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Brian

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Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Feb 7^th, 2006 at 6:40am

NightOwl wrote on Feb 6^th, 2006 at 11:37pm:

PartitionMagic has a *partition copy* function--so once I have installed WinXP on say the first physical primary partition, I can have PartitionMagic copy that first partition to the second physical partition--now I have two identical WinXP installations--and using PQBoot, I can boot from either independent of the other.

I can also make a copy of that first or second WinXP OS partition to the third partition and boot to it if selected in PQBoot.

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NightOwl,

I tried this today (same HD) and it is as easy as you outline. Have you tried copying the partition to another HD instead of using the Ghost "clone" function? Copying the OS partition to Unallocated Space with Partition Magic is more straight forward than using Ghost 9 but I suspect the final result is the same.

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Rad

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	Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic Reply #1 - Feb 7^th, 2006 at 7:03am Would the newly copied o/s not have drive-letter problems? .. .. or does PQBoot give both partitions the same drive letter?
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NightOwl-

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #2 - Feb 7^th, 2006 at 11:41am

Brian

Quote:

Have you tried copying the partition to another HD instead of using the Ghost "clone" function?

No--I have not tried that. Next time I have my system opened up--I'll see what happens.

I should mention--my version of PartitionMagic had a problem with modifying the *boot.ini* file *behind the scene* to list the correct *partition(x)* in the boot.ini file when I first used this on a WinNT system that uses the boot.ini file. It wanted to assign partition *7* because the unallocated space was the 7th partition to be created on my system.

It should have been partition(3), because it is the 3rd bootable primary partition listed in the partition table--but the physical location on the HDD is the 2nd partition!

I found an update for my version of PartitonMagic, and ever since--it now *gets it right*! So, they must have fixed PartitionMagic's ability to read the partition table correctly so the boot.ini is modified correctly.

Rad

You can do the copying in DOS--so if you do not re-boot until you remove the HDD from the system--drive letters will not get assigned by Windows.

Also, as long as the newly *copied* HDD is not in the primary boot position--only your OS HDD would create a drive letter for the registry there--but should have no effect on the new *copy's* OS registry as it's not active--so if you then take it out and put it in the boot position--I'm guessing it will probably work fine.

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

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(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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Brian

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #3 - Feb 7^th, 2006 at 2:40pm

Rad wrote on Feb 7^th, 2006 at 7:03am:

Would the newly copied o/s not have drive-letter problems? ..

I mistakenly assumed that it couldn’t be done from the PM floppies (wrong) so I started PM from Windows. Before clicking “Apply” I noticed that the new partition had been assigned a drive letter (E drive I think) so I set the partition Active which made it C drive and the original C drive became Hidden. The computer booted to DOS to do its work. On the first and subsequent boots there was the Microsoft boot menu showing WinXP and WinXP #1. I found the boot.ini had been altered by PM to show both OS’s. If I had wanted to keep both partitions I would have removed the relevant OS entry from each boot.ini and used pqboot to choose the active partition.

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Brian

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #4 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 5:13pm

NightOwl,

My previous post disappeared. I made about 15 "clones" yesterday. The OS was copied from old HD to new HD. I tried PM from the boot CD and also from Windows. All new HD's booted. PM (copy a partition) from the boot CD is the easiest software for a beginner to use. Only involves 5 mouse clicks and PM prompts for the correct choice.

I then tried to make it fail by jumpering new HD as Master and old HD as Slave but new HD booted normally. The only thing I couldn't do was boot from the new HD when it was Slave and the old HD was Master. The Microsoft boot loader showed both OS but no matter which one was chosen, the master (old HD) booted. pqboot gave an error.

I also tried cloning with Ghost 9 and CasperXP and they worked too. Ghost 9 was marginally my favourite but PM has a lot going for it in ease of use.

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John.

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	Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic Reply #5 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 8:09pm Quote: I also tried cloning with Ghost 9 and CasperXP and they worked too. Ghost 9 was marginally my favourite but PM has a lot going for it in ease of use. Brian, did you do any comparisions between Partition Magic, Ghost 9, and Casper XP regarding time required for disk copy, or any other observations?
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Brian

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	Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic Reply #6 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 8:21pm Yes. Ghost 9 and PM each took 4 minutes to copy the OS partition from old to new HD. CasperXP took 24 minutes, 6 times longer. I did it twice to confirm the duration. The menus for each were easy to follow but a beginner couldn't go past PM for ease of use.
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John.

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #7 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 9:10pm

Brian wrote on Feb 9^th, 2006 at 8:21pm:

The menus for each were easy to follow but a beginner couldn't go past PM for ease of use.

I agree that Partition Magic is easy to use. Unfortunately a beginner would most likely never buy Partition Magic. More likely they would buy Ghost (or some other imager) to take backups, assuming they recognized the need even for backups.

When Powerquest owned Partition Magic, they also had a separate product called Drive Copy which was an inexpensive product specifically designed only for copying drives.

I think that Ghost needs a straightforward "Copy-Full-Drive" companion software product on their Recovery Environment CD.

Even though I use Ghost 10 for backups, the few times I have had impending failing drives, I like to immediately go to a Recovery CD/diskette solution (like Partition Magic) to copy off the suspected bad drive. I don't want to take another backup in Ghost and then restore; I want to immediately upgrade/copy to a new disk.

Just my 2 cents worth here.

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Brian

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #8 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 9:21pm

Quote:

Unfortunately a beginner would most likely never buy Partition Magic.

Point taken.

Quote:

the few times I have had impending failing drives, I like to immediately go to a Recovery CD/diskette solution (like Partition Magic) to copy off the suspected bad drive. I don't want to take another backup in Ghost and then restore; I want to immediately upgrade/copy to a new disk.

Interesting. I see this approach a lot. It's not my approach. Why would you want to copy a suspected bad drive? Couldn't the copy then be "bad"? I'd just install the new HD and restore an image taken "yesterday".

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John.

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Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic
Reply #9 - Feb 9^th, 2006 at 10:36pm

Quote:

Interesting. I see this approach a lot. It's not my approach. Why would you want to copy a suspected bad drive? Couldn't the copy then be "bad"? I'd just install the new HD and restore an image taken "yesterday".

OK. I agree if you have yesterday's image backup. Sometimes though (especially for a business user) even a day's data loss is too much. Yeah, I know they probably need RAID if it's that important.

But, I try to encourage users (not always successfully) to listen for metal clicking, whirring, or grinding noises that portend the end is near.

I did have one case where the hard drive died before I could do anything. Then I used the image restore from previous image backup, plus incremental changes from data backups.

But you're right that if you suspect you have data corruption and/or a suspected bad drive, go back to a known good source.

Ghost4me Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15. Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7

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Brian

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	Re: Copying partitions with Partition Magic Reply #10 - Feb 10^th, 2006 at 12:07am Quote: Sometimes though (especially for a business user) even a day's data loss is too much. My situation is obviously different from a business. Even so, they should have a better backup.
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