Radified Community Forums - Image only works on its original machine

Brian

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	Re: Image only works on its original machine Reply #15 - Aug 31^st, 2005 at 3:46am Aramlie, I've also partitioned as suggested by Rad. Why don't you consider defragging A, imaging A (for safety, not planning to use the image). Then resize the partition on A back to 20 GB. Defrag. See how it compares to B.
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Christer

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Re: Image only works on its original machine
Reply #16 - Aug 31^st, 2005 at 6:18am

My ideas on the speed difference is pure speculation. I have never had the opportunity to compare two, in other respects, identical machines. Maybe the speed difference is as significant as You perceive it to be.

If You "rate" the perceived speed difference, giving machine B a 10 (ten), what would be the rating for machine A?

I would think (speculating again) 9-10 or possibly 8-9 since You have no user files on machine A, only the same system files and program files as on machine B.

On Brians note:

How often do You defragment?

Do You use the WinXP defragmenter or a third party tool?

If the former, download Diskeeper Lite and see what effect a better defragmenter has on the situation.

Christer

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand

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NightOwl-

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Re: Image only works on its original machine
Reply #17 - Aug 31^st, 2005 at 10:57am

aramlie

Quote:

is it right then for me to infer from your (Christer's) remark above that there may be some other factor causing the perceivable speed difference between 2 "identical" machines, other than the difference in the way their HDDs are partitioned?

That was the point I was trying to get to--I was wondering if you were defragmenting your large HDD?

If you check out the fragmentation--report back with the current level of fragmentation on each machine!

I use Norton's Speed Disk on a regular basis--basically I never allow the fragmentation to go beyond 10 %. It shows a disk layout map and after defragmenting, all the files are at the beginning of the partition and not scattered throughout the partition.

I have seen in various places that defragmenting with a *modern* HDD is *no longer necessary*--I personally don't see where that recommendation is coming from, but.... Wink

Quote:

And that it may not be worth the risk and time to "renovate" the HDD on Machine A by merely adding a partition and reinserting a Ghost image?

To be *perfectly selfish* Wink

--that would be an interesting experiment and I'd like to see the result! I'd like to see what happens, first, to the perceived speed (responsiveness) after defragmenting, then what the perceived speed is after re-partitioning to match the other machine.

No question is stupid...but, possibly the answers are Wink

!
(This is an old *NightOwl* user account--not in current use. Current account is NightOwl without a dash at the end.)

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aramlie

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Re: Image only works on its original machine
Reply #18 - Aug 31^st, 2005 at 11:40am

Admittedly, I don't defrag either machine, or actually, defrag them once in say 6 months or so (when the moon is blue). Since I bought the machines in April last year, I have defraged both twice. I use MS Disk Defragmenter (again admittedly not the best defrag tool around). Looking at the Defrag Analysis Report, "Total fragmentation" is 9%, "File fragmentation" is 19% on Machine A. On Machine B, "Total fragmentation" is 7% and "File fragmentation" is 15%. Bearing in mind that one is reading off a 80GB partitition and another is reading off a 20GB partition (not so apple to apple).

Speed-wise, the biggest perceivable difference between the 2 machines is during startup. I would rate Machine A 6-7 on startup, if Machine B is 10. This is based on gut feel, I haven't actually used a stopwatch to time the difference. However, program response times vary on the 2 machines.

I stopped using Norton Speed Disk when I stopped using Norton Systemworks, which was installed in a previous machine that I had. I have never installed a copy of Norton Systemworks on the present machines. I disliked Norton Systemworks, because it seems to cause a lot of system instability on my previous machine and slowed down my startup time considerably (on Windows 2K).

In any case, I am one of those lazy people who blindly follow the advice that Quote:

defragmenting with a *modern* HDD is *no longer necessary*

, I suppose purely out of convenience and/or laziness.

To satisfy my (and NightOwl's) curiosity, I'd like to do the experiment (I'll clock the speeds before and after) when I have spare time (hopefully soon), and when I can get Ghost 2003 to work with my external IEEE HDD (also hopefully soon). I will post the results back here.

Meanwhile, I will take Christer's and Brian's advice and defrag. Thanks for the link to Diskeeper Lite, Christer! Very kind of you.

PS. If anyone has any clue as to where I can get a PC-DOS driver for a generic IEEE PCMCIA card, so that Ghost 2003 in PC-DOS can recognize my IEEE HDD, I would very much appreciate a pointer.

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daniel brennan

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Re: Image only works on its original machine
Reply #19 - Nov 17^th, 2005 at 1:45pm

Now my question is, can I "renovate" Machine A's HDD? What I'd like to do is to (i) Ghost an image of Machine A's OS on its currently unpartitioned 80GB HDD; (ii) reformat Machine A's HDD; (iii) repartition it exactly like Machine B's (20GB + 60GB); and then (iv) transfer the image of the original Machine A OS (imaged from its unpartitioned 80GB HDD) onto the reformatted and partitioned 20GB partition.

Maybe too late to bother making this point, but....

you don't need to use ghost at all to move the contents of the 80G drive onto a 20G partition.
using an utility such as partition magic (and there are probably others),
you can create a partition around os/programs that you have installed. it is non-destructive. you simply specify how much space should be created after the new partition and pm moves all files into the allotted space (assuming it's big enough).
i've done it a few times and never had a problem.

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Rad

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	Re: Image only works on its original machine Reply #20 - Nov 19^th, 2005 at 11:41am I included the link to Diskeeper Lite in the Freeware guide: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207 http://radified.com/Articles/freeware.htm
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aramlie

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Re: Image only works on its original machine
Reply #21 - Dec 1^st, 2005 at 8:46pm

Quote:

you don't need to use ghost at all to move the contents of the 80G drive onto a 20G partition.
using an utility such as partition magic (and there are probably others),
you can create a partition around os/programs that you have installed. it is non-destructive. you simply specify how much space should be created after the new partition and pm moves all files into the allotted space (assuming it's big enough).
i've done it a few times and never had a problem.

Daniel, Thanks for the the suggestion. It sounds a whole lot simpler than reinstalling or ghosting then copying O/S. Which PM function do you use to do this? I use PM v8.0, and it sounds as if you're describing a "Resize Partitions" operation. Is that right?

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