My intention is to copy a HDD to a SSD. The system has, on the HDD been upgraded from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro.

I've had a look and have decided on these settings, unless anyone (read: Brian) has any objections:

Scale to Fit !
Align to Target !
Omit Pagefile Data !
Omit Hibernation Data !
Assume Original HD ?
Shutdown When Completed !
Copy Disk Signature !

The question mark at "Assume Original HD" - is it nesessary? Does it make any difference?

Any comments on the other settings with an exclamation mark (indicating that I'm pretty sure about those but I've bee wrong before)?

@ Christer

What sizes are the HD and SSD?

What partitions do you have on the HD? Partition sizes and amount of Free Space in each partition?

Both the HDD and the SSD are ~500 GB.

A dual boot, originally with Windows XP installed on C: (first) and Windows 7 installed on D: (second) but the drive letters change depending on which OS is booted. The Windows 7 installation created the dual boot. Additionally E: for the data folders.

C: and D: primary, E: a logical on an extended.

I will not run XP very often, if at all and only offline when using programs that don't run on Windows 7/10. Maybe I'll do a clean installation of Windows 10 alone but not right now.

OK. You are doing an Entire Drive Copy.

In my Options list there is no "Copy Disk Signature". I'm using IFL 3.26.

I use the default Options...

Omit Page File Data
Omit Hibernation Data
Omit $Usnjrnl Data
Log Results to File

Don't use Assume Original HD. This is used to keep the hard drive number references intact for the restored partitions. This option mainly applies to Linux partitions. I've only ever used this option for copying Linux partitions on GPT disks in a UEFI system.

Don't use Align to Target. If it's already aligned on the source, there is no need to use it (you
typically use that when changing alignment).

I'd use Scale to Fit although it's probably not necessary as the disks are the same size.

I'd use Change Disk ID and GUIDs if you plan to have both disks in the computer for the first boot. I usually choose this option because you don't want both disks to have the same Disk ID and GUID when they are both in the computer at any time.

The other Options aren't needed.

When restoring images to the SSD in the future, use Write Changed Sectors Only as this reduces NAND writes to the SSD.

Out of interest, do you have BIBM?

In IFL Settings, make sure you have a tick in "Align Partitions on 1MiB Boundaries". This applies to IFW too.

Quote:

In my Options list there is no "Copy Disk Signature". I'm using IFL 3.26.

I read it in the manual for the 3.36 (?) version.


Quote:

Don't use Align to Target. If it's already aligned on the source, there is no need to use it (you typically use that when changing alignment).

During creation of the USB-device I selected "Align Partitions on 1MiB Boundaries" which should be correct for SSDs. The current system had the partitions created by Windows XP (cylinder aligned) to work with Ghost 2003. It was actually you who said it in the second reply in G2003, WinXP, and SSDs: views, please

Quote:

I'd use Change Disk ID and GUIDs if you plan to have both disks in the computer for the first boot. I usually choose this option because you don't want both disks to have the same Disk ID and GUID when they are both in the computer at any time.

They wont be connected at the same time and I don't want to change the Disk ID. The reason is that it may interfere with activation of Windows 10 to be recognized.

A different issue occurred when a friend upgraded his system from Windows 7 to Windows 10. The Adobe Acrobat 9 installed on the system lost its activation and that was irreversible. He contacted Adobe but they never sorted it out. I will be careful and inactivate Acrobat on the Windows 7 installation and hopefully be able to reactivate it when on Windows 10.

Quote:

When restoring images to the SSD in the future, use Write Changed Sectors Only as this reduces NAND writes to the SSD.

Good thinking, thanks!


Quote:

Out of interest, do you have BIBM?

Yes, I do but have never used it though!

A side note:

I made a single post with all my answers and comments. The size was well below the maximum characters allowed.

Due to a "server issue", I wasn't able to post it. Brian was able to post and when the problem persisted today, I thought of splitting the post and it worked.

I don't understand why this "server issue" occurred when it shouldn't have.

The Option "Copy Disk Signature" is only available for non Entire Drive copies. When you do an Entire Drive copy, the Disk Signature is copied by default. So you certainly don't want "Change Disk ID and GUIDs".


Christer wrote on Jan 18^th, 2020 at 9:36am:

The current system had the partitions created by Windows XP (cylinder aligned) to work with Ghost 2003.

In that case you do want to choose Align to Target so that the SSD will get 2048 sector aligned partitions. You have "Align Partitions on 1MiB Boundaries" in Settings so the alignment on the SSD will be as desired.

