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Restoring OS only image to new HDD (Read 105811 times)
Dan Goodell
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #75 - Aug 23rd, 2006 at 3:56am
 
Brian wrote:
"I made my first bootable USB thumb drive today and while MBRSaver and MBRWork run OK it doesn't have mouse drivers to run PTEDIT, de.exe, etc. Do you have any easy to follow instructions?"


Just copy the mouse driver file onto the USB thumb drive and call it in autoexec.bat.  There are plenty of generic mouse drivers around, but you can just grab the one off my dsrfix98 CD, which I think you already downloaded and burned.

Insert your USB thumb drive in a USB port, insert my dsrfix98 CD, and boot from the CD.  I don't recall which mouse driver I used (mouse? ctmouse?), but I think I embedded it in the boot image, which means it should be in the A: drive after booting from the CD.  Copy it from A: to your thumb drive, and call it in your autoexec.bat file.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #76 - Aug 23rd, 2006 at 6:31am
 
Thanks Dan. Done.
 
 
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Christer
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #77 - Aug 23rd, 2006 at 10:02am
 
Quote:
P.S.:  Perhaps another member of the forum can summarize the learnings from this thread for Ghost 2003 users?

Personally, I don't have enough empirical test results to summarize all hard disk setups (number of hard disks and partitions) but based on the "test reports" in this thread:

The success/failure of restoring an image, created "Partition-to-Image" of a boot/system partition, seems to depend on whether the target hard disk is brand new or if an Operating System has previously been installed on it. If brand new > failure (needs MBR fixing), if previous OS installed > success. It may also depend on whether a third party partitioning tool has been used to prepare the new hard disk or not.

I have done a Disk-to-Disk when upgrading a system for a friend and there was no problem booting from the new hard disk as long as the old hard disk was removed and the new hard disk had taken its place on the controller. Bearing that in mind, I speculate that an image created "Disk-to-Image" contains the MBR information needed for a successful restore to a brand new hard disk and that the new hard disk would not need pre-partitioning or pre-formatting. Partition sizes will be proportional to the original sizes but can be adjusted during the restore process.

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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: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #78 - Aug 23rd, 2006 at 11:47pm
 
ckcc

Still tied up with those projects--I can be online briefly, intermittently--but, not enough time to play with this as much as I'd like...  Sad

Quote:
You have raised a few more interesting questions... which are beyond me answering. I'm gonna sit back and listen and learn.

Oh!--don't stop now!  Your contributions have been most welcomed!
 

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NightOwl
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #79 - Aug 23rd, 2006 at 11:58pm
 
Brian

Quote:
I think we have a cultural clash. Aussies usually regard “tick off” as “untick”.

Thank you for your cross-cultural *sensitivity* training  Grin .  Especially liked the John Cleese link--lol !

I've seen you use that term, but note--I sub-consciously knew I may not be using the term correctly--I put it in quotation marks!

Around here, *tick off* means to make someone mad--like in "Are you trying to tick off the boss?"  Hmmm...I think the Aussie interpretation of that sentence would probably make the workers happier  Cheesy !
 

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NightOwl
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #80 - Aug 24th, 2006 at 12:33am
 
Dan Goodell

Always glad to have your insightful comments.

Quote:
(BTW, the third link in NightOwl's index erroneously links to a description of an NTFS partition boot record instead of an MBR description.)

Fixed--thanks for letting me know.  Also added a reference/link to your reply #51 to clarify my summary points.

Quote:
"Have to wonder, though, what, if any functionality is missing when using an NT system with a Win98 MBR code loader"


None.

Wonder why the coding is different--what else does that code do?

Quote:
NightOwl quoted:
"One of the first things that any PC user should do ... is to make a copy of its MBR; especially if you have more than one partition on the disk! Why? If you accidentally overwrite this sector, or are infected by a Boot sector virus, you may never be able to access some or even all of your disk again! Even the most expensive HD utility might not correctly restore the Partition Table of a multi-partitioned hard disk!"


FTR, any partition table can always be recontructed manually, as long as the partitions themselves are still intact.

Are you saying that Starman's statement about needing a backup is not true?  Is the statement *dated*, and are there  HDD utilities now that can correctly restore Partition Tables accurately and reliably?  Starman's site says to either have a *file* backup that can be restored--or a printed copy of the data so you can use a disk editor to *manually* enter the Partition Table data.

Are you saying there is another way to *manually* reconstruct the Partition Table?  Or, are you saying you can use a disk editor to *manually* enter the Partition Table data if you have a printed copy or you have hand-written the data down?  

Please elaborate.
 

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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #81 - Aug 24th, 2006 at 8:58am
 
Oh!--don't stop now!  Your contributions have been most welcomed!


I'm not stopping, just slowing down to absorb all this info and maybe try to summarize my findings.
 

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.
 
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Dan Goodell
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #82 - Aug 24th, 2006 at 7:56pm
 
NightOwl wrote on Aug 24th, 2006 at 12:33am:
Wonder why the coding is different--what else does that code do?

It's just some minor streamlining, which makes the Win2K version of the MBR boot code slightly more compact that the Win98 version.

I just went back and took another look at The Starman's code disassembly.  The only substantive difference between the W98 and W2K versions is the portion where the boot sector of the active partition (the PBR) is actually read from the hard disk.  The W98 version defaults to CHS disk read functions but attempts to switch to LBA for certain partition types.  The W2K version defaults to LBA but if that's not supported it switches to CHS for certain partition types.


