reactivate the original thread??

@ roxe


Quote:

I'm sorry... should have started a new thread...

Not to worry--I'm not *upset*!  I just thought about what I was going to post next in the other thread, and it occurred to me that if we continued both discussions at the same time, it was going to get awfully confusing to keep switching hats depending on which topic was being addressed.

I only *locked* the other topic until I had the split set up--didn't want to deal with more posts that might have occurred until I was done re-arranging the posts for the split.

So, the other thread is open again, and I am composing my next ongoing reply in the other thread.....

@ NightOwl


oh... thank you wise one :)

I feel all better....  ::)

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2013 at 9:50am:

I still want to know how-to generalize w7pro in order to use ghost 2003 without switches...

I'll post the answer in the other thread.

OK... now that w7 is under wraps with 2003 Ghost image capability... this is the next project to finish :)

All OK here.

Please see Reply #14
What is the size of the new HD which will contain the 3 OS and data partition?

@ Brian

I've been thinking alot about this... and for the laptop I'll just keep the 3 OSs on their own drives... cuz it will be so much faster to work with audio and video files that way instead of going thru the 2.0 USB to an external extended logical drive... putting videos especially thru USB will be so slow to work with...

My son works in a PC recycling place and he has brought me two Dell Optiplex USFFs...  I have a power cord coming for it... and will see if all the parts work, or if they don't I can swap out from the 2nd one... he can get me more of them if I need any parts above what the two I now have...

Isn't that neat??  I can also get faster CPUs, more memory and stuff from Amazon too...

So getting one of those running... I want to get a WD 500gb sata hdd... put it in there and put the 3 OSs on there... and it will give me plenty of room for all the files too... so I won't be fussing with USB...

I'll probably quit using the laptop... so tired of the mouse skipping all over the place and other problems...

I've got a garden project I need to get set up... so will be doing that mostly until it's finished... (shouldn't take more than 3 - 4 days at most) and work on the Optiplexes as I can... I'm quite excited about them...

as my son says, "you like small things!"... and they are small... and heavy... but it will be fun and interesting to get into their innards...

I've built between 2 and 3 dozen computers so far... researched the mobo's, CPUs, heat sinks, fans, memory, daughter boards, hdds, etc etc etc...
plus changed the CMOS battery in a 110CT Libretto... now you talk about a job... I've never seen anything like that... there wasn't even extra room for AIR in there :) someone gave me the sequence for getting to the CMOS and then I just reversed it to come back out... good thing I have small fingers...

I love working with hardware... software? not so much... I tolerate it... most of the time :)

------------------------------
I've already downloaded the free BIBM trial... even the pdf manual... so will be getting it put onto a CD... using your instructions and the manual...

It will probably be a program I will buy after trying... I'll need it for the 500 hdd...

In partitioning, is there a reason especially WHY the primary drives need to go first?? and why they can't be all mixed up with extendeds??

Guess I've rambled on enuf...

talkatchalatergator :)

@ roxe

I like the idea of having your OSs on a desktop computer. Try and get two HDs into the computer if you can but the Optiplex may be too small to hold another drive. Backing up is much faster to an internal HD than to a USB external HD. Laptops are a compromise too.

Regarding partition order on a HD. It doesn't matter. You can have the extended partition first, middle or end. With modern HDs, having an OS in the last partition is as fast as having it in the first partition.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2013 at 7:53pm:

It will probably be a program I will buy after trying... I'll need it for the 500 hdd...

A suggestion. Buy the TeraByte Bundle rather than just BIBM. For an extra $10 it is money well spent. It includes IFW and IFL.

You get 3 licenses so you can give one to your son.

Edit.... Here are some videos on how to use BIBM...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/index.htm

@ Brian


Quote:

Regarding partition order on a HD. It doesn't matter. You can have the extended partition first, middle or end. With modern HDs, having an OS in the last partition is as fast as having it in the first partition.

Can you have a primary, extended, primary, extended, primary, extended... in that order???

It's been awhile since researching sata hdds... I already have a WD 500gb sata hdd (full of files)... are those hdds still good, or are there better ones??

@ Brian


Quote:

I like the idea of having your OSs on a desktop computer.

Me too... cuz I can put it on the other side of the room from me or in the clothes closet... less emf that way... and that stuff does bother me now...

I had a tower couple years ago... I could work on it all day... the laptop is terrible... really bothers me alot...

took a peak into the Optiplex... *almost* as crowded as the Libby... won't know if another hdd can go in there until I get working on it.

On second thought...I do have a very thin 160gb sata hdd... that would be just perfect for the images...

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2013 at 8:45pm:

Can you have a primary, extended, primary, extended, primary, extended... in that order???

No, only one extended partition is possible. It counts as one of the four primary partitions. You can have multiple logical volumes in the extended partition.


roxe wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2013 at 8:45pm:

are those hdds still good, or are there better ones??

They are fine. SSDs are faster but much more expensive.

@ Brian


Quote:

Try and get two HDs into the computer if you can but the Optiplex may be too small to hold another drive.

Looking inside, there is room for my thin 160gb sata drive... it's just a matter of the mobo having an extra data cable slot... and the power supply having another sata wire...

will be interesting to figure it all out when I start taking it apart and looking at everything...

can't wait... can't wait... can't wait  ;D

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2013 at 7:53pm:

In partitioning, is there a reason especially WHY the primary drives need to go first?? and why they can't be all mixed up with extendeds??

Back in the old days, the bootable data had to be within a certain limited portion of the HDD data--HDDs used to be really small!  And DOS based OS's and HDD controllers had to find that boot data within those boundaries in order to boot.  And the boot drive had to be on the first HDD controller and on the first channel of that controller.  Further back, there where two DOS files that had to be stored first on the HDD before any other data in order to boot successfully.

Over time, those limitations were expanded, and now, may not even exist any longer.

So, when you're ready to set up a multi-boot system to test out, I presume you will post back here to continue the conversation.  But there needs to be a minor *truth in advertising* check!

You have 3 OS's, and you want to have an extended partition to hold your data partition that all three OS's will have access to.  Using *conventional* HDD partitioning, you can do that with *conventional* partitioning tools (utilities).  Each OS will take one primary partition, and the extended partition will use the final 4th primary.  Then you need a way to switch from one active OS to another in order to boot to the different OS's.  You can do this with *conventional* Master Boot Record utilities (MBR utilities--some free and some paid) to accomplish this task.  Batch files can be created that will switch the active partition while you are in one OS, and the next re-boot will take you to the other OS that the batch file made active.

If you use BIBM, you will have to buy the product if you wish to continue with the set up that will be required by BIBM  because you will use one of the available 4 primaries for the BIBM program, then 2 of the other primaries for OS's, and the final primary to create the extended partition.  So, the 3rd OS will have to placed in the extended partition--and that is not *conventional*--so you will not be able to use any conventional partitioning utilities once you make the choice to use BIBM for what you wish to set up.  There's nothing wrong with that!  BIBM is a good program, and I recommend it--especially if you would like to have more than the limited 4 primary partitions to work with.

I am going to start another thread that discusses how to set up a HDD with 3 OS's and an extended data partition using *conventional* free software, and batch files--so the discussion will be in parallel with this discussion using BIBM.

I'll add a link here once I get started on that project.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2013 at 8:09pm:

Try and get two HDs into the computer if you can but the Optiplex may be too small to hold another drive.

There is room for a thin 160gb drive... but the mobo has only ONE sata port... and only ONE power end...

B U M M E R....

I have the sata adapter thingies... separate power cord and separate data cord for hooking up an external sata drive for images... but...

... is there an adapter that has the data and power connect all in one unit - and the unit has the data cord and power cord coming out of it???

If so, can you find me one on ebay and give me the url??

@ NightOwl

Thank you for that nice lesson on partitions :)


NightOwl wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:17am:

I am going to start another thread that discusses how to set up a HDD with 3 OS's and an extended data partition using *conventional* free software, and batch files--so the discussion will be in parallel with this discussion using BIBM.

Sounds like fun! There's always something else to learn about computers, components, software, electricity, plumbing, mechanics, what sprayed color stripes on the ground or street mean...

but....

MY favorite is Mahjong!!!!!  ;D ;) 8-)

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 1^st, 2013 at 1:15pm:

but the mobo has only ONE sata port

I've no experience with SATA port PCI cards.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 1^st, 2013 at 1:15pm:

I have the sata adapter thingies... separate power cord and separate data cord for hooking up an external sata drive for images...

I presume you mean a USB adapter that you can hook a SATA HDD up to?


roxe wrote on Oct 1^st, 2013 at 1:15pm:

but the mobo has only ONE sata port... and only ONE power end...

That's a bummer!  You can probably get a power splitter to convert a single SATA power connector into two, but if no second SATA port, then does the motherboard have a PCI connector slot to add a SATA controller card?

Maybe an eSATA PCI adapter that adds an *external SATA* port on the outside via the PCI card could be helpful.  I have used the external SATA power source for an external USB adapter to hook up an external SATA HDD through the eSATA port.  That external SATA port (eSATA) makes the HDD act like an internal SATA HDD, but it's connected externally--the SATA HDD is not installed internally.


roxe wrote on Oct 1^st, 2013 at 5:02pm:

but.... MY favorite is Mahjong!!!!!

Well, okay--so setting up multibooting may be like *pulling teeth*--I'll let you decide!







NightOwl wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 4:22am:

The next 12 Posts were moved here from Norton Ghost 2003,Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board by NightOwl from this thread:  http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1379473957/104#104. ;

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 9:16pm:

That can be done easily but learning how to do it is not so easy. TeraByte Unlimited has a script for it. I have the WinXP and Win7 from my old Dell computer running on this computer which has an Asus motherboard. I've restored images from OS on laptops to desktop computers and vice versa.

So there isn't a way in add/remove programs - or something else - that will bring up the drivers to be deleted so new ones can be added??

Is TBU in that TB bundle you suggested I get for $10 more with BIBM?

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 9:42pm:

that will bring up the drivers to be deleted so new ones can be added??

The TeraByte script does this. It strips out all drivers. When the new OS boots it will spend a little time auto installing Hardware drivers but you might have to (later at your leisure) install specific drivers for your system.

All scripts are included with the TeraByte software. The latter third of this old video is an example of OSDTool script in use.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/videos/ifl/osdtool-sample.wmv

There is a more recent script that makes this easier. TBIDTOOL. Page 49 in the Pro Userguide.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 9:16pm:

That can be done easily but learning how to do it is not so easy.

Can we tackle that in the BIBM thread??

-----------------------------
JUST saw your reply above... that sounds like it would be much shorter to do instead of a fresh install and putting all ones tips and tweaks back just the way one wants...

Imaging from this laptop to a real hdd... wowowow

I think just for that I'm gonna go buy that bundle right now ;)...  anything to save time and frustration...

So... tell me again exactly what I need to buy...

@ roxe

It's not that easy to explain. I don't have notes and I suggest you view the video, read the userguide and do it on a test computer as you will make mistakes with your first efforts.


roxe wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:05pm:

that sounds like it would be much shorter to do instead of a fresh install and putting all ones tips and tweaks back just the way one wants

So true. Windows on the new computer still needs to be Activated. Most of my efforts were tests so I deleted the new OS rather than Activating it.

@ Brian

Poor NightOwl... he's gonna say "they're doing it again!!"

So buying the TB bundle will give me all this info??

What are the other two programs in the bundle?

@ roxe

The Bundle gives you...

BIBM
TBOSDT
IFW
IFL
IFD

I use the lot.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/products.htm

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:20pm:

But Windows on the new computer still needs to be Activated. Most of my efforts were tests so I deleted the new OS rather than Activating it.

Want to expand on this?? You mean that if I do this, I can't activate the OS after putting the new drivers in it??

Explain...

@ roxe

If you install a Windows OS on a new computer the OS needs to be Activated. You need to buy a license key from Microsoft. Transferring an OS from one computer to another is a similar situation. You need a new license key from Microsoft. Nothing strange about that.

If you already have a key for that computer you can use that key.

@ Brian

Since you have more than ONE xp pro in use at the same time, I can see having a license for each one of them...

but since the OS is in an image that has activation already on it... and new drivers have been installed in it... as long as it is on only ONE computer at a time... why would a new license be needed???

roxe wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:39pm:

hmmm... since the OS is in an image that has activation already on it... and new drivers have been installed in it... as long as it is on only ONE computer at a time... why would a new license be needed???

You will need to discuss that with Microsoft. It depends on your license. OEM or Retail.

NightOwl, can you kindly move the recent posts to the BIBM thread?

@ NightOwl

Yes, NightOwl, pretty please... start with post #104...

pretty please... with sugar and honey on it  ;)

The last 12 Posts were moved here from Norton Ghost 2003,  Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board by NightOwl.




Brian wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:42pm:

NightOwl, can you kindly move the recent posts to the BIBM thread?

Done!

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 4:17am:

I presume you mean a USB adapter that you can hook a SATA HDD up to?

Yes, that thingy that takes more time to set up than I want to spend...


NightOwl wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 4:17am:

does the motherboard have a PCI connector slot to add a SATA controller card?

simple answer... no


NightOwl wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 4:17am:

Maybe an eSATA PCI adapter that adds an *external SATA* port on the outside via the PCI card could be helpful.

no PCI slots...

