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BootIt NG (Read 58000 times)
Rad
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #15 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 6:54pm
 
yeah, i ticked usb2 when creating the iso, cuz i thot i needed that, cuz of my external usb drive. guess i didn't need.

so you like ifw better. hmmm.

i have 30 gigs on a 40 gig c drive/partition, so speed is an issue.

what about conflicts between ng14 and ifw installed on same system?

are you implying that ifw does not let you create images using boot cd?

thanks for the info.
 
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Brian
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #16 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 6:56pm
 
Rad,

You can make a CD that doesn't have the "install" menu or the Boot Manager functions. It's probably an easier CD to use as there are less menu choices when it boots.

Quote:
double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
no tick for Registration, next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Partition Work (Don't put a dot in Normal), next
don't choose any Default Device Options, next
leave Registration strings blank, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish
 
 
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Brian
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #17 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 7:00pm
 
Rad wrote on Mar 23rd, 2009 at 6:54pm:
what about conflicts between ng14 and ifw installed on same system?

Don't know for sure but I'll bet they work OK together.

Rad wrote on Mar 23rd, 2009 at 6:54pm:
are you implying that ifw does not let you create images using boot cd?


IFW is strictly a Windows app. Its images are restored by IFD or IFL. IFD and IFL can create and restore images from their boot disks. CD or USB flash drives. Each works with your installed Windows and Linux OS.

IFW images can be restored by IFW in BartPE or VistaPE. I'm pretty sure I've restored IFW images from the Ghost 14 recovery CD (VistaPE based).
 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #18 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 7:22pm
 
This is how you can use a Ghost 14 CD to restore an IFW image.

Quote:
Click Analyze from the left menu.
Click "Explore My Computer".
Click on the "File" pull down menu.
Click on "Open".
Click Computer on the left.
Double Click your drive.
Under "Files of type" at the bottom choose "All Files (*.*)".
Navigate to imagew.exe (In your C: drive or on a USB stick)
Now RIGHT CLICK on imagew.exe and select "Run as Administrator"
etc
 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #19 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 10:03pm
 
Brian wrote on Mar 23rd, 2009 at 7:00pm:
IFW is strictly a Windows app. Its images are restored by IFD or IFL.

I was influenced by your preference for IfW, given you have much firsthand experience with these apps. So I installed IfW and created a backup of my C drive on external USB (FAT32).

The installation of IfW has you make/create an IfD boot CD. Which I did. While config'ing the image, I made the sections 2-gigs each, cuz (IIRC) DOS can't see files bigger than  2 gigs .. no?

I am very antsy about the idea of restoring an IfW image with NG14 .. tho, I guess, if it doesn't work, I could always repeat with IfD.

What size do you make you make your IfW images? 2GB? 4GB?

If 4GB, what app do you use to restore them?

So in your opinion, BING is the best boot manager out there?

It took 52 mins to create an image that totals 17.6 gigs (from 30 GB source partition). Does that sound right? Think I enabled verify .. as I normally do 1st go-round. Ghost normally takes half that time.

Rad in Seamonkey
 
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Brian
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #20 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 10:50pm
 
@
Spanky

I was just messing around when I did the Ghost 14 thing. But I'd have no hesitation in using the Ghost 14 CD if I couldn't find my IFD CD. I restore IFW images from IFD. IFD is not bound by 4 GB files if you use NTFS partitions. I don't use FAT32 partitions and I make all my images as single files.

I just created and validated a 9 GB image in 9 minutes and I've been told my computer is slow. It's a 2 year old Pentium D. But I was writing the image to a second HD. If it had been to a USB external HD it would have taken twice as long. Still, your time sounds prolonged although your Ghost time is excellent. Did you use Standard compression? Higher compression levels are too slow. Did it hang on PhyLock?

IFD will restore any size images. At times it doesn't play well with some USB HDs and can be slow. If that's the case, use an IFL CD. It works well with all USB HDs and the IFL GUI is almost identical to IFD.