Quote:
Are you saying that Starman's statement about needing a backup is not true?  Is the statement *dated*, and are there  HDD utilities now that can correctly restore Partition Tables accurately and reliably?  Starman's site says to either have a *file* backup that can be restored--or a printed copy of the data so you can use a disk editor to *manually* enter the Partition Table data.

It's correct but needs to be understood in context.  A backup is always better than no backup.  If you do not have a backup, then the question is not whether reconstructing the partition table is possible--it is possible, but the question is how easy would it be.  My point is the quote makes it sound like partition table reconstruction might be impossible in some cases.


Quote:
Are you saying there is another way to *manually* reconstruct the Partition Table?  Or, are you saying you can use a disk editor to *manually* enter the Partition Table data if you have a printed copy or you have hand-written the data down?

Absolutely.  That's the way I always do it.  Even if you don't have a record of the contents you can still rediscover what the values should be, though of course it's going to be easier if you wrote it down beforehand.

The partition table descriptors are simply pointers to the actual partitions.  If you lose a descriptor, the partition it pointed to is still there, untouched.  To rebuild the descriptor, all you have to do is rediscover the size, location, and type of the partition.  If the partition is still intact, that's not impossible to do.  (And as I said earlier, if the partition is not intact, then a backup of the partition table won't do you much good.)

The best tool I've found to help you rediscover where the partitions are is Mikkelsen's FindPart utility.  What it does is search your entire hard disk looking for anything that looks like it might be a PBR sector or extended partition table.  If partitions are still intact, it will find them.

FindPart is a report-only tool.  It does not fix anything, it just helps find the information for you to do with what you will.  You should try downloading it and see what it does.  There are DOS and 32bit versions, so you can even run it from a XP command prompt window.

If your disk has been reformatted or repartitioned several times, you'll find there may be a lot of orphaned PBR sectors scattered around the disk.  (The data in them remains until the sector is subsequently overwritten by other data.)  FindPart will find those, too.  The trick is figuring out which of FindPart's discoveries represent your lost partitions and which are leftover detritus.  The information is in there, so it's not impossible to rebuild the table descriptors, but the more repartitioning you've done, the more difficult it will be.  This is where it comes in handy to have a keen eye, some technical knowledge, and some background knowledge of what partition layout you had before you lost it. 

And that's the part where "even the most expensive HD utility" can guess wrong.  I believe that phrase refers to automated recovery tools, and should be taken in that limited context.  If you manually rebuild the descriptors and guess wrong, you can go back and try something different--the right combination is always there somewhere.  If an automated tool guesses wrong, how do you tell it to try something different?


 
 
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NightOwl
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #83 - Aug 25th, 2006 at 12:04am
 
Dan

Thanks for the explanation--much clearer now!
 

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Brian
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #84 - Oct 23rd, 2006 at 2:58am
 
NightOwl wrote on Aug 20th, 2006 at 3:45pm:
3.  But, what is probably more critical is the *Partition Table* that is the last portion of Absolute Sector 0:


For regular Ghost users, you may want to take the above advice under *advisement*--you don't want to go restoring the *partition table* to a HDD that
you
have made any adjustments to the partition layout.  And when you restored an image to a HDD--
Ghost may do some adjustments
to the partition layout using *built-in behind the scenes* partition *adjustments*--even if it's to the same HDD as the original source HDD for the image!

So, it's not a bad idea to have a back up of the MBR sector with the *partition table*, but caution in using the restore function of the MBR sector--it has to be for that exact partition layout without any changes having been made since the last MBR sector backup!

I hope not too much of this thread has been forgotten. I don't think we spent any time examining NightOwl's thoughts about the Partition Table. When I restored the Ghost 10 image with the marked MBR I didn't check to see whether the Partition Table was restored identical to the original or just the boot code that was identical. These quotes from Acronis Support jogged my memory about this thread.

Quote:
I've just consulted with the respective person from our Development Team and he assured me that whatever restoration scenario you follow partition table is not being restored. Instead, the new partition table is created in accordance with the new partition layout.


Quote:
Please be aware that the actual reason why we recommend to re-create the same partition layout on the destination hard drive as it was on the "original" disk is that the restored\transferred operating system may not boot or function incorrectly (usually it "hangs" on the "logon" or "Windows logo" screens) if some partitions this particular Windows installation is "aware" of are missing. If you restore Windows to a partition of the different number than it was installed originally it will not boot until you will make the appropriate changes to the boot.ini file.

Please also note that, as I have already mentioned above, under no circumstances Acronis True Image restores the "old" partition table. It would be too dangerous and cause troubles to those people who restore individual partitions to the already partitioned drives. Instead of restoring the "old" partition table, Acronis True Image creates new one in accordance with the current partition layout. The capability of backing up MBR is basically intended to preserve the ability to use boot loaders, boot managers, special service partitions and the alike after the image is restored rather than to preserve the "old" partition table, i.e. the "old" partition layout.


The Acronis thread was discussing restoring the MBR. So when you restore the MBR with Acronis TI you don't get the old Partition Table. Sounds reasonable.

Do we know the answer for Ghost?
 
 
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Re: Restoring OS only image to new HDD
Reply #85 - May 28th, 2007 at 4:14pm
 
Sorry for bumping this thread. But I was wondering if the issue NightOwl stated in his first post is also true in this case: http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1180316130/0#6

Consequently, can an OS image that was created with partition-to-image of a partition on a single disk be restored to a RAID-0 array using the same disks where the OS was installed on before.
 

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