Christer wrote on Jan 18^th, 2020 at 9:37am:

Yes, I do but have never used it though!

The BIBM learning curve is steep but it's a dream to use for multi-booting. So easy. Your Win7 booting files are in the WinXP partition. With BIBM, each OS partition contains its own booting files so OS are independent.

If you don't want to install BIBM, you can use it from bootable media. But for multi-booting, it must be installed.

Off topic. With OS in UEFI systems, the situation is different. All booting files are in the EFI System Partition which is a small FAT32 partition. BootIt UEFI is designed for mult-booting OS on a GPT disk. Again, a steep learning curve followed by ease of use.

Good luck. Well, you don't need luck as the copy will work.

Okey, then we agree on these options:

Scale to Fit
Align to Target
Omit Pagefile Data
Omit Hibernation Data
Omit $Usnjrnl Data
Shutdown When Completed
Log Results to File

Right?

Agreed.

Quote:

If you don't want to install BIBM, you can use it from bootable media. But for multi-booting, it must be installed.

That's what I would do. In the event that I understand how it is done, I would get the bootfiles for Windows 10 on its own partition, delete the Windows XP partition and finally extend the Windows 10 partition to fill the free space.

However, that's a different subject and maybe I'll be back!

Something to think about...

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=392

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=324

Thanks, I'll have a read tomorrow. Now it's time for my saturday evening whisky and a lager!

Great priorities!

I haven't worked with cylinder aligned partitions for years so I did some tests.

In IFL the tick was removed from Align partitions on 1MiB boundaries.
An image of 2048 sector aligned partitions was restored to a blank disk. Align to Target was selected. The restored partitions were cylinder aligned.

In IFL a tick was placed in Align partitions on 1MiB boundaries.
An image of cylinder aligned partitions was restored to a blank disk. Align to Target was selected. The restored partitions were 2048 sector aligned.

Quote:

I haven't worked with cylinder aligned partitions for years so I did some tests.

Interesting but actually what I expected, "align partitions on 1MiB boundaries" must be ticked when working with SSDs.

Christer wrote on Jan 19^th, 2020 at 3:52am:

"align partitions on 1MiB boundaries" must be ticked when working with SSDs.

Not really necessary if your source partitions are 2048 sector aligned. New test. In IFL the tick was removed from Align partitions on 1MiB boundaries.
An image of 2048 sector aligned partitions was restored to a blank disk. Align to Target was not selected. The restored partitions were 2048 sector aligned.

I never select Align to Target as all my partitions are 2048 sector aligned. (1 MiB aligned)
Align to Target – This option only applies to full drive copies (or to full drive restores). If you select this option, Image for Windows/Linux will force alignment to the target drive regardless of the alignment used on the source drive. For example, if the Align Partitions on 1MiB Boundaries global option is enabled the restored drive will be aligned on 1MiB boundaries. If this option is not selected, the alignment used on the target drive will be determined automatically based on the source drive.

I have a tick in Align partitions on 1MiB boundaries (leftover from Cylinder Aligned days) but if I removed the tick it wouldn't matter because my target partitions (restored partitions) would still be 2048 sector aligned. The same as source.

To check partition alignment, divide the start LBA by 2048. The result should be an integer.
If you have a 4k native drive (not emulated) then there are 256 sectors in 1MiB. So to check partition alignment, divide the start LBA by 256. The result should be an integer.
I don't have any 4k native drives.

Brian wrote on Jan 19^th, 2020 at 12:22pm:

Not really necessary if your source partitions are 2048 sector aligned.

Agree but in my case the partitions on the source drive are cylinder aligned.

Do you have SSDs in other computers?

I have two NVMe SSDs in my test computer. They are fast. I can restore a (freshly installed) Win10 image in 2 to 3 seconds. (NVMe to NVMe)

Image size is 4.6 GB.

I have a SSD in my LapTop. It was bought four years ago and the only "preventive maintenance" I have done is, using IFL, to create an initial image of the whole disk and next, after installing the programs I use, a second image of C: alone.

On the DeskTop, the images will be on a HDD, not a SSD and that may affect performance when it comes to creating and restoring images.

The SSD in my DeskTop will be a 500 GB Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2.5" SATA.

@ Christer

How is it progressing? I'll be away for a few weeks but will have occasional internet access.

