REM wrote:


>>A boot manager like XOSL is necessary here
>>

....


>>xxcopy
>>

Now that you broached the subject, are there any really cool
boot/recovery disks available? The kind of thing I'd be looking for is a
collection of utilities containing the xxcopy that you mentioned, XOSL
(or similar), Ranish Partition Manager (or better), and any other odds
and sods that one might need for setup or recovery. If it's all too big
to fit on floppy, which it probably is, is there one available as an ISO
image, so I could just burn and go?

Mark Carter <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...
> REM wrote:
>
>
> >>A boot manager like XOSL is necessary here
> >>
>
> ...
>
www.startdisk.com

Site's down get it here http://snipurl.com/973k

"Mark Carter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> Now that you broached the subject, are there any really cool
> boot/recovery disks available? The kind of thing I'd be looking for is a
> collection of utilities containing the xxcopy that you mentioned, XOSL
> (or similar), Ranish Partition Manager (or better), and any other odds
> and sods that one might need for setup or recovery. If it's all too big
> to fit on floppy, which it probably is, is there one available as an ISO
> image, so I could just burn and go?

If you mean general rescue disks with a collection of recovery utilities,
you might like to have a look at the Ultimate Boot CD www.ultimatebootcd.com
(ISO is available for downloading) or the Windows Ultimate Boot CD
www.windowsubcd.com which requires some 'building' to create the CD.

Mark Carter wrote:

> Now that you broached the subject, are there any really cool
> boot/recovery disks available? The kind of thing I'd be looking for is a
> collection of utilities containing the xxcopy that you mentioned, XOSL
> (or similar), Ranish Partition Manager (or better), and any other odds
> and sods that one might need for setup or recovery. If it's all too big
> to fit on floppy, which it probably is, is there one available as an ISO
> image, so I could just burn and go?

I tried UltimateBootCD, but I couldn't find any partition cloning/saving
tools that worked like I wanted. For example, I think that "Partition
Saving" restricted the partition file to 2GB, which is a bit naff. Maybe
there's a bit too much software on UltimateBootCD. It's a bit confusing
trying to fathom out what I ought to be looking for. Just my 2c.



I just discovered the existence of Partimage, which might be of use to
someone:
http://www.partimage.org/
Description: Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX utility which saves
partitions in many formats (see below) to an image file. The image file
can be compressed in the GZIP/BZIP2 formats to save disk space, and
split into multiple files to be copied on removable floppies (ZIP for
example), ... Partitions can be saved across the network since version
0.6.0.

This could be useful to some Linux nut (sorta like me), because
presumably you could save a Windows partition to a Linux partition, and
you don't have to start creating more partitions to house the backup.
Plus, you're in an actual complete operating system, which gives you
room to manouever. If Windows goes belly up (or "looks at you in a
strange way", as a previous poster said), just boot into Linux, and
restore. Ostensibly.

The site also links to SystemRescueCd :
http://www.sysresccd.org/
Description: SystemRescueCd is a linux system on a bootable cdrom for
repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to
provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as
creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot
of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic ones
(editors, midnight commander, network tools). It aims to be very easy to
use: just boot from the cdrom, and you can do everything. The kernel of
the system supports most important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs,
xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), and network ones (samba and nfs).

Here are the main system tools:

* GNU Parted is the best tool for editing your disk partitions
under linux
* QtParted is a Partition Magic clone for Linux.
* Partimage is a Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux
* File systems tools (e2fsprogs, reiserfsprogs, xfsprogs, jfsutils,
ntfsprogs, dosfstools): they allow you to format, resize, debug an
existing partition of your hard disk
* Sfdisk allows you to backup and restore your partition table


The latter link may be of use to someone who is not a Linux nut (just so
long as they are not a Linux-a-phobe).

"Mark Carter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

> I tried UltimateBootCD, but I couldn't find any partition cloning/saving
> tools that worked like I wanted. For example, I think that "Partition
> Saving" restricted the partition file to 2GB, which is a bit naff. Maybe
> there's a bit too much software on UltimateBootCD. It's a bit confusing
> trying to fathom out what I ought to be looking for. Just my 2c.

The WinUBCD is more useful for accessing inside partitions. My own
preference is to use a tool outside of Windows for partition management.
The tool in the WinUBCD is limited but of course the WinUBCD is an ongoing
project and no doubt better freeware tools will be added as it develops.

Mark Carter <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I tried UltimateBootCD, but I couldn't find any partition
> cloning/saving tools that worked like I wanted. For example, I think
> that "Partition Saving" restricted the partition file to 2GB, which is
> a bit naff.

I think that the maximum size of the saved file is settable to
any value, but is set to 2GB as default. Try to change the value.

I quote from the PS site:

"e) File size choice:
With this window you could choose the maximum size you want the file
does. If more space is needed to save partition, a new file will be asked
to you when this one will be full. If free size on drive is less than 10
Mb, asked size is in kb, else it is in Mb. This maximum size could not be
bigger than the minimum between drive free size and 2047 Mb. If you enter
0, you go back to the file choice window."

(his english is not so good, so excuse the somewhat diffuse language)

"d) File choice:
In this window you could choose name and location of file where to save
partition data. For this purpose you could type into "File" line the name
of the file (with possibly its path) or select one into files list or
select another directory with drives and directories lists. by default
"*.*" is displayed which means that all files are displayed. A second
window gives you possibility to use automatic naming. With this option
program will generate automatically filename for following file if
several files are needed. In this purpose program uses first filename and
changes (or adds) the two last characters of file extension (three lasts
if more than 100 files are needed) by file number (with using 0 for
number of first file). Be example if your first file is called
"disk_c.par", the second one will be "disk_c.p01", the third
"disk_c.p02", ..., the hundred and one "disk_c.100". A third window give
you the list of DOS drives with free space and the full size of the
partition (without taking into account the fact that only occupied
sectors could be saved and that deflating is used)."

Even if the file size would be limited to 2GB, which I do not believe, it
probably just means that the saved partition image must be divided into
a number of 2GB files, if needed.

With compression you will save 4 GB in every 2 GB file.

Anyhow, If you study the program and the docs a little closer I am sure
you will find out how to save big partitions.

I have never had reason to save more than 1 GB from a 4 GB partition, so
I cannot tell you exactly how to do it.

I see no reason to use a partition saving program for big storage disks,
I use it only for the operating system on C: drive, and that drive is
never bigger than a couple of GB for me.


--
Roger J.