---------------------------------------------------------
I have an adapter for my laptop hdds that has the thingy which hooks up to both sata power and data in one unit... and I know that it pulls the power from the USB port...

I'm looking for a one-unit like that for the 3.5 hdds... and not only the data cord but also a power cord coming out of the back of the one-unit thingy...

Is there such an animal??

It would require only 3 steps instead of  6 or 7 steps that is needed now... plus would be more stable IMHO....


Edit: found one!!! Whew!  :D

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 2:50am:

I've no experience with SATA port PCI cards.

I don't either... and no PCI slots in the Optiplex....

@ Brian


roxe wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 10:55am:

I have an adapter for my laptop hdds that has the thingy which hooks up to both sata power and data in one unit... and I know that it pulls the power from the USB port... I'm looking for a one-unit like that for the 3.5 hdds... and not only the data cord but also a power cord coming out of the back of the one-unit thingy... Is there such an animal?? It would require only 3 steps instead of 6 or 7 steps that is needed now... plus would be more stable IMHO....

I'd like your answer also on this one... please :)

Edit: found one!!!  Whew! ;D

@ roxe

One SATA port. No PCI slots. I'm afraid you are limited to one HD.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 10:39pm:

Since you have more than ONE xp pro in use at the same time, I can see having a license for each one of them... but since the OS is in an image that has activation already on it... and new drivers have been installed in it... as long as it is on only ONE computer at a time... why would a new license be needed???

Well, if it really is on only one machine, then one license is okay.  But, if you are going to keep using both machines, switching back and forth, then that's a problem.

Activation is really simple and easy--but, complicated at the same time!

Here's a reference that explains the difficult concepts in a fairly easy fashion to understand what triggers having to Activate, or re-Activate a Window installation:  Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP

Bottom line, you have to have a separate license for each machine you have Windows installed on (and, if using a Virtual Machine for a second or more copies of Windows, each of these needs its own license as well--each Virtual Machine is considered a separate machine in Microsoft's definitions--because they can be running at the same time as the host machine).

But, a *grey area*--what if you have only one machine, but you run a second or third copy of your Windows installation from separate OS partitions.  Most folks think this is okay to use a single license.  The reasoning, you can not run more than one instance of the OS.  And all the hardware remains identical when you switch from one OS on one partition to the other on another partition.

So, you can have your main *production OS* that you use primarily, and then a *copy* on another partition that you use for *testing*, or a separate purpose--video editing, or music, or etc......

But, if you transfer a copy of your Windows OS from your Laptop which has its own product activation that is based on the Laptop's hardware, and place it on your *new* Optiplex system--it will have a whole new hardware *signature* based on the unique hardware installed on it.  That will trigger having to Activate the system.  And, if it has been more than 3 months since you last activated, it should go through automatically.  You will probably have to enter the Windows Product Key.  And, you have to stop using the Windows OS on the Laptop which you used that original Product Key on it to Activate it.

If you continue to use Windows on both machines that have been Activated using the single product key, well, that's a violation of the EULA.

@ NightOwl

Thanks for the *lesson* on being legal :)

Checking all my CDs DVDs, I find I have TWO licenses for XPPro, and TWO licenses for Win7Pro...

Is that enough??  8-) :)

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 2:52pm:

One SATA port. No PCI slots. I'm afraid you are limited to one HD.

Well, checking out the manual I downloaded... it states that there are two more caddies that fit where the DVD caddy is... one for a floppy... and one for a hdd... and seeing how thin the caddy is, it looks like a 2.5 sata laptop drive would fit in that space.

Now I'm searching everywhere for that 2nd hdd caddy...
--------------------------------------------------------
And on topic... I got the BIBM bundle and got the CD made... and it works!

When I do a disk wipe... does that also block out any bad clusters??

Maybe like this.....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-2nd-HDD-SSD-Harddrive-Disk-Caddy-for-12-7mm-Laptop-Notebook-CD-DVD-Bay-/360641861156?pt=AU_Laptop_Accessories&hash=item53f7ee1624

@ Brian

Thanks for the url... however, this caddy needs to have an ejector button on the right hand side of it in order to pop it right out... the button fits flush, and only needs to be pressed in and then it pops out and the caddy can be slid out of the slot...
plus it doesn't use any screws to hold it in.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 4:17pm:

When I do a disk wipe... does that also block out any bad clusters??

It doesn't fix bad sectors, if that's what you mean.

As you already know, this is your download page...

https://terabyteunlimited.com/product-download.php

I'd like you to download
"Image for Linux V2.83 (GUI), (With Networking), (Linux or Windows Users)"
This will be used to transfer your current Win7 into the new computer. We'll start with Win7 as it is easier to do than WinXP on new hardware.

To create the IFL CD...

unzip
double click makedisk.exe, next
Default Settings, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
Product Key for IFL, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish

@ Brian

I've been thinking about what you said about installing everything brand new, instead of copying it over...

As soon as I get my optiplex going... maybe that is what I should do... and then play around with deleting the drivers and copying it and putting the new drivers on... would be alot less stressful that way...

I'll use BIBM to be the boot mgr when I get to that point...

And I did download the above file... and written your instructions on making a CD...
---------------------------------------------
I've taken a picture of the dvd caddy... which is the same shape as the hdd caddy will be... is there someway I can get the pic to you so you can see the shape of it? cuz it's different than the url you posted above... or can it be posted on the forum??

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 5:24pm:

or can it be posted on the forum??

Click Browse for Attachment 1:

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 4:17pm:

Well, checking out the manual I downloaded... it states that there are two more caddies that fit where the DVD caddy is... one for a floppy... and one for a hdd...

Can you provide a link to the model Optiplex you are working on?

So, there is one SATA port that allows you to connect to an internal SATA HDD.  And then there is a component *bay* that allows for different devices to be added or exchange for other devices.  And that bay is wired/designed to accept an optical DVD drive, floppy drive, or HDD.  Does the bay accept *generic* devices, or are they specifically designed to be used with the Optiplex only.  I can see where a SATA optical drive and SATA HDD could have the same layout for connecting the communication cable and power cable, but seems like the floppy drive would not use the same SATA connection components.

Any chance that the communication cable and/or the power cable is *plugged* into the back of the bay, and could be re-routed to a mounted internal HDD?  Or, is the bay a hardwired device and accepts only proprietary components?


http://www.ebay.com/bhp/dell-optiplex-hard-drive-caddy

@ roxe

Could I suggest you have one attempt to copy your current Win7 to the Optiplex. It will only take half an hour and there is no stress as I'll tell you what to do. If it doesn't work, no big deal as we'll just delete the partition.

The process starts with booting from the IFL CD and imaging the Win7 partition in the laptop to a USB external HD. Then booting from the IFL CD in the Optiplex and running TBID Tool in the IFL dock. The Tool will run the restore (using the image on the external HD) and strip the drivers from the restored OS before getting you to exit IFL and boot the OS. After Win7 loads it will run "Installing device driver software" for a few minutes and then requests a restart. Your Win7 is now fully operational although you may need to install a few custom drivers at your leisure. Or maybe no custom drivers. All your old installed programs will work. All your tweaks will be present. That won't happen with a clean install.

To create an image and write the image to a USB external HD... Using IFL

Backup
Full Backup
Linux
ATA ..... (sda)
select the Win7 partition (tick in the box)
File Direct
Linux
select your USB HD. It will be last in the list (probably sdb with a laptop)
select partition on USB
select folder on USB and give the image a name (or accept the default name)
leave the ticks in Omit Page File Data, Omit Hibernation Data and Log Results to File
put a tick in Validate Byte-for-Byte
Compression  Enhanced Speed - A   (don't use Standard)
File Size Max
Start

Restoring a Win7 image to dissimilar hardware.....

Boot IFL
Exit the IFL gui
click the TBID Tool icon (next to IFL)
Select a TBI Image File to restore and press Enter (you have to use your keyboard for this app)
Mount a Partition as Drive 1
select the partition on the external HD that contains the image
select the folder
select the image
confirm the partition to restore
On the Select Destination screen, select the target partition on HD0 where you will restore the image
Don't install driver, continue to next step
Don't change HAL
Remove existing drivers except for IDE/AHCI drivers
Enter a Computer name (your choice)
Enter a Volume name (your choice)
Press Enter to continue
Yes for the Warning (the mouse now works)
(you can practice the above steps several times and as long as you don't click "Yes" nothing will happen. Just click "No" to exit)
you will see the image being restored
you will see Backing-up System registry and Software registry
you will see cleaning drivers (except IDE/AHCI ones)
Press Enter to continue
Enter for Operation completed
right click the IFL desktop and click Reboot, Yes
Win7 loads (large icons seen)
Installing device driver software seen (click the balloon)
after a few minutes you will see "Your device is ready to use" and the Restart Now request
Win7 loads with the correct screen resolution and is ready to go
check Device Manager to see if any devices need custom drivers

Here are the two pictures... top and bottom.
The ejector button is in the open position to pull it out of the machine.


As you are looking at the top picture... the ejector button is at the bottom right... and the connection to the computer is at the top right...

If it doesn't look like that... then it won't work.

---

OK. Why do you think the enclosure I posted won't work? I haven't bought one so I don't know either but some users say they will work in any SATA optical bay.

@ Brian

In reply #55, I answered why it won't work...


Quote:

This caddy needs to have an ejector button on the right hand side of it in order to pop it right out... the button fits flush, and only needs to be pressed in and then it pops out and the caddy can be slid out of the slot... plus it doesn't use any screws to hold it in the computer.... but it does have something in the caddy to screw the hdd to... PLUS it must have the same connector on it in the same exact position or it won't work... the caddy slides into the connector... so it has to be in the same place as the dvd drive I pictured.

Mine looks like the connector is in a different place too. Not good.

@ Brian

Thanks for the instructions... I'll copy them down... but it will be awhile before I get the optiplex up and running... have to figure out what the warning lights and the beeps mean... and see what all needs to be done to fix it... and I may not want to take the time and $$ to get it running if it's too bad....after all,  it was thrown away for a reason... so it may require more than I want to deal with.  Am looking at refurbished ones on ebay...

So please be patient with me... I don't move as fast as I used to...

And thank you very much for teaching me how to post pictures :)
--------------------------------------------------------
If anyone is interested in seeing the computer we've been talking about, here is a link to the support page where you can click on the *manual* link and download the pdf file(s).
http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/Product/optiplex-755

@ roxe

I was thinking along the same lines about that Optiplex. Having a computer with two internal HDs is the aim.

Take your time. At least you know that restoring your old OS to a different computer isn't a difficult procedure. Or Multi-Booting either. You can play around with the BIBM and IFL CDs on your laptop while you are researching the new computer. Use IFL to create images of each OS. In my computers, IFL is faster than IFW or IFD. The IFL CD is amazing in what it can do. Not that this is relevant but it can restore images over a wireless network. Fun but impractical.

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 11:59pm:

Or, is the bay a hardwired device and accepts only proprietary components?

Yes... any caddies for that bay must be exactly like the picture above... that connector on the top of the picture slides into the matching connection slot in the computer...

@ roxe


Quote:

any caddies for that bay must be exactly like the picture above... that connector on the top of the picture slides into the matching connection slot in the computer...

Right, but I guess I didn't ask my question better so you understood....

So, there's the caddy--as you have pictured above.  There must be a *similar* caddy that will hold a 2.5 HDD inside it instead of an optical drive.  The caddy will be hardwired internally to the connectors on its backside that plug into the connectors that are inside the *bay*.

So, my question was not about the *caddy*--it is about the *bay*.  Somehow, the internal connectors of the *bay* that receive the connectors of the *caddy* have to be connected to the motherboard.  Either they are connected via a communication cable and power cable that attach to the motherboard, or the *bay* is soldered directly to the motherboard and there are no cables running from the bay to the motherboard.

If there are cables running from the back side of the bay to the motherboard, then possibly those connectors could be used on a second internal HDD.  If no cables, then you have to find a compatible caddy that allows you to insert a HDD into the caddy, and then plug that caddy into the bay.

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 6^th, 2013 at 11:55am:

If there are cables running from the back side of the bay to the motherboard, then possibly those connectors could be used on a second internal HDD.If no cables, then you have to find a compatible caddy that allows you to insert a HDD into the caddy, and then plug that caddy into the bay.

One optiplex turns on when plugged in... but it shuts right off... probably a mobo problem... so that is the one I take apart and see how things work.

The caddy bay is soldered to the underside of the mobo... no cables...  :(

I measured the thickness of the caddy... 14mm... I'm in the process of taking one apart to see how things are inside (I was given TWO more of the DVD caddies... made sure that the giver knows that I'm looking for a hdd caddy... and desribed it - so will see)

This is turning out to be a more involved project than I expected... shoot, I'd already have a case, mobo and all parts etc, and have it all together by now if I was building one. :)

But, it's small... and kinda cute (but not as cute as a Libby!)

Oh well.......
I've used an external hdd with a usb connection for so long it doesn't really bother me when it takes over 20 minutes to image a partition...  that's nothing compared to a couple days or a whole week reinstalling and doing all the tweaks.