Spanky wrote on Mar 23rd, 2009 at 10:03pm:
So in your opinion, BING is the best boot manager out there?

The only other one I've used is Boot Magic. It's like a toy compared with BING. I started using BING when I was booting OS from logical volumes (I was using Dan's guide). Much later I started using unlimited primaries. It's personal preference but I found the latter method faster to set up.


Edit:...   Did you create your image from Windows or IFD?
 
 
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Rad
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #21 - Mar 23rd, 2009 at 11:42pm
 
from windows.

default compression.  the ifw image is slightly smaller than my ghost image.

laptop source. laptop drives are slower than desktop. 1.5ghz celeron, 4 year old laptop with 1 year old hard drive. 2 gb ram.

i've used boot magic too. have u heard of system commander? i think that's its name.

how does ifd handle such big image files?
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #22 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 12:02am
 
Dan has reviews of several boot managers on this page.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm

I haven't used the other ones.

Your Ghost time, is that Ghost 14?

 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #23 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 12:48am
 
yeah.
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #24 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 4:04am
 
Rad,

IFW took 9 minutes to image and validate my partition.

Drive Snapshot, which I think is the fastest imaging app of them all, took 7 1/2 minutes.

Ghost 14 took 4 minutes. I was surprised.
 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #25 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 9:30am
 
4 mins, wow.

did it also validate?

wonder why such a dramatic difference.

i'm thinking maybe it's method of validation is different.

most of the time, if nothing changes (no updates to ghost or no disk-config changes), i don't validate.
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #26 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 9:15pm
 
Rad wrote: "Are you guys using this as your *primary* imaging utility?"

Depending on the task, I've been using either Ghost 2003 or BING 1.x.  Due to its flexibility, I prefer Ghost 2003 over BING most of the time, and use it to backup my own systems.  I'll use BING when it's absolutely crucial to get a reliable image in one try, such as before working on a non-booting drive that is about to fail at any minute.

A month or two ago, I began also using IFW 2.  As you may recall, I have a philosophical aversion to imaging an actively running Windows partition, so only use IFW to image other partitions or external drives.  It's come in handy when imaging, say, laptop drives before doing major work on them.  I can drop the drive in an external case and use IFW from my desktop, which is much faster than imaging to usb from BING or Ghost 2003, and avoids any usb hassles.  And I always split images into 2GB chunks--that way, I can always copy them to FAT32 or DVD if I want.


Rad wrote: "i ticked usb2 when creating the iso, cuz i thot i needed that, cuz of my external usb drive."

As Brian said, you normally want to leave that unticked unless you need it.  Bios support for usb is variable, and you don't want BING's usb driver to battle with a bios driver.  So you'd normally leave that BING option unticked, then see in Partition Work whether BING sees the usb drive.  If it does, your bios supports usb, so leave as is.  If you don't see the usb drive, then go to Settings and tick it, then back into Partition Work and it should then see the drive.


Rad wrote: "So in your opinion, BING is the best boot manager out there?"

I've tested a number of boot managers, and IME BING is the best.

IMHO, second best is the freeware XOSL.  When setting up multiboot systems for clients, I use BING if they're agreeable to spending the $35.  If not, I use GParted to do the partition work and XOSL for the boot manager.  (I've setup a lot of dualboots in the past couple years because clients get new machines with Vista and want to dualboot XP.)

I don't use linux (much*), but if you're looking to multiboot one or more linux OS's, then I'd say grub is probably second best.  (XOSL can boot linux partitions, but has some limitations.)


Rad wrote: "Why would somebody need more than 4 primary partitions? .. since Windows can boot from extended/logical drives."

Using BING's unlimited primaries makes it extremely easy to setup a multiboot with several bootable partitions.  However, unlimited primaries is a proprietary option, so as Brian said, you have to be careful when using non-Terabyte partitioning or imaging tools.  Since I don't use Terabyte exclusively, I prefer to not use unlimited primaries and instead boot Windows from logical partitions.

OTOH, I'm finding less need to have more than 4 primaries anyway.  I don't multiboot as many partitions as I used to because I'm using virtualization for many tasks that used to require multibooting.


