Hi,
I am trying to set up a XP(mce 2005) dual-boot where I could make a
copy of 1 partition to a second one. Just to test some software and
configurations while being able to startup the older XP without the
changes when needed.

After testing over 10 freeware's to clone and multiple-boot, I
finally
am using "SelfImage" with which I can backup or clone a running XP-
partition to a file or other partition.
Using the multi-boot menu "Vamos" to boot from any partition, naming
it C: and have an option to hide the other partition just to be shure
not to harm it.


Now when I start the XP clone on the second partition I get a blue
screen. I already found out by installing a fresh XP that the
BOOT.INI
should be changed to point to the second partition. But there seems
to
be something else to, because I still can't boot the clone partition.
I get a blue screen with lots or errors-numbers.


IN SHORT:
Does anyone know how to start from a second partition having a clone-
copy from the normal intalled XP-mce first partition? Or could it be
that this only works with a FAT32 instead of my NTFS partitions !?


Thanks,
Michel

To properly clone a xp OS or a mce OS,from hd to hd,set the 2nd drive as
slave to C: on the same IDE cable,format the 2nd drive,then go to run,type:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in the DOS window,once its thru,
D: is now a bootable hd.Also,D: being the 2nd drive letter,but if asigned
diffrent
then use that letter.For all XCOPY cmds open cmd prompt,type:XCOPY /?

"(E-Mail Removed)" wrote:

> Hi,
> I am trying to set up a XP(mce 2005) dual-boot where I could make a
> copy of 1 partition to a second one. Just to test some software and
> configurations while being able to startup the older XP without the
> changes when needed.
>
> After testing over 10 freeware's to clone and multiple-boot, I
> finally
> am using "SelfImage" with which I can backup or clone a running XP-
> partition to a file or other partition.
> Using the multi-boot menu "Vamos" to boot from any partition, naming
> it C: and have an option to hide the other partition just to be shure
> not to harm it.
>
>
> Now when I start the XP clone on the second partition I get a blue
> screen. I already found out by installing a fresh XP that the
> BOOT.INI
> should be changed to point to the second partition. But there seems
> to
> be something else to, because I still can't boot the clone partition.
> I get a blue screen with lots or errors-numbers.
>
>
> IN SHORT:
> Does anyone know how to start from a second partition having a clone-
> copy from the normal intalled XP-mce first partition? Or could it be
> that this only works with a FAT32 instead of my NTFS partitions !?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Michel
>
>

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I am trying to set up a XP(mce 2005) dual-boot where I could
> make a copy of 1 partition to a second one. Just to test some
> software and configurations while being able to startup the
> older XP without the changes when needed.
>
> After testing over 10 freeware's to clone and multiple-boot, I
> finally am using "SelfImage" with which I can backup or clone
> a running XP- partition to a file or other partition.
> Using the multi-boot menu "Vamos" to boot from any partition,
> naming it C: and have an option to hide the other partition just
> to be shure not to harm it.
>
>
> Now when I start the XP clone on the second partition I get
> a blue screen. I already found out by installing a fresh XP that
> the BOOT.INI should be changed to point to the second
> partition. But there seems to be something else to, because I
> still can't boot the clone partition. I get a blue screen with
> lots or errors-numbers.
>
>
> IN SHORT:
> Does anyone know how to start from a second partition having
> a clone-copy from the normal intalled XP-mce first partition?
> Or could it be that this only works with a FAT32 instead of
> my NTFS partitions !?


There is one difficulty in dual-booting a clone which is on the
samd HD as the "parent" OS, and that is during startup of the
clone for the clone's very first run. To prevent the clone from
confusing some of its files and settings with those of its "parent",
the clone must not be able to "see" its parent during this first
startup. If the 2 OSes are on separate HDs, this is easily
accomplished by merely disconnecting the "parent" OS's HD
before the first startup of the clone. But if the 2 OSes are on
the same HD, special software (e.g. Partition Magic or BootItNG,
etc.) must be used to hide the partition of the "parent" OS.
Maybe Vamos can do this, but I don't know.