See you in a week. I'll be fishing in Weipa.

S12° 39.5'  E141° 50.3'

@ Brian

Wish I could join you--looks like fun!

Is the fishing in the estuary, Albatross Bay, or do you go out on the open ocean?

For anyone who's interested, here's where he's *gone fishin'*:

Back out the *zoom* to get the *big picture* of the location.

Weipa

@ Brian
@ NightOwl

He better be careful... that's right across the strait from Papua New Guinea... those headhunters/cannibals, you know... ;D
-------------------------------------
Meanwhile... back at the ranch (or on topic)...

Got the optiplex usff's I bought off ebay for a ridiculously low price... both work good... put new cmos batteries in both...
one came with xp pro, the other with w7home...

Got the 500gb drive with one 15gb partition in one of the machines... ready to put *my* XP PRO sp3 on it.
Will activate, and download all the updates... then defrag and image it.

Do the same with w7 pro... generalize it and image...
then I can repartition the drive and put all the OSs on it I want to...

I've always heard that computers save so much time... then why do I spend so much more time getting them ready??  ::)

It's a good thing Brian is gone fishing... will give me time to do the above... I hope :)
and then he can help me figure out how to partition the drive for BIBM.... and what I want  ;)

(hopefully next week I can put the laptop back into its box... and never never never never never have to work on it again)  8-)
-----------------------------------------
*my* xp pro= nlite used to remove all the junk not needed... add drivers, etc...

@ roxe


Quote:

Got the 500gb drive with one 15gb partition in one of the machines... ready to put *my* XP PRO sp3 on it. Will activate, and download all the updates... then defrag and image it. Do the same with w7 pro... generalize it and image... then I can repartition the drive and put all the OSs on it I want to...

So, you have decided to start with fresh installs instead of transferring your existing OSs to the new system?

Did you ever find a caddy that allows you to add a second HDD to the system?

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 13^th, 2013 at 1:19am:

So, you have decided to start with fresh installs instead of transferring your existing OSs to the new system?

Yeah, and I'll tell you why... got a new 2.5 hdd and used my xppro image on it... found out by using the Piriform Defraggler program, that the original drive had bad clusters on it... and they imaged right over to the new drive  :o ::)

So I installed from scratch on the new hdd after deleting the partition and putting it back and reformatting... and no bad clusters!!

I'll use BIBM for my boot mgr for now... and then after awhile, I'll play around with it, cuz I'll have the new install on the 2.5 new hdd to try to port to the usff...

The usff doesn't have a floppy drive... and I've put the AHCI files into the install using n-lite... nifty little program :)

But it wouldn't install on the usff today... tried a bunch of stuff... so searched on the 'net and found out that if I changed the SATA AHCI (default) to ATA, it would install... but wouldn't have the AHCI...

So did some more research and came up with a web page talking about FlashBoot... so I printed out that page... and got all the apps needed... and made me a flash drive bootable which will make this computer and xp pro install disk think that it is taking the AHCI files from a floppy but is really coming from a flash drive! 

Neat, eh??

So I reformated the install off the partition... getting ready to try this "cheat" tomorrow...

Then I also printed out the neatest guides for n-lite... they used to be a horror story... but these new ones are great... pictures and all...

so I think I'll redo my n-lite install disk first thing tomorrow... put all the updates and stuff on it... take off all the junk I don't want... then we'll see what happens with the *fake* floppy  ;D

The BIOS does have the capability to boot from CD, DVD, flash drive, external SATA drive.. and a couple more I can't remember right now...

AND it's built like a little tank... heavy and solid...

Will be so great to get this all set up... tired of all the wires going everywhere across the living room floor...

About the caddy... the ones you sent me to, are only 12.7mm thick.,.. the ones on the usff are 14mm thick... is that gonna be a problem???

I mean, what is only 1.3mm difference????

Otherwise they *look* like they would work...

maybe I should just buy one and see... eh??

WHEW!!!!!!

Finally got xp pro installed on the optiplex, AND it is imaged. So amazing... used n-Lite to take my XP Pro OS with sp2 of 583mb, sp3 of 546mb, a Security update pack of 98mb, and the pre-install AHCI driver... removed a bunch of junk (specially that stupid little dog)... and came up with a 388mb install CD... which then became a 3.4gb OS... not bad, eh?
...which imaged into a 1440mb image in less than 5 minutes.


Quote:

then we'll see what happens with the *fake* floppy

Nothing!!!!! Absolutely Nothing!! So looked at my drivers, and saw that I had downloaded the AHCI pre-install driver from the Dell site... so nLited it in... and it works!!

So tomorrow I'll tackle w7 pro... will only need two PCI drivers after installing... and I got 'em...
(note to myself... generalize generalize generalize b4 imaging)

As soon as Brian checks in, I'll need his help in partitioning for BIBM...

Am thinking of putting the BIBM 8mb primary partition first, two more primaries of 15gb each... last primary of extended with the logicals in it.

Will see what he suggests...

I've learned so much these last three days...  which is encouraging... my mind is coming back, my enthusiasm is growing and my sense of humor is recovering... Praise God!!!

I've named my optiplex *tiny tank*... and the workgroup is the *Lazy Duck* :)

...just in case any of you are wondering  ;)

@ roxe


Quote:

Finally got xp pro installed on the optiplex, AND it is imaged.

So, you're using Ghost 2003, and booted to DOS from a bootable CD, and you have access to an external USB HDD via the optiplex BIOS (you don't have to load DOS USB drivers)--is that all true?

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 17^th, 2013 at 3:30am:

So, you're using Ghost 2003, and booted to DOS from a bootable CD, and you have access to an external USB HDD via the optiplex BIOS (you don't have to load DOS USB drivers)--is that all true?

Yep  ;D

And... gues what????

I just did w7pro the same exact way... AFTER I generalized it... neat, eh?

Now, I'm gonna re-image xpp3 back onto the same partition... cuz my 2nd hdd caddy came today and I want to test it... and...
btw...  it is 14mm thick... just like I need :)

and then I'll re-image w7pro back to the same partition... test the 2nd hdd with that...
and let you know how things go...

stay tuned...

To all...

OK...
...BOTH OSs image back to the partition!

The BIOS sees the 2nd hdd caddy with a hdd in it...

XP Pro doesn't see it at all...

W7Pro sees it just fine... along with the files in it.
In Computer, the C drive shows up with a blue-green line along side... the 2nd hdd caddy drive shows up with a RED line along side... is that normal?

In the device mgr of w7pro, the 500gb SATA, and the 128gb SSD SATA *both* show up as ATA devices under Drives... is that normal?

What needs to be done to get xp pro to see that 2nd hdd in the caddy??

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 17^th, 2013 at 7:05pm:

Yep And... gues what???? I just did w7pro the same exact way... AFTER I generalized it... neat, eh?

What is the laptop's make and model? 

I vaguely remember that you were the first to report being able to use your laptop in that manner--i.e. the BIOS did the *heavy lifting* and allowed Ghost 2003 to access an external USB HDD without having to load DOS USB drivers--and it apparently is USB 2.x support and not USB 1.x support based on the speed you reported.

And, I've only seen one or two other similar reports since then.


roxe wrote on Oct 17^th, 2013 at 7:05pm:

cuz my 2nd hdd caddy came today and I want to test it... and... btw...it is 14mm thick... just like I need

Could you supply a link for your source for that caddy?  It must be a SATA to SATA caddy for that OptiPlex which appears to have a SATA controller on board.


Quote:

The BIOS sees the 2nd hdd caddy with a hdd in it... XP Pro doesn't see it at all... W7Pro sees it just fine... along with the files in it. In Computer, the C drive shows up with a blue-green line along side... the 2nd hdd caddy drive shows up with a RED line along side... is that normal?

How about a screen shot so we can see what you are talking about?

Must be a missing driver in WinXP if both the BIOS reports seeing the second HDD, and so does Win7--but, don't have a clue what driver that might be!


Quote:

In the device mgr of w7pro, the 500gb SATA, and the 128gb SSD SATA *both* show up as ATA devices under Drives... is that normal?

Both PATA and SATA are *ATA* devices--so I presume that listing in Device Mgr is okay.

A *SSD SATA*--wow, that's new information--is that one of the drives you have been swapping into the laptop with one of your OSs?  Which OS?  What do you think of the performance?

NightOwl,

Earlier roxe posted a link to a Dell Optiplex 755, which tells us the vintage because Dell's support website only provides XP/Vista drivers for that model, no 2K or 7 drivers.  I think all Dells of that vintage do have USB2 support built into the BIOS.  I have a Dell Inspiron laptop of the same vintage and I have never needed to add a USB driver to my DOS boot disks to use USB drives with DOS.  (FWIW, it doesn't seem to be as optimized as Windows drivers so the USB transfer rate is not particularly speedy, but at least you have access.)

Dell provided the O-755 in your choice of four different case styles: mini-tower, desktop, small form factor, and ultra small form factor.  It sounds like roxe is saying she has the usff case, but I wasn't aware the usff case supported a media bay like she's describing.  The sff cases do, so I wonder if that's really what she's got?  The sff case uses a laptop-style media bay, oriented vertically.   It holds a laptop CD/DVD drive, which can be swapped out for a laptop caddy for a 2.5" laptop HDD.  Hence, the reason those caddy photos posted earlier look reminiscent of laptop CD/DVD drives.

Either the laptop CD/DVD drive or a laptop HDD caddy will mate into a laptop-style proprietary connector inside the O-755's bay.  I don't know about the O-755, but on laptops the connector is soldered directly to the motherboard.  This provides a SATA connection to the motherboard.

In the case of a CD/DVD drive, the drive itself is a generic SATA drive enclosed in a CD caddy, with a bezel to match the shape of the laptop's case and an adapter to mate the CD/DVD's connector to Dell's connector.

A HDD caddy follows the same principle, just the shape and mounting points inside the caddy are different so it will hold a 2.5" HDD instead.  A standard 2.5" SATA laptop HDD mounts in the caddy, with an adapter to mate the HDD's SATA connectors to Dell's connector.  Once the HDD is inserted into the O-755 this way, the computer should treat it as a second SATA HDD and not an external USB HDD.



roxe,

When it comes to the drives, your O-755 is essentially like a laptop, and what you're trying to accomplish is the same scheme I'm using with my newer Dell Latitude laptop:  the main drive is a 250GB SSD and the media bay holds a 750GB HDD in lieu of the CD/DVD drive, the SSD multiboots DOS/XP/7/8, and the second HDD is a data drive that also holds the OS images for backup/restoration.  I'm using BING to multiboot the OS's.

(Aside: I also own BIBM, but there's a couple things in BING I like better so I continue to use it instead.)

(Aside: since I'm generally using virtualization to boot extra OS's, I haven't found a need to multiboot more than 4 OS's on the real hardware.)

Just my two cents... I don't see a reason to give BING/BIBM a dedicated 8MB partition when you can install it in a DOS partition instead.  Doing double-duty just makes that partition more flexible and useful to me.  My first partition is 100MB for DOS/BING/BIBM, and DOS is just another boot option on my BING menu.  From there I can run the DOS versions of Ghost and Terabyte Image, so I don't need any portable media.

As NightOwl said, SATA drives are just another form of ATA, so that's the subsection they'll show up under, though depending on the chipset driver it may identify itself as "Serial ATA".  ATA/PATA/SATA/IDE/SCSI are connection types and go in the same discussion with each other.  AHCI is unrelated--it's a mode and goes in a discussion with RAID and "legacy mode", which unfortunately is also confusingly referred to as "ATA mode".

Since it's just another SATA connection, XP should have no trouble seeing the caddy's HDD.  I wonder if maybe it's some issue with the disk signatures?  Did you clear the [MountedDevices] registry key when you cloned?  Was the DiskID copied to the SSD?  Does the second HDD show up in Disk Management, perhaps without any drive letters?

I've never seen that red line you mentioned, but it sounds like W7 is telling you something's amiss.  I'd start by rechecking your DiskIDs and [MountedDevices].

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 11^th, 2013 at 10:27am:

Is the fishing in the estuary, Albatross Bay, or do you go out on the open ocean?

We do both. The fishing guides pick us up from the motel at 7 in the morning and drop us back at 5 in the afternoon. The wind is fairly light at this time of year so we fished about 30 miles down the coast and 10 miles out. Pelagic and reef fish. In the estuaries we targeted barramundi.

Biggest fish caught was a 1.7 metre long Spanish Mackerel but often big sharks took the mackerel and became inadvertently hooked. They were too big to bring in so we locked the reel and broke the line. There were lots of long tail tuna too and they are strong fighters. Great sushi.

@ NightOwl

Oh my.... where do I start??

My 0-755 is a USFF... have all the manuals, and it looks exactly like the usff... both inside and out.

I made a 20gb active partition at the beginning of the 500gb hdd, put the drive into the 0-755 and installed xp pro on it first... all the drivers and activated, then took an image of it saved to my 2.5 image hdd.

Then reformatted that same partition, and installed w7pro on it in the 0-755... generalized it and imaged to the same little hdd.