@ Brian

I've had other things to occupy my time but will continue next week. I have upgraded the fully updated Windows 7 to Windows 10 and I went directly to version 1909. The installation was done from a USB-stick, online to let the installer download the necessary updates. It took ~25 minutes to get Windows 10 up and running but another ~65 minutes to get the updates (mostly drivers) installed. A few had to be updated through the entry in the Device Manager. Only the Catalyst Control Center was uninstalled due to incompatibility but I manually downloaded and installed a compatible version. Everything was working perfectly when the images of the system partitions, XP (containing the boot files) and W10 to get it complete, were created.

Images have to be restored in parallel because the boot files on the XP-partition after the upgrade to Windows 10 no longer works with Windows 7, should I restore that image (and the other way around as well).

I'm pleasantly surprized. The first attempt I made was in 2016, upgrading to Windows 10 version 1511 but most drivers were missing and it didn't work very well. I checked that Windows 10 had been activated and it had. Next, I restored two images (in parallel) and went back to Windows 7. My conclusion is that in the intervening time, since all drivers were available through Windows Update, hardware manufacturers and Microsoft have been busy to make it work on 10 years old hardware. Good work!

I don't understand why Windows 7 should be fully updated for the upgrade to work. Basically, a lot of settings are transferred from W7 to W10 but after that, W7 ends up in windows.old and next removed completely.

@ Christer


Christer wrote on Jan 24^th, 2020 at 4:17pm:

I don't understand why Windows 7 should be fully updated for the upgrade to work

When I upgraded Win7 to Win10 I did it on a Win7 that was installed a few minutes ago.

I don't understand what's going on with your booting files. Do you see a Microsoft boot menu when you try to boot Win10? If not then it's not using booting files in WinXP.

Brian wrote on Jan 24^th, 2020 at 5:28pm:

I don't understand what's going on with your booting files. Do you see a Microsoft boot menu when you try to boot Win10? If not then it's not using booting files in WinXP.

Are you referring to the fact that both partitions have to be restored in parallel?

The dual boot menu is very different but under normal use, I set it to go straight to Windows 10 (or 7).

Booting XP + W7, there is a boot menu immediately after the BIOS selftest.

Booting XP + W10, it kind of boots "half way" into W10 and when the blue windows flag appears, I get the choice between the two operating systems.

During the day, I shall "cross restore" the images to see what the error messages are when trying to start the system.

I've done a few tests:

Restoring the image of W10 and the corresponding image of XP:

After pushing the start button it takes 20 s to get a blue windows 10 flag and 60 s to get the boot choices.

I can boot either OS.

Restoring the image of W7 but leaving XP the same:

After pushing the start button it takes 20 s to get directly into W7, no option to choose which OS.

See the sceenshots of the partitions.

---

Next, restoring the image of W7 and the corresponding image of XP:

After pushing the start button it takes 20 s to get the boot choices.

I can boot either OS.

Restoring the image of W10 but leaving XP the same:

When letting W10 autostart, I get an error message telling that Windows could not boot and the cause may be alterations to hardware or software. Further down there are options to recover using the installation media.

It was possible to choose XP and it booted normally.

See the sceenshots of the partitions.

---

So you can boot both OS! I misunderstood. I
really dislike the Microsoft boot manager but if it works for you, fine.

Just a comment on times. Win10 should boot in about 15 seconds from the boot manager if Win10 is on a SSD.

@ Brian


Quote:

So you can boot both OS!

Yes, if the images of the respective OS are restored in parallel (syncronized).


Quote:

Just a comment on times. Win10 should boot in about 15 seconds from the boot manager if Win10 is on a SSD.

I assume that your SSD is a card, not limited by the SATA 3 specs. On my Samsung, it will take a bit longer, I think.

@ Brian

I have connected the SSD and it shows up in Device Manager as well as in Disk Management. Should the disk be initiated in Disk Management prior to cloning?

@ Christer

I never bother to do it. It makes no difference to the copy as any
Initialised MBR will be replaced.

The 15 seconds boot time refers to a standard SSD. A NVMe card will only be a second or two faster. Of course the time also depends on your other hardware.

Tanks for your responses. I will soon find out how fast my system ends up to be.

Do you have any thoughts on my question in

Windows XP, SSD and TRIM

I think the answer is "yes" but I'm not sure.

The system is up and running on the Samsung SSD. The cloning (copy disk) procedure was quite fast. The total size was 62.8 GB. The XP-partition 15.8 GB and the W10 partition 26.7 GB. The data partition had been reduced in size to 20.3 GB by moving all files above a certain age to a backup drive. It took ~7 minutes to complete the cloning.