* (I only dabble a bit in linux, so have Slackware and Ubuntu installed in virtual machines.  I found that when I had it installed in a real multibooted partition I never got around to booting into it enough to get used to it.)


 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #27 - Mar 24th, 2009 at 10:40pm
 
Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 24th, 2009 at 9:15pm:
I don't multiboot as many partitions as I used to because I'm using virtualization for many tasks that used to require multibooting.

Thanks, Dan. Are you using VMWare Player? Workstation? Or something else.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 24th, 2009 at 9:15pm:
I found that when I had it installed in a real multibooted partition I never got around to booting into it enough to get used to it.

Same here.

Which virtualization file did you choose for Ubuntu? Seems like there's so many, I can't choose. You're using the new 8.10 Intrepid Ibex?

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 24th, 2009 at 9:15pm:
so have Slackware  

Heard Slackware was gnarly .. no? Very cool, tho. One of the cooler Linux distros.

btw - you may find it easier to highlight the quote and click the 'Mark & Quote' link.
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #28 - Mar 25th, 2009 at 5:56am
 
I use both Microsoft VirtualPC and Sun xVM VirtualBox.

I really like VPC for most tasks as it's user interface is far and away the easiest and most convenient to use, but it doesn't support usb devices.  You can use a usb kybd or mouse because those are virtualized as common ps2 devices inside the virtual machine, and you can access usb drives if you network or share them from the host system.  But in those cases, VPC isn't virtualizing them as usb devices inside the vm.  If you need to connect some other kind of usb device, such as a scanner, VPC can't do it.

When I want usb support, I'm now using VBox.  I used to use a combination of VMware Server and VMware Player, with Server installed on an alternate multibooted partition and Player installed in my main OS.  Player cannot create a vm so I needed Server, but Server refused to coexist with VPC in my main OS.  Server is also very heavy on the system resources, and I didn't like the fact it insisted on always running in the background even when I wasn't using it, so I didn't really want Server on my main OS anyway.  So to create a vm, I had to reboot into the alternate partition and create the vm with Server, then I could play that vm in my main OS with Player.  Very cumbersome.

But I lumbered along that way for a couple years waiting for something better to come along.  I'd tried VBox a few times in the past, but it wasn't ready for primetime until this year.  With the release of version 2, I finally decided to dump VMware and switch to VBox whenever I need usb support.  (That also eliminated one of my multiboot partitions, which had been solely dedicated to VMware Server.)

I was running ubuntu 6.06 in VMware, but with the switch to VBox I just installed 8.10 a couple weeks ago.  (FWIW, I couldn't install 8.10 in VPC for some reason... but I didn't try real hard.)


Rad wrote: "Heard Slackware was gnarly .. no?"

Um, I guess I don't know.  I'm using an old version, command-line only, no gui.  I had originally used it years ago on an old 486 that I was using as an Apache webserver to develop webpages (cgi, server-side includes, etc).  I migrated that to VPC several years ago and retired the 486.  But I now run Apache in Windows, so hardly use the Slackware vm anymore.


Rad wrote: "you may find it easier to highlight the quote and click the 'Mark & Quote' link."

Personal preference, I guess.  I normally open two windows, one to view the thread and one to reply, so it's simple to just cut-and-paste between the windows.  (I like to scroll back and forth in the thread while I'm writing the reply to remind myself of what others have said.)

Does it make it harder to read my replies, or would it be easier on others to use 'Mark & Quote' for the sake of consistency?



 
 
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Re: BootIt NG
Reply #29 - Mar 25th, 2009 at 6:10am
 
Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 25th, 2009 at 5:56am:
I use both Microsoft VirtualPC and Sun xVM VirtualBox.

why not vmware? aren't they de facto virtualizer king? free.

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 25th, 2009 at 5:56am:
Does it make it harder to read my replies, or would it be easier on others to use 'Mark & Quote' for the sake of consistency?

no, your way is fine. i just wanna make sure you know about the feature. convenience.
 
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