BTW, my image disk starts with *welcome to windows 98.... which is 98se... and since I couldn't get the target drop-down menu to work by the keyboard, you all helped me to put a dos mouse on it and tweaked a file or two to get it working. that is the same exact imaging app I've used since then, except now it is burned on CDs.

I forgot to mention that the drive I have in the caddy is one of my SSD drives that I stupidly got last winter. I had xp pro on it and over the next 6 months, it worked slower and slower... got tired of it and moved back to my regular 2.5" 120gb sata hdds that can take defrag... read lots about the SSDs not holding up as long when defragging them... so quit using them as OS drives, but use them as glorified flash drives now - put all my videos on them. So that tells you what I think of SSD drives.

And yes, I used my current image of my xp pro to put on the SSD drive when I set it up last winter.

As for the link to that caddy, it was one of those two urls on ebay you messaged me...

and am wondering if that is why the red line... cuz a SSD drive is inside. And I set it up as an extended drive cuz I didn't know how to make it just a flash drive... without any partition on it...

Then got to thinking about my n-liting xp pro... cuz I removed all the stuff for iomega, zip, and other removable drives... so I redid the n-liting and left them in this time...reinstalled that, and with all the drivers installed and activated, it came to 3.5gb in size on the hdd.

Still need to test the caddy again on the re-n-lited xp pro to see if it works... tomorrow is another day...


@ Brian


roxe wrote on Oct 16^th, 2013 at 11:16pm:

As soon as Brian checks in, I'll need his help in partitioning for BIBM... Am thinking of putting the BIBM 8mb primary partition first, two more primaries of 15gb each... last primary of extended with the logicals in it. Will see what he suggests...

So, Brian, glad to see you back after your great adventure... and you didn't end up in Papua ;D

I am ready to partition the drive for my OSs... and putting the BIBM on... using the three images I've already made using the 0-755 for it...

So if you will be so kind as to help me get this 500gb the way I want it, I'll be so happy to get everything finally done.

I'll be doing the partitioning using the laptop (with my ide to sata adapter...) and then you can walk me thru installing bibm... and learning how to use it as boot mgr... and how to add drives as I put OSs on them... or however the sequence goes...

Will both w7pro and xp pro work from logical drives??

I only want one w7pro... and the rest xp pro... but don't know where is the best place to put them on the hdd... and in what order...
of course, using the three images I've already got to do this with...

Am so tired tonight can hardly think... will be great getting this all done... I've learned so much these past two weeks... and still have much to learn...

@ Dan Goodell


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

It sounds like roxe is saying she has the usff case, but I wasn't aware the usff case supported a media bay like she's describing.The sff cases do, so I wonder if that's really what she's got?

If you wonder through the User Manual at the link roxe gave ( ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_optiplex_desktop/optiplex-755_user%27s%20guide_en-us.pdf ), there is a *Front View* of the usff case which shows an optical drive bay.

This is the description: 


Quote:

Picture Item # 7 = module bay Install a D-module optical drive, second hard drive, or floppy drive in the module bay.

So, I think roxe has it right.

@ Dan Goodell


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

Dell's support website only provides XP/Vista drivers for that model, no 2K or 7 drivers

Going into the drivers for my 0-755, and choosing all the drivers, the same two chipset drivers that I used for xp pro sp3 do support w7 (per Dell), cuz I used them in w7pro to take care of the two PCI missing drivers.

I did a google search for installing w7pro, and read lots of personal installs and that's where I found out about those chipset drivers. The third chipset driver has the pre-install drivers for AHCI... and they work, which is how I got xp pro installed.


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

the connector is soldered directly to the motherboard.This provides a SATA connection to the motherboard.

Yes, my motherboard has it soldered directly underneath also...


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

A HDD caddy follows the same principle, just the shape and mounting points inside the caddy are different so it will hold a 2.5" HDD instead.A standard 2.5" SATA laptop HDD mounts in the caddy, with an adapter to mate the HDD's SATA connectors to Dell's connector.Once the HDD is inserted into the O-755 this way, the computer should treat it as a second SATA HDD and not an external USB HDD.

That is exactly how I fitted one of my SSD drives inside... and BIOS treats it just like a internal drive.


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

Since it's just another SATA connection, XP should have no trouble seeing the caddy's HDD.I wonder if maybe it's some issue with the disk signatures?Did you clear the [MountedDevices] registry key when you cloned?Was the DiskID copied to the SSD?Does the second HDD show up in Disk Management, perhaps without any drive letters?

HUH????  You lost me there... I explained in my answer to NightOwl that my first n-lited xp pro I had removed all the iomega, zip and other removable devices... so I redid the n-lite leaving them in... and now need to retry and see if xp pro can see it...

as to the other things you are talking about, you'll need to put it in *for Dummies* style, ok?  It doesn't take much to totally confuse me.


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

I've never seen that red line you mentioned, but it sounds like W7 is telling you something's amiss.I'd start by rechecking your DiskIDs and [MountedDevices].

I had the OS on the 500gb drive, a 16gb Cruzer Glide flash drive in the usb port... and the 128gb SSD drive in the caddy... all at the same time. The OS and the flash was the blue-green color... the SSD drive was the red color...

I formatted the SSD drive as an extended drive...
for information... are flash sticks done that way? or are they formatted differently... if differently, is it possible to format the SSD drive like a flash stick?

If you (or someone) would tell me what both paragraphs mean, and how to check the things you mentioned, then I can try to follow the instructions...

all right... beddy bye time... :)

@ roxe

You mentioned three images. WinXP, Win7 but what is the third?

OK, the 500 GB HD is in the Optiplex. No other HDs should be connected. Boot the BIBM CD and delete all partitions on the drive. When the HD is entirely Free Space, click Reboot but leave the CD in the tray.

On this occasion you will install BIBM.

Setup... Click OK to install BootIt ...
Setup... Put a tick in Change all MBR type drives to EMBR and don't click Yes to enable support for more than 4 primary partitions
Setup... Click Yes to let setup choose the partition for you
Setup... Click Yes to install to a dedicated partition. No tick in Install to any drive
Setup... Click OK to begin
Setup... Click OK for Setup completed successfully
click Close
Setup... Click OK for the Remove the boot disk and click OK to restart

BIBM should now boot from the HD and the BIBM partition should be at the start of the HD in Partition Work. Is this correct? (When BIBM loads, click Maintenance to get to the BIBM desktop)

Next stage is to create partitions and to restore the images.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 1:57am:

You mentioned three images. WinXP, Win7 but what is the third?

1) *xp pro basic* with just the apps I want on each xp partition - will add other apps later for each
2) *w7pro*
3) *xp pro internet* (xppi)... already enhanced with the apps I want on this flavor... (using right now) :)

BTW, the laptop is in its box and stored high on a shelf in the clothes closet... and I don't want to get it back down or use it at all to come here for the instructions of partitioning and restoring... and then have to put it back up there.


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 1:57am:

Next stage is to create partitions and to restore the images.

OK... but I refuse to use the laptop any more...

so I would appreciate the instructions in numerical order below - and any others you think I'd need -
*before* I start this...

0) how big will the bibm partition be?  8mb??

1) how to create partitions

2) which partition will be the *active* one??

3) I want each OS in its *own* partition...

4) I want to put xppi on the first partition after bibm... then w7pro... then the extended drive...

5) do I need to know how many logicals I want and what size they will be?   or can I wait to size out and image the first five of the logicals *after* getting the OSs in #4 done?

6) can I use my ghost CD for imaging?

7) I need to know how to *go into* and use the boot mgr to put my OSs in the start order after imaging them... so I can choose which one to boot up... (xppi to be the *default* one if no choice is made)

8) how to hide all the other OSs not being used after one is chosen... but leave the data logicals be seen for each OS...

...etc


I really appreciate your help in this... have read the manual and you are helping me to understand what it is saying... plus, you have such great enthusiasm for this program...

Am reading the manual *again* right now...

And if there is anything I have questions on in your instructions... I'll ask *before* going thru all this...

OK?   [smiley=dankk2.gif]

@ roxe

Sorry, but you are going to need two computers for this project as there will be questions and answers needed at various stages. It can't be done from a single post. Too complex.


roxe wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 12:52pm:

0) how big will the bibm partition be?8mb??

6 to 8 MB


Quote:

how to create partitions

In BIBM select the Free Space, click Create. Name, NTFS, Size, OK. Don't use Location or Options.


Quote:

which partition will be the *active* one??

You don't have to manually make any partition Active. BIBM does this from the Boot Menu.


Quote:

I want each OS in its *own* partition...

Yes.


Quote:

I want to put xppi on the first partition after bibm... then w7pro... then the extended drive...

Yes.


Quote:

do I need to know how many logicals I want and what size they will be?   or can I wait to size out and image the first five of the logicals *after* getting the OSs in #4 done?

We'll setup the three OS first. Then you can decide how many extra logical volumes you need. At that stage you will have Win7 already in a logical volume.


Quote:

can I use my ghost CD for imaging?

Yes. Later you could use BIBM Disk Imaging if you desire.


Quote:

I need to know how to *go into* and use the boot mgr to put my OSs in the start order after imaging them... so I can choose which one to boot up... (xppi to be the *default* one if no choice is made)

Later.


Quote:

how to hide all the other OSs not being used after one is chosen... but leave the data logicals be seen for each OS...

Later.

We'll do this in stages. First install BIBM and let me know it is working. Next comes restoring WinXP and setting up Boot Edit for WinXP. Boot Edit for WinXP will need to be edited after the other OS are restored.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 2:42pm:

Quote: I want to put xppi on the first partition after bibm... then w7pro... then the extended drive... Yes.

first on the drive will be bibm
2nd on the drive will be xppi - the one I'm using now
3rd on the drive will be w7pro
last on the drive will be the extended, with several flavors of xp pro and data logicals in it

which is what I stated above in the quote and you said *yes* to...


I don't want to touch doing the logicals until the first three primaries are done... OK??

again, the first three I want are...

1) bibm
2) xp pro internet (xppi)
3) w7pro...

*then* the extended comes last...

why do you want to put w7pro in a logical drive??

why can't I have it in the third primary??

@ roxe

A misunderstanding.


Quote:

first on the drive will be bibm 2nd on the drive will be xppi - the one I'm using now 3rd on the drive will be w7pro last on the drive will be the extended, with several flavors of xp pro and data logicals in it

No problems.


Quote:

again, the first three I want are... 1) bibm 2) xp pro internet (xppi) 3) w7pro...

Easy.

@ Dan Goodell


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

I've never seen that red line you mentioned, but it sounds like W7 is telling you something's amiss.I'd start by rechecking your DiskIDs and [MountedDevices].

Found out by googling *w7pro red bar* that the red color means there is less than 10% free space on the drive... which doesn't bother me since the drive is full of .vob videos... and won't need room for defragging.

Tried again to boot into xp with the 2nd hdd in the bay, and it got to the xp screen and the little blue worm kept going and going... couldn't get into the OS at all...

With the drive in, the boot sequence is:

1. onboard or usb cdrom dr... np (not present)
2. Sata0-WDC WD500 3ABYX-01WERA2
3. onboard SATA hdd... np
4. onboard or usb floppy dr... np
5. onboard network controller... np
6. usb device... np
7. Sata1 - V4-CT128V4SSD2

In the module bay section the factory default is *on*
and down below is:

Drive details:
* Controller = Serial ATA
* Drive ID    = V4-CT128V4SSD2
* Capacity   = 128 GB
* BIOS        = This drive is controlled by the AHCI BIOS

@ Brian

Ok... if I have to... I'll go get the laptop down from that high shelf... just hope I don't fall doing this... it was scary getting it up there...

plug your ears while I'm doing this... don't want you to hear way over there while this is going on...  ;)

BRB... i hope

NightOwl wrote:
If you wonder through the User Manual at the link roxe gave [...] there is a *Front View* of the usff case which shows an optical drive bay. [...] So, I think roxe has it right.

Ah, I guess I missed that.

Dan Goodell wrote:
Dell's support website only provides XP/Vista drivers for that model, no 2K or 7 drivers

roxe wrote:
Going into the drivers for my 0-755, and choosing all the drivers, the same two chipset drivers that I used for xp pro sp3 do support w7 (per Dell), cuz I used them in w7pro to take care of the two PCI missing drivers.

Yes, it's not unusual for Vista drivers and even XP drivers to work in Win7 in some situations. My point was that seeing what Dell officially supports on their website we can get a general idea of the vintage of the machine, from which we can extrapolate what kind of USB support is provided by the BIOS.

Dan Goodell wrote:
Since it's just another SATA connection, XP should have no trouble seeing the caddy's HDD.I wonder if maybe it's some issue with the disk signatures?Did you clear the [MountedDevices] registry key when you cloned?Was the DiskID copied to the SSD?Does the second HDD show up in Disk Management, perhaps without any drive letters?

roxe wrote:
HUH????You lost me there... I explained in my answer to NightOwl that my first n-lited xp pro I had removed all the iomega, zip and other removable devices... so I redid the n-lite leaving them in... and now need to retry and see if xp pro can see it...

Clearing the [MountedDevices] key is a good habit to get into, especially if you're going to be imaging one partition and restoring it to a different place on the same system.  That way, Windows doesn't carry over a memory of the location where it was when the image was made.