Regarding boot times, well, I can't figure out why but it doesn't come near Brians 15 seconds. In the tests below, the boot manager in Windows 10 was set to go directly to Windows 10 thus bypassing the time delay for the options to show.

From pressing the button, POST took 15 seconds and the desktop came up after 36 seconds. Time from boot to desktop was 21 seconds (compared to Brians 15 seconds).

The original on the Hitachi HDD took considerably longer to start. POST took 20 seconds and the desktop came up after 61 seconds. Time from boot to desktop was 41 seconds.

In this simple test, the SSD is approximately twice as fast as the HDD. (The figures can be regarded as an average, there is a scatter of 2-3 seconds.)

Regarding the difference in POST time, which should be unaffected, is due to me changing the settings in BIOS for the boot order. Previously it checked the floppy, the CD-ROM and finally the harddisk. Now it checks the USB HDD and the harddisk. Maybe it makes a difference of 5 seconds?

My one year old UEFI Win10 test computer had a boot time of 22 seconds. Gigabyte released a BIOS update "to improve Win10 boot time" and it did work. 11 seconds. The time has gradually crept up to 15 seconds.

My ten years old GA-870A-UD3 (rev. 2.1) has no more recent BIOS than the one I have, released on 2011-08-01. Windows 8 is the most recent OS mentioned in the support section.

It appears that ~20 seconds to boot to the desktop is not that slow.

@ Brian

In your second post to this thread you wrote:


Quote:

I use the default Options... Omit Page File Data Omit Hibernation Data Omit $Usnjrnl Data Log Results to File

With a few additions, I used the same but can't find the logfile.

Where is it located? Is it a textfile or only viewable from within IFL?

Christer wrote on Jan 29^th, 2020 at 3:39am:

It appears that ~20 seconds to boot to the desktop is not that slow.

I remembered that when installing XP, the mode in BIOS was set to IDE. I went with that setting since I didn't want to mess with installing separate drivers. (If I remember correctly, AHCI-mode also led to inconsistencies in Ghost 2003 regarding drive numbering.) When adding W7, no changes were made.

Could the "5 seconds slower" be due to the SSD running in IDE-mode rather than AHCI-mode?

IFL.LOG exists in ram so you can view it immediately after the procedure or copy it to a hd/SSD.

I haven't used IDE mode but I gather is slows HD/SSD performance. There is TeraByte tutorial on adding AHCI drivers to an OS. It's in the "how-to" tutorials.

Brian wrote on Jan 29^th, 2020 at 3:52pm:

IFL.LOG exists in ram so you can view it immediately after the procedure or copy it to a hd/SSD.

Hmm ...  ::) ... too late then!

Brian wrote on Jan 29^th, 2020 at 3:56pm:

I haven't used IDE mode but I gather is slows HD/SSD performance. There is TeraByte tutorial on adding AHCI drivers to an OS. It's in the "how-to" tutorials.

I'll have a look but it will have to wait until I decide to skip XP or keep it. That's a new thread for the future.

Thanks for your time and insights!

If you can wait until I get home then I can go through the AHCI driver install for WinXP.

Brian wrote on Jan 29^th, 2020 at 4:34pm:

If you can wait until I get home then I can go through the AHCI driver install for WinXP.

No panic!

@ Christer,
about 6 months ago, I faced with the hard problem to install the AHCI driver on an already installed  XP system .
These drivers are tightly related to the mainboard's chipset and so, I remember that I had to find the necessaary drivers (for my chipset and for XP) on the Web.
Therefore, it's clear that in order to install AHCI driver for XP, first you need to know the chipset type, and then to find the driver for that chipset.
Unfortunately, without these drivers, XP won't work!
The redeployment of an image on different hardware is a well known weak point of imaging technique.

@ mariella

Thanks for the heads up. I built the computer myself and know which motherboard is in there and its chipset.

It's likely that when I decide to do the deed, I'll get rid of the dual boot and XP. I hardly ever use XP and merging the two partitions for W10 alone would give it more room to grow, if it does, time will tell.

@ Christer

I'm back at my computer. Still interested in installing an AHCI driver in WinXP/Win10?

@ Brian

I have a lot on my agenda and have put that thought on hold for now. If or when I decide to go ahead, I'll get back to you in a new thread.

Thanks in advance!