The screenshot below shows how to do that.  Simply highlight everything in your [MountedDevices] key and delete it. Windows will rebuild with the new, location-specific entries the next time it boots, so make your image before rebooting Windows.

(Aside: W and X are my CD/DVD drives, so I optionally leave them be just to save me the trouble of reassigning them to those letters after a reboot, but there's no harm if you delete them as well.)


Little late now, but FTR it's easy getting XP installed without having to resort to the nlite'ing hassle.  Just install in legacy/ATA mode first, then use the driver you downloaded to switch to AHCI mode after installation. Details are in several places around the 'net, such as here. I've used this method on occasion, and it's simple and it works.


FWIW, here's how my laptop is configured:

250GB SSD:
primary: 100MB for BING and DOS
primary: 60GB Win7
primary: 60GB Win8
extended logical: 20GB XP
extended logical: 80GB common Data partition

750GB HDD in media bay:
primary: spare in case I want to make a temporary copy of one of the SSD partitions
primary: common Data, including images of each SSD partition

Virtualized:
2K virtual machine for scanning/OCR
XP virtual machine for secure/important internet
XP virtual machine for insecure/risky internet
DOS virtual machine for testing
2K virtual machine for testing
XP virtual machine for testing
W7 virtual machine for testing
Ubuntu virtual machine for testing

(And for the question Brian and NightOwl are going to ask: yes, all SSD partitions are MB-aligned, including the DOS partition. DOS doesn't seem to care.)

---

Dan,


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

but there's a couple things in BING I like better so I continue to use it instead

Just curious. What are these features?

@ Dan Goodell


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 4:25pm:

Yes, it's not unusual for Vista drivers and even XP drivers to work in Win7 in some situations. My point was that seeing what Dell officially supports on their website we can get a general idea of the vintage of the machine, from which we can extrapolate what kind of USB support is provided by the BIOS.

Well, going in under my 755 service tag... and choosing all the drivers, going into chipset and looking at what OSs are supported, Dell states that those two chipset drivers are supported for w7... so that's why I felt comfortable using them.


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 4:25pm:

Did you clear the [MountedDevices] registry key when you cloned?

I didn't clone anything... it is a fresh clean install in the 500gb hdd in the optiplex for both w7 and xp.


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 4:25pm:

Was the DiskID copied to the SSD?

I don't understand what you are saying...
The SSD has one extended - one logical partition on it...(i didn't know how to format it without putting it that way... wanted to format it like a flash drive)... which holds DVD videos, as full as I could get it (hence the red bar)...
and it is in the 2nd hdd caddy that XP now refuses to even let me go past the little blue worm.

I prefer using n-lite, cuz I remove lots of things I don't want on the install... like that stupid little dog... and I added in all the security updates etc., which saved lots of time online.

At least I can see the SSD drive in w7...

Still don't know why XP won't let me passed the blue worm... got any more ideas??

The manual says that a USB stick can be used to install xp pro... I tried but wouldn't boot... there are seven USB slots... plus the adjustments in the BIOS...

Then I could have the 2nd hdd caddy with hdd in the bay while I'm installing the OS... but can't figure out how to make it boot using a USB stick...

And if that works, it's no problem getting a DVD Rom to work after the install...

But first I'd need to know how to make the install USB stick... I have FlashBoot... but it's difficult understanding that manual for it.

Or is there another way to make a bootable flash drive for installing?

@ Brian

Ok... sorry to take so long... had to defrag and image xppi... so I wouldn't lose it when deleting the partitions...

Partitions are all deleted - back to Free Space, installed it on the hdd (500gb in opti) and ready for the next step...

oh, problem!! how do I get the screen resolution smaller when in bibm on the hdd... it goes off the edges and can't see stuff very well...

edit: problem solved... used the help menu!!

@ Brian

oh yes, checking in partition work, 8mb EMBRM
476930mb Free Space

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 5:54pm:

h, problem!! how do I get the screen resolution smaller when in bibm on the hdd... it goes off the edges and can't see stuff very well...

Try this. Edit, Display Settings, dot in 800x600x64K.

I hope it's not a BIOS issue.

@ Dan Goodell


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 4:25pm:

Clearing the [MountedDevices] key is a good habit to get into, especially if you're going to be imaging one partition and restoring it to a different place on the same system.That way, Windows doesn't carry over a memory of the location where it was when the image was made.

Is that path the same in xp pro and w7???

On the left side of your monitor Resume is the top icon and Run is at the bottom.

On the right side of your monitor Help is the top icon and Reboot is at the bottom.

At the very bottom you should see Registered To: and the Time.

At the very top you should see BootIt Bare Metal 1.20.

Edit... You might need to use your monitor's "Fit to screen" setting. Or monitor "Auto-adjust".

@ Brian

no i used help to figure it out,,, and it works much better now...

ready to get this going... ok??

@ Brian

yep, my screen looks just like you described...

and the resolution is just fine now...

lets get going... please

OK. Create a primary partition for WinXP as discussed above. The same size as the one you deleted. Boot from your Ghost CD and restore the WinXP image into the partition. When complete, remove the CD and boot into BIBM. You should have a Boot Menu containing WinXP. Boot into WinXP and let me know.

@ Brian

ok i'm in xppi!!!!

now what??

Great.

Back in BIBM, create a partition for Win7. I think you are using 20 GB. Is that correct? If not, create the size you have been using. Restore the Win7 image and boot into BIBM. You should also see Win7 in the Boot Menu but DON'T boot either OS.

Click Maintenance and then Boot Edit. Select WinXP and click Edit. In MBR Details on the right, select Win7 and click Hide. Click OK.

Still in Boot Edit. Select Win7 and click Edit. In MBR Details on the right, select WinXP and click Hide. Click OK. OK again.

You should be at the BIBM desktop. Click Resume and boot Win7. Make sure WinXP doesn't have a drive letter.

Restart and boot WinXP. Make sure Win7 doesn't have a drive letter.

Let me know.

If Win7 is not in the Boot Menu, click Boot Edit, Add. Fill in the fields similar to the WinXP entry.

@ Brian

coming back into bibm... don't see w7 in the boot menu... going into maint. boot edit, not in there either...

now what?

I beat you by a minute. See Reply #108.

@ Brian

how do i change the name? i put two extra letters at the end of the name w7 that i want to delete...

how do that?

i want w7p... not w7pro... how get rid of the *ro*??

After clicking Add, click the drop down arrow for Boot and select Win7. In Identity, give it a nice Roxe name. Icon, choose the Win7 one.

MBR Details on right.

roxe wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 7:34pm:

i want w7p... not w7pro... how get rid of the *ro*??

Is that the Identity or partition name (Boot field)?

@ Brian

ok...added w7p... resumed...bootd w7... in comp.mgmt. no name or drive letter for xppi...

restarted... booted xppi... in comp.mgmt, name of w7pro but no drive letter...

now what?

Excellent. Did you change the name from w7pro?

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 7:38pm:

roxe wrote on Today at 6:34pm: i want w7p... not w7pro... how get rid of the *ro*?? Is that the Identity or partition name (Boot field)?

the identity is w7p...
the partition name is w7pro...

want to delete that *ro* in the partition name...

Easy. In Partition Work select the partition and click Properties. Change the name.

Look good now?

@ Brian

yipeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

now what???  extended??

Now it gets easy. Maybe.

You want several WinXP in the Extended partition. Will they be from the same image you have already used?

@ Brian

no, they will be the base image i first created...

xppi is one base image that now has the apps for the main drive that accesses the 'net...

i want four more base images in the extended logicals ... right at the front of the extended drive...
...which will have apps installed in them later ... then reimaged at that time...

and the base image is only 3.5gb big... so those drives will be (2) 15gb and (2) 10gb...

then four more logicals for data...


edit:
i've used these sizes many times before in partitioning my former drives... so they may seem small to you... but not for what i'm putting on them...

plus i hated the partition mgrs i had before... bibm looks like i'll be able to live with it quite nicely... :)

thanks to your salesmanship  ;)

OK. First, are you happy with the Win7 partition size? It's easy to make it larger now. More difficult later.

@ Brian

now i beat you :) see above your last post...

yes, i'm happy with the w7 partition size at 30gb...

OK. Let's do the first one.

In Partition Work select the Free Space. Click Create.
Name it Extended (although this name might not stick)
File System    5/5h: Extended
Size    Leave alone
Click OK

Select the Free Space and click Create.
Name it
NTFS
Size 15 GB

Restore your Ghost image into this partition. More soon.

Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 5:03pm:

Dan Goodell wrote on 10/18/13 at 2:33pm: but there's a couple things in BING I like better so I continue to use it instead Just curious. What are these features?

Well, I really, really miss tweakng.exe.  It's a godsend for transferring the display color settings when moving BING from one HDD to another.  My 6-yr old Inspiron laptop has had 4 HDD swaps, my netbook has had two, and I just upgraded my 6-mo old Latitude laptop's 750GB HDD to a 250GB SSD.  I know TweakNG was pulled from the website years ago, but I still have it and it's worked great on every version of BING right up until the end.  It doesn't work at all on BIBM, though, and there's been nothing to replace it.

Also, for some reason I have trouble generalizing the BCD with BIBM.  Every time I try to select "{boot}" BIBM tells me "Invalid entry".  BING still works fine, though, so I haven't bothered to troubleshoot what's wrong with BIBM.  But I imagine it must work for other people so there must be a simple solution I haven't come across yet.

Dan,

I miss tweakng.exe too. You taught me how to use it.

I can't help with the {boot} issue.


Quote:

Also, for some reason I have trouble generalizing the BCD with BIBM.

I think I noticed that too.

@ roxe

After the restore, boot into BIBM. I assume the new WinXP will not be in the Boot Menu.

Click Boot Edit, select WinXP and click Edit.
The Extended partition may be called Extended or it may be MBR3. Select it and click Volumes. Select WinXP and click Hide. OK. OK. OK.


Click Boot Edit, select Win7 and click Edit.
The Extended partition may be called Extended or it may be MBR3. Select it and click Volumes. Select WinXP and click Hide. OK. OK. OK.

Now the extended partition WinXP is hidden from the other two OS.

Click Boot Edit and click Add. Select the (vol) WinXP in the Boot Field. Give it an Identity and an Icon. In MBR Details select WinXP and click Hide. In MBR Details select Win7 and click Hide.

Now boot the new WinXP and check for drive letters. Boot the other two OS and check for drive letters.

@ Brian

since the 1st xp is called xppi and the one just added is called xppv, i'm going to restate what you just said above using those names... lets see if i get it right


After the restore, boot into BIBM. I assume the new xppv will not be in the Boot Menu.

Click Boot Edit, select xppi and click Edit.
The Extended partition may be called EXT or it may be MBR3. Select it and click Volumes. Select xppv and click Hide.OK. OK. OK.

Click Boot Edit, select Win7 and click Edit.
The Extended partition may be called EXT or it may be MBR3. Select it and click Volumes. Select xppv and click Hide.OK. OK. OK.

Now the extended partition xppv is hidden from the other two OS.

Click Boot Edit and click Add. Select the (vol) xppv in the Boot Field. Give it an Identity and an Icon. In MBR Details select xppi and click Hide. In MBR Details select Win7 and click Hide. ok till back to bibm desktop...

Now boot the new xppv (clk resume) and check for drive letters. Boot the other two OS and check for drive letters.

do i have it right??

Correct.

It gets easy from here as you can copy xppv to create 3 other "xppv" without leaving BIBM.

@ Brian


ok... tell me how... and the data logicals s/b the easiest of all, right??

This is easier than using Ghost.

In Partition Work select xppv and click Copy
Select the Free Space in the Extended partition and click Paste
Give it a name
OK
Close

Again, in Partition Work select xppv and click Copy
Select the Free Space in the Extended partition and click Paste
Give it a name
OK
Close

Now this partition will be 15 GB and you want it 10 GB so
In Partition Work, select this partition and click Resize. OK.
In New Size field put 10000
OK
Continue
Close, Close

In Partition Work select the 10 GB partition and click Copy
Select the Free Space in the Extended partition and click Paste
Give it a name
OK
Close

Now go through the previous process of Boot Edit (Add) and Hide for all entries in Boot Edit.

Questions?

After all the OS are working, create your data volumes. No need to Hide these.

@ Brian

sounds like i can handle it ok...


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 9:32pm:

Now go through the previous process of Boot Edit (Add) and Hide for all entries in Boot Edit.

gonna have to write each one down so i get them all straight...  :)

I'm liking bibm more and more...

now the logicals are just making them in partition work, naming and that's it, right??

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 9:48pm:

now the logicals are just making them in partition work, naming and that's it, right??

The data logical volumes? Yes, as you did before with Create.

As far as Hiding one Logical OS from another Logical OS, it's much the same as you have done. Select MBR3 and click Volumes.

@ Brian

ok... keep your fingers crossed... or your toes if your fingers are busy  ;D

see ya on the flip side... ;)

You will be OK. Six OS coming up.

@ Brian

yep, went ok... and am typing this from xppi...

gonna sign off for tonight... see ya tomorrow Lord willing...

Thanks so much for all your help... there is probably more tweaking of the boot menu... maybe...

tomorrow is another day... nitey nite...

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 9:49pm:

Select MBR3 and click Volumes.

actually i named it EXT... and it stuck :)

i see ya online now...

Sleep well. Nice work. It's been a big day.

Don't worry if you have made some Hide mistakes. They are fixable.

@ Brian

i guess we should rename this thread to *6 OSs*...

the last three OS drives i didn't even look at the notes...

sure lots of stuff one can do in that program...

now i'm wide awake... too much excitement :)

sho is nice havin all dem drives on... mighty nice i say... gonna be fun usin 'em...

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 12:05am:

Don't worry if you have made some Hide mistakes.

mistakes?????????????

i didn't make no mistakes... everything is just fine...
the only drive right now in each OS is C....

need to do the rest of the logicals...

humph... mistakes he says.... he don't know who he's talking to...  ;)  ;D  8-)

@ Brian

hey, you gotta sense of humor???

hope i didn't offend... just joking around...

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 12:12am:

mistakes????????????? i didn't make no mistakes... everything is just fine...

Great. I would have made dozens when I first started. So you are way ahead of me.

@ Brian

naw... you got me beat by a million miles...

i just have to make myself slow down and read every word, and quit jumping over stuff... like i did with NightOwl's post some pages back... and i got frustrated cuz i couldn't figure out how to show the system files in w7...

you know anything about booting an OS from a thumb drive??

i have that option in my bios... and am wondering if i could get that figured out... then i'd put the 2nd hdd caddy in the machine while installing xp... and see what happens at the end... cuz it sure is easier to install a dvdrom drive after install than this 2nd hdd...

i've got the app FlashBoot... and plenty of thumb drives that will hold the xp OS...

wanna get into that?? on another thread of course...
don't wanna upset NightOwl any more :)

roxe wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 12:31am:

you know anything about booting an OS from a thumb drive??

Win7 and Win8. Easy.

WinXP. Difficult, but TeraByte Unlimited has a script. usbboot.tbs.

@ Brian

well, i can already see that 2nd drive in w7... so not worried about that OS...

do you know anything about FlashBoot... supposed to be able to do lots of stuff with it... like putting a thumb drive into the computer and making it believe that it is a floppy drive running from A:\...

anyway, the url is www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/....
if you want to download the manual and take a look at it... i'd really like to learn since i bought it...

and then i gotta find out which usb slot is to be used for boot up... and how the bios needs to be configured...

i can't believe it... i get one problem fixed... and right away i want another one ;)

ok... am starting to slow down, finally... i'll finish the logicals, then get to beddy bye...

talkatchatomorrow... :)

@ roxe

I played with booting OS from flash drives. OK if you have plenty of time as the OS runs SLOWLY. It's faster if the OS is on a USB HD but nowhere near as fast as from an OS on an internal HD.

My advice is to forget OS on USB. You have 6 OS. Why do you need a slow number seven OS?

Can you see your second HD drive letter from WinXP? If not, can you see the partition without a drive letter in Disk Management? If so, give it a drive letter.

@ Brian

no, you misunderstood my misunderstanding words... :)

I want to *install* xp pro *from* a flash drive... not run the OS from one...

If i can get that to work, then i can put the 2nd hdd caddy in while installing... and maybe maybe it would be working in xp at the end of the install... cuz it sure is easier to install a dvdrom drive after install than this 2nd hdd caddy....

see?? read that a couple times over... i want to *install* the OS from the flash drive...

my optiplex has only one module bay... if it had two of them, then i could put the 2nd hdd caddy in one while installing xp... but having only one, it is needed for the CD installation...

that's why I'd like to see if i could get this 'plex to take a usb install stick...

alright... the logicals are done... off to dreamland...

roxe wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 1:11am:

I want to *install* xp pro *from* a flash drive... not run the OS from one...

Extremely difficult. Forget it.

You haven't answered my question about WinXP. We'll get the second HD visible in WinXP.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 12:59am:

Can you see your second HD drive letter from WinXP? If not, can you see the partition without a drive letter in Disk Management? If so, give it a drive letter.

you mean for w7p??? why do you want me to do that?? i can't see it from xppi... but i can in the disk mgmt... but why do you want me to do that??

oh BTW, just read about the fires on CNN... are they near you??

You can't see the second HD from xppi. I'm trying to fix it. In xppi Disk Management, can you see the second HD partition?

The fires are 1000 km from me. But I used to live there when I was a child.

OK. I gather you can see it in Disk Management in xppi. Right click the second HD partition rectangle, click Change Drive Letter and Paths, Add, dot in Assign the following drive letter, choose a letter, OK.

Can you see it now in My Computer?

@ Brian

Brian,

I think I've said earlier in this thread, that XP won't even let me past the little blue worm when I try booting xp with the 2nd hdd in place...

and these caddys are NOT hot swapable...

so I have to have it in place before turning on the computer and trying to go into xp...

which does NOT allow me to pass the little blue worm...

understand??

Last night I found hundreds of websites for installing xp from a usb stick... and the majority use the same programs to get the stick ready for the install... and hundreds of replies are getting great results using this...

so I'm going to try this method... and try to talk to someone at Dell about which usb slot to use and how to set the BIOS...

wish me luck... gonna need it...

and if all else fails, at least I can boot/reboot into w7 in order to use the 2nd hdd caddy...

I really appreciate you trying to help me get this going...  but since I can't even get into xp with the device in place...

... I'm forced to go a different route...

and becuz I can use w7 with it... I can take my time in finding out the solution...

somewhere there is a solution... all I need do is find it...

Sure do love :-* my new setup you helped me thru yesterday... i was so tired last night... but slept good.

So glad you aren't near the fires... now they are saying it is threatening Sydney...  Australia must be a harsh place in areas... drought, fires,, etc, etc...

I've read the book *Tracks* by Robyn Davidson (?) about taking 3 camels across from Alice Springs to the coast above Perth... incredible read... that is one book I can read over and over... and as she says at the end, "camel trips never end... they just take a different form"...

So...
I'm on a camel trip right now... just don't have any camels  ;D

@ roxe

I misunderstood what was happening. I thought you could get into WinXP but couldn't see the second HD.

Let's see if BIBM can help. Second HD installed. In BIBM click View MBR. What is the number in the bottom left corner? It will be something like 0x41AB2316.

Click Cancel on View MBR. Click the drop down arrow on Drives and select 1. This is your second HD. Click View MBR. What is the number in the bottom left corner?

This number is the Disk Signature.

Still in Drive 1. Click Cancel on View MBR. What is in the big white rectangle in MBR Partitions?

Do you have another HD to try in the caddy? Does it also stop WinXP from loading? The scrolling blue worm is WinXP scanning the drives.

Edit.... does the blue worm issue occur with the WinXP in the logical volumes?

@ Brian

Where in bibm do i clik view mbr?? the one under partition work??  or where???

late tonight... will try the last two suggestions tomorrow...

i've got behind in stuff while getting this opti up and going... gotta catch up... so not spending alot of time online....

talkatchatomorrowalligator....

-----------------------------------------------------
which reminds me... don't know if you know about the "see ya later aligator"  "after while crocodile" goodbye thingy...

after doing that, for the past 20 years or so I've been coming back with "pretty soon baboon"... and folks just look at me with a dumb expression on their faces and you can see the wheels turning in their heads but they can't come up with a reply...

the first one pits alligators and crocodiles... similar animals...

the second one has baboon... and chimpanzee is similar animal...

so it could be
"da da de chimpanzee"...

been trying for years now to fill in the "da da de" part of it... it needs to rhyme with chimpanzee...  and have three syllables...

*see ya later*, and *after while*... have similar concepts of bye bye...

*pretty soon* has the concept that it won't be so long apart... so the three or four syllables for chimpanzee should be the same short time apart concept...

help me...

@ roxe

Yes, Partition Work, top right.

@ Brian, @ Dan Goodell,  @ roxe, and all......


Boy, this thread has moved along quite quickly....

And, I thought partitioning was a relatively simple operation.....yikes!




Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

I don't see a reason to give BING/BIBM a dedicated 8MB partition when you can install it in a DOS partition instead.Doing double-duty just makes that partition more flexible and useful to me.My first partition is 100MB for DOS/BING/BIBM, and DOS is just another boot option on my BING menu.From there I can run the DOS versions of Ghost and Terabyte Image, so I don't need any portable media.

This makes a lot of sense--if you are going to have a partition for BING (Boot It Next Generation), and/or BIBM (Boot It Bare Metal), might as well make it a bootable partition, and place your DOS based imaging program(s) on it--don't need boot floppy disk(s) (or floppy drive!), boot CD (or CD drive!), bootable USB memory stick or bootable external USB HDD.




Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 18^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

(Aside: since I'm generally using virtualization to boot extra OS's, I haven't found a need to multiboot more than 4 OS's on the real hardware.)

This simplifies things greatly if you want/have a need for multiple task specific OSs that you want access to--not to be negative about the ability of BIBM to boot from unlimited partitions (primary and logicals), you do have to watch out for ever using a program that is not *unlimited partition aware*--you're stuck using BIBM and nothing else--so be warned--don't try using any other *standard* partitioning utility after setting up the unlimited option!


Dan Goodell wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 4:25pm:

FWIW, here's how my laptop is configured: 250GB SSD: primary: 100MB for BING and DOS primary: 60GB Win7 primary: 60GB Win8 extended logical: 20GB XP extended logical: 80GB common Data partition 750GB HDD in media bay: primary: spare in case I want to make a temporary copy of one of the SSD partitions primary: common Data, including images of each SSD partition Virtualized: 2K virtual machine for scanning/OCR XP virtual machine for secure/important internet XP virtual machine for insecure/risky internet DOS virtual machine for testing 2K virtual machine for testing XP virtual machine for testing W7 virtual machine for testing Ubuntu virtual machine for testing

Very interesting!


roxe wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 12:09am:

i guess we should rename this thread to *6 OSs*...

I have edited the thread name.


roxe wrote on Oct 20^th, 2013 at 8:07pm:

xppi is one base image that now has the apps for the main drive that accesses the 'net... i want four more base images in the extended logicals ... right at the front of the extended drive... ...which will have apps installed in them later ... then reimaged at that time... and the base image is only 3.5gb big... so those drives will be (2) 15gb and (2) 10gb... then four more logicals for data...

Be careful what you ask for!  I did some mixin' and matching of multiple OSs--tried to get fancy and placed program files on a separate partition (which was one recommendations in the early days of the Radified partitioning guide) from the OS (something that was easy back in the day of Win98se--could edit the default new program install partition--hard to do on WinXP--could not edit the default new program install partition), set up a sharing of the partition that held the page file between Win98se and WinXP.  It became harder and harder to remember all the tweaks that were applied to which OS, and the complex web that I had weaved.  Then my system crashed, and I needed to transfer the image to dissimilar hardware (i.e. different HDD controller)--became messy if I forgot the previous setups as I made the transfer, and tried to re-tweak everything ....... just saying.......  ;)  .

FWIW, I prefer unlimited primaries and EMBR drives when multi-booting lots of OS. It's easier as you don't have to hide a multitude of partitions. By default there is just the OS in the partition table. You simply "add" partitions (using the Fill button) you want seen by that OS. When you install a new OS you don't have to edit the partition tables of the other OS.

If you have an extended partition and you would like to convert the logical volumes to primary partitions, here is a simple method I heard about recently. Convert the drive to GPT and then convert the drive back to MBR or EMBR.

This is my setup.


Code:

Name           Size       Free    Typ   ID      File System ---------------- ---------- ---------- --- ------ ------------------ Win8.1              60000MB    36579MB Pri (01)   HPFS/NTFS -------             20000MB            Pri (80)   Free Space Win7E64             18000MB     6310MB Pri (7A)   HPFS/NTFS -------              1000MB            Pri (81)   Free Space XP_Dell             17000MB     4332MB Pri (09)   HPFS/NTFS Ubuntu1310           7000MB     3520MB Pri (03)   Linux Native Swap                 1000MB     1000MB Pri (04)   Linux Swap/Solaris -------            103902MB            Pri (82)   Free Space TBOS                   10MB        7MB Pri (02)   FAT-16 IFLbrian               70MB       27MB Pri (0A)   FAT-16 IFL                    80MB       23MB Pri (12)   FAT-16 TBWINRE               350MB       67MB Pri (0F)   FAT-16 BIG MENU               15MB        7MB Pri (0C)   FAT-16 ACTIVEBOOT_752        250MB       69MB Pri (0D)   FAT-32 ACTIVEBOOT_710        250MB       58MB Pri (08)   FAT-32 BOOTIT EMBRM            8MB        4MB Pri (D2)   BootIt EMBRM      Name           Size       Free    Typ   ID      File System ---------------- ---------- ---------- --- ------ ------------------ OTHER                6000MB     2896MB Pri (03)   HPFS/NTFS BIG PROGS           20000MB     6129MB Pri (05)   HPFS/NTFS Win7 RTM            20003MB     4407MB Pri (AE)   HPFS/NTFS Win8_32bit          20000MB     5288MB Pri (0D)   HPFS/NTFS -------             10000MB            Pri (80)   Free Space W8_test             30000MB    13920MB Pri (0F)   HPFS/NTFS W8_game_HD          91977MB    12909MB Pri (09)   HPFS/NTFS Win8.1_RTM_HD       20000MB     7375MB Pri (07)   HPFS/NTFS Win8.1_RTM_32bit    20000MB     7977MB Pri (0E)   HPFS/NTFS Win8_singleHD       40000MB    11287MB Pri (01)   HPFS/NTFS -------              7000MB            Pri (81)   Free Space 8.1_EnterpriseHD    20000MB     6979MB Pri (02)   HPFS/NTFS Win8.1_singleHD     40000MB    16028MB Pri (08)   HPFS/NTFS -------            262748MB            Pri (82)   Free Space DATA              1000000MB   453915MB Pri (8B)   HPFS/NTFS -------            300000MB            Pri (83)   Free Space      Name           Size       Free    Typ   ID      File System ---------------- ---------- ---------- --- ------ ------------------ WORKING             30000MB    29715MB Pri (01)   HPFS/NTFS BACKUP            1877728MB   995114MB Pri (02)   HPFS/NTFS

NightOwl wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2013 at 10:10am:

[Virtualization] simplifies things greatly if you want/have a need for multiple task specific OSs that you want access to

Incredibly so!  I used to (a decade ago) multiboot a dozen partitions, including several of the same OS but configured for different working environments.  But I discovered virtualization in 2006 and couldn't live without it today--I just couldn't put up with rebooting into a different partition every time I needed to do some short task in another OS.

I do general websurfing in one VM with Java and Flash exposing me to their security risks, but use another more secure VM for online banking.

With virtualization I can run multiple OS's at the same time--running in one OS and simultaneously have one or more windows open running other OS's.  If I'm busy working in 7 and someone phones me with a XP question, I can pop over to the XP window so I can talk the caller through how to do something.  It's a whole lot easier than rebooting into XP to answer the call and then back into 7 later.

I'll occasionally get calls from people asking something like, "I want to download and try this program but I can't tell if it will do what I want."  I'll say, "Wait a sec..", then pop over to a VM running their OS, download and install the program in question, and discuss with the caller what it does.  After we hang up, I close the VM without saving changes and reopen it, and I'm right back to where I was, with no harm done in case the program had had any ulterior motives.  That's a whole lot quicker than imaging/testing/restoring to get back to where I was.

I just don't have a need to truly multiboot more than a few partitions anymore.

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 21^st, 2013 at 2:44pm:

Let's see if BIBM can help. Second HD installed. In BIBM click View MBR. What is the number in the bottom left corner? It will be something like 0x41AB2316.

0xC5E69875


Quote:

Click Cancel on View MBR. Click the drop down arrow on Drives and select 1. This is your second HD. Click View MBR. What is the number in the bottom left corner?

SSD 119.24gb
mbr = 0xCCEA8CA1


Quote:

Still in Drive 1. Click Cancel on View MBR. What is in the big white rectangle in MBR Partitions?

----       partition       8mb                free space
MBR0    partition       122088 mb     extended
  stuff1   volume        122088mb     hpfs/ntfs
----       partition        8mb               free space

Drive 1   toshiba 2.5 sata drive (non ssd) 111.79gb
mbr = 0xD05E5423

in white space...
----        partition       114471mb     free space
     (deleted the partitions before putting in the caddy and left it that way)


Quote:

Do you have another HD to try in the caddy? Does it also stop WinXP from loading?

the second laptop drive above... yes got the everlasting blue worm.


Quote:

Edit.... does the blue worm issue occur with the WinXP in the logical volumes?

yes

having the ssd drive in and going into w7... it installs hardware and then has that icon in the tray to safely remove hardware...

it has that icon in the tray for the dvd drive too... so I clicked on it and it said *eject dvd blah blah blah*... I clicked again and it kept saying the same thing... so i took the dvd drive out... and a warning came up not to take it out since it was being used (not)... but when the warning went away, that icon in the tray was gone too.

in device mgr, the dvd is under the heading dvd...

but the hdd caddy is under the heading of drives, and there is no dvd heading...

no, i didn't try removing the hdd caddy using the tray icon... but did notice that each time i put the hdd caddy in, w7 installs and then says install is finished and the tray icon is there...

when the dvd caddy is in, w7 doesn't install anything, but the tray icon is there...

definitely weird...

i think way back i did take the dvd caddy out while in xp... no tray icon for it there... and put the hdd caddy in... and nada...

seems to me that the caddys need to be changed with the computer off... so the bios gets set up right...
don't know for sure tho...

getting caught up with all the stuff i let slide this past week... shore is nice NOT USING THAT LAPTOP!!!!!!!!

ok... now that i've done my yell for the day... gonna get off this machine... and do some reading.

seeyalateralligator... did you all notice my plea above for help???? ;D 8-)
(post 156 below the line)

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2013 at 10:10am:

Be careful what you ask for! <snip>..... just saying......

i mostly use xppi (internet)... i'll play in w7...

but the other four xp's i'll use maybe once a month or less... one for video, one for audio, one for nlite, one for pictures...

so as long as i keep current with images of them... i'm fine  8-)

@ roxe

I saw crocodiles last week but I can't help with your alligator.

Thanks for doing those tests. Excellent work. It looks like WinXP needs drivers to be able to see the drive in the caddy. Check with Dell. I doubt a reinstall of WinXP with the caddy present would help but anything is possible. Otherwise Win7 might have to become your primary OS.

Regarding the poor performance of the SSD. Which OS was installed? WinXP or Win7? Was the partition 2048 sector aligned? Non aligned partitions can lead to poor performance. WinXP on a SSD doesn't have TRIM and may suffer performance issues after prolonged use.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2013 at 11:38pm:

Quote: Do you have another HD to try in the caddy? Does it also stop WinXP from loading? the second laptop drive above... yes got the everlasting blue worm. [quote]Edit.... does the blue worm issue occur with the WinXP in the logical volumes?

yes

having the ssd drive in and going into w7... it installs hardware and then has that icon in the tray to safely remove hardware...

it has that icon in the tray for the dvd drive too... so I clicked on it and it said *eject dvd blah blah blah*... I clicked again and it kept saying the same thing... so i took the dvd drive out... and a warning came up not to take it out since it was being used (not)... but when the warning went away, that icon in the tray was gone too.

in device mgr, the dvd is under the heading dvd...

but the hdd caddy is under the heading of drives, and there is no dvd heading...

no, i didn't try removing the hdd caddy using the tray icon... but did notice that each time i put the hdd caddy in, w7 installs and then says install is finished and the tray icon is there...

when the dvd caddy is in, w7 doesn't install anything, but the tray icon is there...


definitely weird...

i think way back i did take the dvd caddy out while in xp... no tray icon for it there... and put the hdd caddy in... and nada...

seems to me that the caddys need to be changed with the computer off... so the bios gets set up right...
don't know for sure tho... [/quote]

Maybe not so *weird*.... you might have some clues in all this that might point at the problem!

One of the features of the AHCI driver is *hot swapping* for SATA HDDs.  Your description for the Win7 behavior sounds like it is seeing the SATA HDD caddy as a *removable* device--similar to how a USB flash drive is treated--i.e. hot swappable--with best practice (in WinXP) to use the *Safely Remove Hardware* option in the system tray to make sure there are no pending writes to the USB drive before its removal.

If I understand correctly, as long as the SATA HDD caddy is not hooked up, then the WinXP will boot just fine.  If the caddy is present, then the system will not boot successfully--just get that *blue worm*.  As I said before, sounded like a driver problem--and now, I'm starting to think there's something amiss with the AHCI driver.  What's the problem....don't know.  But, I think you need to look at that for clues.

Way back when, you posted this: 


roxe wrote on Oct 14^th, 2013 at 12:18am:

The usff doesn't have a floppy drive... and I've put the AHCI files into the install using n-lite... nifty little program But it wouldn't install on the usff today... tried a bunch of stuff... so searched on the 'net and found out that if I changed the SATA AHCI (default) to ATA, it would install... but wouldn't have the AHCI...So did some more research and came up with a web page talking about FlashBoot... so I printed out that page... and got all the apps needed... and made me a flash drive bootable which will make this computer and xp pro install disk think that it is taking the AHCI files from a floppy but is really coming from a flash drive!

Then you said:


roxe wrote on Oct 16^th, 2013 at 11:16pm:

Finally got xp pro installed on the optiplex, AND it is imaged. So amazing... used n-Lite to take my XP Pro OS with sp2 of 583mb, sp3 of 546mb, a Security update pack of 98mb, and the pre-install AHCI driver...

In the first quote, you said you *n-lited* the AHCI drivers and could not install WinXP if AHCI was enabled in the BIOS, and in the second quote you said you *n-lited* the AHCI drivers and you were successful installing WinXP.  I suspect you have mixed up the sequencing of events when you were reporting the results...but, I wasn't there looking over your shoulder....so I don't know for sure!

But, regardless, my point is what exactly is the status of your attempt to install the AHCI driver?  Have you looked in WinXP's Device Manager, and does it say the HDD controller is using the AHCI driver?

I presume the BIOS is set to AHCI? 

Is there a setting for each of the two SATA HDDs (i.e. two controllers with one channel each) in the BIOS after you insert the HDD caddy--or is it just a single setting (i.e. one controller with two channels).

Since WinVista, the AHCI driver has been included in the installation package.  WinXP you have to add the AHCI driver--and it is chipset specific--you have to have the correct driver for the specific hardware.  Your Win7 is seeing the HDD caddy just fine--so this probably means the AHCI driver is installed and working fine.  But, your WinXP is having a problem if the HDD caddy is present--so something's probably wrong with the AHCI driver.

Where might the problem be?   Maybe the AHCI driver is an older version--need updating?  Maybe the OptiPlex BIOS is dated--maybe need to flash with an updated BIOS?  Maybe your n-lite modified installation disc is somehow not installing all necessary components?

So links for reading:

https://www.google.com/#q=ahci+drivers+for+xp
http://superuser.com/questions/427340/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-xp-without-reinstalling
https://www.google.com/#q=why+enable+ahci+driver&start=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface
http://superuser.com/questions/4020/why-should-i-choose-or-not-ahci-over-ide-in-my-pcs-bios-settings/393187#393187
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/351664-31-should-enable-ahci-build
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/269918-32-enable-ahci-mode-installing-windows

Out of room, see next post!

@ roxe

A final link:

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Why-do-i-need-AHCI-with-a-SSD-Drive-Guide-Here-Crucial-AHCI-vs/td-p/57078

The various links may lead to an answer to the problem...don't know for sure.


roxe wrote on Oct 14^th, 2013 at 12:18am:

But it wouldn't install on the usff today... tried a bunch of stuff... so searched on the 'net and found out that if I changed the SATA AHCI (default) to ATA, it would install... but wouldn't have the AHCI...

Is that the setting in your BIOS?  Or, is it something like *Legacy IDE*?

Just out of curiosity, did you at any point install WinXP with the OptiPlex BIOS set to that *ATA* setting, could you boot to WinXP with the HDD caddy in place, and did the caddy HDD show up okay with that BIOS setting and install--in other words, without the AHCI driver?

@ NightOwl

The first time I tried installing xp on opti... i used the n-lited version i made 4-5 years ago for my tower and the toshiba laptop

thats why it didn't work... wrong ahci for the opti.

when i found the ahci driver on dell, it said it was for xp, vista, w7, etc...done in 2010...

i never installed without ahci...

in xp, there is NO tray icon for either dvd caddy or the hdd caddy... in device mgr the dvd caddy appears under the heading dvdrom...

in w7, in device mgr the hdd caddy appears under the drive heading... and there are two hdd in there, the internal sata and the caddy sata...

both w7 and xp have the ahci driver under device mgr heading of *ide ata/atapi controllers*...

btw, every time i boot xp, i get the blue worm screen but it only makes less than two whole passes... when the hdd caddy is in it keeps going and doesn't quit until i shut the opti off...

sounds like i need to chat with a dell person... and ask about the hdd caddy and xp...

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 1:32am:

I saw crocodiles last week but I can't help with your alligator.

i already got the alligator... it's the chimpanzee i need help with.


Quote:

Thanks for doing those tests. Excellent work. It looks like WinXP needs drivers to be able to see the drive in the caddy. Check with Dell. I doubt a reinstall of WinXP with the caddy present would help but anything is possible. Otherwise Win7 might have to become your primary OS.

no, i'll keep xp pro my primary for now... but it is nice to know i can use w7 to watch the videos on the ssd drives in the caddy.


Quote:

Regarding the poor performance of the SSD. Which OS was installed? WinXP or Win7? Was the partition 2048 sector aligned? Non aligned partitions can lead to poor performance.

xp pro was installed... and i found a program specially for ssd drives that aligned everything, cuz i had three or four partitions on the drive.


Quote:

WinXP on a SSD doesn't have TRIM and may suffer performance issues after prolonged use.

yeah, i got so disgusted with it, that i went back to my reg toshiba sata drive... imaged the OS from the ssd to the sata, cuz i was curious, had to defrag FIVE times to get it all straight :o

so now they're just glorified flash drives holding videos...

BTW...
i don't know how flash drives are formatted at purchase... do they have a extended drive with logical on them?? or are they just formated with no partition on the drive... do you know?

@ NightOwl

yeah, been thinking about flashing the bios...

the bios in the opti is A03.... s/b A17, or A21...

the flash process is supposed to be able to run from within the OS... then it reboots, flashes the bios, and then boots back into the OS.

i want to get a ups before doing that... sure as shootin if i did it now, the power would go out in the middle of it...

THAT's what i've been needing to do and forgot what it was... thanks so much NightOwl for reminding me [smiley=dankk2.gif]... been bothering me since i thought of it when i got the opti and promptly forgot...  i'll go order one now... :)

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 1:39pm:

i don't know how flash drives are formatted at purchase

They contain a primary partition. You can delete and re-create the partition in BIBM. You can also do this in Disk Management.

Of interest, but perhaps of little use is you can create several primary partitions on a flash drive with BIBM. But Windows can only see the partition set Active. BIBM can change the Active partition so the flash drive could perform several functions.

Regarding SSDs. I think you had a bad experience. I'm not sure which software you used but I tested one that was supposed to produce 2048 sector alignment and it was a disaster. SSDs are just amazing for speed.

If you are interested, I'd backup your data on the SSD and delete the Extended partition. Install the SSD in the HD0 position in the Optiplex and create a 30 GB primary NTFS partition, 2048 sector aligned. Restore your Win7 image. I'd be surprised if Win7 didn't boot in a quarter of the time and all apps open and run much faster.

Brian wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 1:32am:

WinXP on a SSD doesn't have TRIM and may suffer performance issues after prolonged use.

Brian, does the TRIM button in BIBM help in this scenario?  My assumption is it serves the same purpose as a TRIM-aware OS like Win7, but just not in real-time while the OS is working.  Would periodically using BIBM's TRIM button on the XP partition serve to keep it adequately TRIM'd?  (My SSD's XP partition hasn't been in use long enough to have any real world experience yet.)

Dan, yes it does and I use it for my WinXP partition (every few weeks) and whenever I delete a partition on the SSD. When I first tried the TRIM button it didn't work, until I realized the Bus option needs to be set to BIOS (direct).

@ Brian


Brian wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 2:34pm:

Regarding SSDs. I think you had a bad experience. I'm not sure which software you used but I tested one that was supposed to produce 2048 sector alignment and it was a disaster. SSDs are just amazing for speed.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/index.html

the free home edition one... cuz i had partitioned the drive using xp on a toshiba sata drive, it found all the partitions on the disk misaligned... and fixed them

i did alot of reading before buying the ssd... and everyone said to not defrag the drive at all... that the drive would last longer without defragging...

don't know anything about ssd... just read what others had to say...

i just know that it got slower and slower to do things and boot up...

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 1:46pm:

yeah, been thinking about flashing the bios...

Having thought about it....if Win7 is able to detect and work with the HDD caddy given the current BIOS, then it's hard to say that it is the likely problem for the WinXP not being able to work with the caddy.

Could be a mis-match between BIOS and driver, but I suspect more something about the driver and its installation.


roxe wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2013 at 1:46pm:

THAT's what i've been needing to do and forgot what it was... thanks so much NightOwl for reminding me

You're welcome!  (Guess I got lucky on that one!)

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 2:00am:

Having thought about it....if Win7 is able to detect and work with the HDD caddy given the current BIOS, then it's hard to say that it is the likely problem for the WinXP not being able to work with the caddy.

yeah, but w7 is a more advanced animal than xp... it has drivers and stuff that xp doesn't have...

I've left a question at the Dell forum... you would think that they would know the answer... so far no replies.

And the BIOS updates do fix stuff...like the way they hand off stuff to the OS, right?  so when I get my UPS unit, I'll flash it to the latest one and see what happens.

I'd like to learn how to have one of those DOS partitions to include BIBM, and the files off my Ghost imaging CD... and then how to run Ghost from there... I think that would be so neat to not have to use a CD...

I'm going to put my images hdd into the opti, and try using the image CD and see if it can see that drive.

talkatchalater :)

@ roxe


Quote:

I'd like to learn how to have one of those DOS partitions to include BIBM, and the files off my Ghost imaging CD... and then how to run Ghost from there... I think that would be so neat to not have to use a CD...

You can adapt this.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=363

There is a menu which can be edited to enable one click Ghost imaging and restoring.

@ Brian

I don't understand why you just stopped getting my hdd caddy working...

I re-put the drive into the caddy (after putting two primary partitions on the drive) and screwed it down this time... in xp pro swapped the cd caddy and the hdd caddy...

and it started trying to install new hardware!!!! first time i've seen that... of course, it never stopped trying...

so went into device mgr, and under Disk Drives there was a *Disk Drive*... rt clkd on properties... and on the first tab in the drive status box it says *no drivers are installed for this device*...

under the details tab, it gives this string...
IDE\DISKTOSHIBA_MK1246GSX______________LB213D____\4&3286F775&0&0.1.0

I posted on the dell forum last night asking for help with getting this hdd caddy to be seen in xp... so far no replies... so posted the above info this morning and asked Dell if they would share the needed driver with me... and *Please help me*...

will see if anyone responds...

so tried shutting down xp... hung for a long time at the *windows is shutting down* screen... so shut it off and swapped back to the cd caddy...

gonna have to make myself one of those flash drive installs... so i can put the hdd caddy in while installing... maybe and maybe not it would work...

thanks for the info on making a dos partition... do I need to reformat the 500gb to do this?? 

the files on the cd come to 1.23mb... so should the partition be around 16mb... so it can hold both bibm and the image files with a little room to spare?

going to read the white paper...

Quote:

and it started trying to install new hardware!!!! first time i've seen that... of course, it never stopped trying...

Quote:

gonna have to make myself one of those flash drive installs... so i can put the hdd caddy in while installing... maybe and maybe not it would work...

ok... got it... if the *trying to install new hardware* can't get the driver right, then having the hdd caddy in place while installing xp pro isn't going to work either...

right??

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 2:57pm:

don't understand why you just stopped getting my hdd caddy working...

I was hoping Dell would provide the drivers.


roxe wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 2:57pm:

thanks for the info on making a dos partition... do I need to reformat the 500gb to do this??

No. I have a really easy method for you. But get the caddy working first. Find the correct driver.

Let me get this straight. Can you now boot into WinXP with the caddy in the computer?

Edit... You attached the HD caddy after WinXP had loaded. OK now.

@ roxe

Let's try to install IDE drivers in view of IDE\DISKTOSHIBA_MK1246GSX___

Go to your TeraByte login download site and download...

TeraByte OS Deployment Tool Suite Pro V1.47

Unzip it and get back to us.

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 10:37am:

yeah, but w7 is a more advanced animal than xp... it has drivers and stuff that xp doesn't have...

That's exactly my point--the WinXP driver(s) that you currently have installed are not working with the caddy.....but, Win7 is.....so it seems to be pointing at the driver(s) in WinXP more than at the BIOS....because the BIOS is recognizing the caddy according to one of your earlier posts....the drivers in WinXP are just not able to properly deal with the caddy.


roxe wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 3:19pm:

if the *trying to install new hardware* can't get the driver right, then having the hdd caddy in place while installing xp pro isn't going to work either... right??

I would say that's probably correct.

Need to know what the motherboard's SATA controller is--that's most likely the needed driver--might come from Dell, or the SATA controller's manufacturer.  Is it on the south bridge chip?  What is the chipset maker for the OptiPlex?

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 10:12pm:

Need to know what the motherboard's SATA controller is--that's most likely the needed driver--might come from Dell, or the SATA controller's manufacturer.Is it on the south bridge chip?What is the chipset maker for the OptiPlex?

have a question... if the hdd caddy is NOT in at the time the chipset drivers are installed, is the driver going to install that part for the hdd caddy??

when an OS and drivers are installed, and there is no hardware for a certain part of the OS or drivers to install for... is that going to be installed anyway??

south bridge???  huh???

and if there is a south bridge, is there a north bridge, and an east and west bridge?? :o

Intel chipsets...

as for the BIOS... doesn't it hand off stuff to the OS??
and if the BIOS is old and doesn't hand off stuff correctly, wouldn't be prudent to update the BIOS to the latest version??

just cuz w7 sees it from the old bios, doesn't mean that that old bios is handing it off correctly, is it?

otherwise, why is w7 installing when each different hdd is put into the caddy??

hmmm... the only hdd in the cady that did NOT have an install by w7, is the hdd where i had installed w7 using the laptop...

also going into the partition work with each hdd i tested... the only hdd that did NOT have an 8mb partition at the beginning of each hdd... is the w7 install that i put on using the laptop... strange? or what?

i have 5 laptop sata hdd...
i have 8 3.5 sata hdd...

it's like when i got into this apt., i put all my coats and jackets into the hall closet... turns out there are NINE of them...

maybe i have a thing for jackets, coats, and hdd...

huh??? ;) ;D 8-)

@ roxe

Using the Dell product link:


roxe wrote on Oct 5^th, 2013 at 10:06pm:

If anyone is interested in seeing the computer we've been talking about, here is a link to the support page where you can click on the *manual* link and download the pdf file(s). http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/Product/optiplex-755

Clicking on the *Drivers and Downloads* tab, there's a category for *Chipset* drivers, and further down, a category for *Serial ATA*.

And, there's the downloads for BIOS updates as well.  Looking at the original release date for the product's BIOS release version (A01), 9/7/2007, gives us a time frame to consider for this system.  Current BIOS version available is A22, release date 1/4/2013.

You'll have to look things over to see what's up to date, and what's not.

I'm curious--when you installed WinXP on the OptiPlex, I'm presuming you did not have to use the F6 key to add HDD SATA controller drivers so you could access the SATA HDD during the installation process--you said you used nLite to add those drivers to the installation disk prior to installation--what driver(s) where those, version numbers, and from what source?

Looking at the product download page, I don't see a category for downloading a driver for adding it to a floppy disk to use when attempting to install a WinXP OS on the OptiPlex, and using the *F6* route--so I don't know if that's needed or not?!!!

I'm out of town until late next week, so I'll be going *dark* for awhile.  Have fun with all this!  I'll see you when I get back.

@ roxe

Do you have any Free Space in the Extended Partition? No problem if you don't as we can create some. You can restore the TeraByte FreeDOS image to create a logical volume. Then edit config.sys and autoexec.bat. Copy in ctmouse.exe and ghost.exe. A few minutes job. BIBM will boot this logical volume and it loads straight into Ghost 2003.

Get ctmouse.exe from here....

http://cutemouse.sourceforge.net/

Download the Zip format of v1.9.1
Unzip it and you only need one file. ctmouse.exe (dated 01 June 2003)

Installing BIBM into a FreeDOS primary partition would be a much more involved process as you already have four primary partitions. Then you would have to setup all your boot items from scratch.

@ NightOwl @ Brian

please read carefully.... ok?

1. NightOwl, there are 106 related drivers for my opti on the dell website. under the heading *serial ata* there are 10 drivers... the very last one at the bottom of the list is the *pre-install* driver for AHCI... ver.7.8.0.1012, A12. date of 1/15/2008. i have the bios update drivers all ready... just waiting for the UPS unit to arrive.

2. Brian, i already have the mouse driver all configured into the cd i boot from for ghost... i've copied the files from the cd to my desktop and it comes to 1.32mb...

3. since i can image all my OSs in use... it won't be anything to image all the partitions in use so far and redo the 500gb drive... (i'd like to anyway to cement it into my brain how-to, cuz i wrote all your instructions down)

4. i'd like to put both bibm and ghost in the same primary partition at the beginning of the drive...
so how large a partition do i need to create there to put both in... 12mb, 16mb, or 20mb???

as for any tweaking of config and autoex.bat... don't have a clue for that or how-to...

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Oct 26^th, 2013 at 11:38pm:

it won't be anything to image all the partitions in use so far and redo the 500gb drive

It's up to you if you want to do it the hard way. I'd resize the first partition 40 MB smaller and then Slide the first partition to the end of the Free Space just created. Then delete the BIBM partition. Now you will have about 50 MB of Free Space at the start of the drive. Restore the FAT32 FreeDOS image into this space. Next, install BIBM into the FreeDOS partition. Redo all the Boot Items in Boot Edit before booting any OS.

We are only going to use one file from your Ghost CD. Ghost.exe. None of the others are needed. The partition is FreeDOS, not MSDOS. I've suggested a 50 MB partition in case you want to add DOS apps at a later time. Or wallpaper background photos for BIBM. Better to have a little more space than not enough.

Has anyone from Dell told you which driver is necessary for WinXP? I guess not.

@ Brian

hi... this project will need to wait for a little while, since it is getting cold here and I need to get my cold weather clothing altered and ready so I can keep warm. I'll check in once in awhile just to see what is going on.

And no, no one from Dell has even answered my post. No wonder one of the newbies posting asked them (well, really TOLD them) to be nice!

talkatchalater...

@ roxe

We are coming into summer. T-shirt and shorts today.

You have several options and as it is a project you could try them all. The first option I'd try is using FreeDOS and Ghost in a logical volume. The entire job can be completed in less than 5 minutes. Very simple.