Otherwise, to dual-boot from another partition on the same HD,
one must:
1) Add another entry to boot.ini (in the partition marked "active")
under the line "[operating systems]" that is identical to the first
line under "[operating systems]" but with the "y" in "partition(y)"
changed to the no. of the partition of the 2nd OS.

2) Change the value of "timeout" to be a reasonable no. of seconds
to allow the user time to select which OS to start up.

If the 2 OSes are on separate HDs, you can dual-boot using either
the BIOS or boot.ini:

BIOS
The HD which is at the top of the Hard Drive Boot Order in the
BIOS selects which HD will control booting. The default order
is what 99% of users use without even knowing it. But it can be
adjusted by entering the BIOS during startup. Since both OS's
boot.ini is composed as if its HD were in control during boot time,
by putting a HD at the head of the Hard Drive Boot Order, one
also causes the OS resident on it to boot.

BOOT.INI
The parameter in boot.ini which designates the physical HD is
"rdisk(x)", where "x" stands for the position of the HD in the BIOS's
Hard Drive Boot Order, starting at position 0 (the head of the list).
The "parent" OS's HD is almost always at the head of the list, so
its "rdisk()" setting is usually "rdisk(0)". The value of "y" in
"partition(y)" is merely the no. of the partition into which the clone
was placed (the numbering of partitions beginning with "1"). So
merely adding another entry under "[operating systems]" in boot.ini
(of the 1st OS's partition) that points to the clone OS on the 2nd HD,
and setting the timeout value, will direct dual-booting.

If you have the time, why not just install a 2nd copy of WinXP
on the 2nd partition of the same HD? If it has been 4 months or
more since you last used the installation CD, activation can be
accomplished on-line. Otherwise, a call to Microsoft to tell them
that the 1st installation had gotten corrupted will do the trick.
When the installer sees the 1st installed OS, it can automatically
set up the boot.ini on the 1st OS's partition to do dual-booting
between the 2 OSes. The new OS and the old OS will call the
partition of the new OS "D:". But if you eventually reformat the
partition that currently holds the 1st OS, the 2nd OS will be left
without boot files (i.e. ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com). To
avoid this problem, before re-formatting, you could either copy
those files to the partition of the new OS and remove the
"[operating systems]" entry for the 1st OS and set the new OS's
partition "active". Or you could simply install the new OS on the
2nd partition and tell the installer to ignore any other OSes that
it might see. Then you would have to add an entry yourself to the
1st OS's boot.ini file to do dual-booting. The advantage would
be that if you re-formatted the 1st OS's partition, you'd only have
to set the partition of the new OS "active" to make that partition's
boot files take control at boot time.

In short, until you find someone familiar with the workings of
Vamos, your choices begin with deciding on one or two HDs.

*TimDaniels*

You cannot copy the system partition while Windows is
up and running. You must do it by booting the machine
with a suitable boot disk or by connecting the disk to
some other machine. Furthermore, it is essential that
the target partition is marked "active".

"Andrew E." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:EE28ED68-8984-482F-9EA8-(E-Mail Removed)...
> To properly clone a xp OS or a mce OS,from hd to hd,set the 2nd drive as
> slave to C: on the same IDE cable,format the 2nd drive,then go to
> run,type:
> XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in the DOS window,once its thru,
> D: is now a bootable hd.Also,D: being the 2nd drive letter,but if asigned
> diffrent
> then use that letter.For all XCOPY cmds open cmd prompt,type:XCOPY /?
>
> "(E-Mail Removed)" wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I am trying to set up a XP(mce 2005) dual-boot where I could make a
>> copy of 1 partition to a second one. Just to test some software and
>> configurations while being able to startup the older XP without the
>> changes when needed.
>>
>> After testing over 10 freeware's to clone and multiple-boot, I
>> finally
>> am using "SelfImage" with which I can backup or clone a running XP-
>> partition to a file or other partition.
>> Using the multi-boot menu "Vamos" to boot from any partition, naming
>> it C: and have an option to hide the other partition just to be shure
>> not to harm it.
>>
>>
>> Now when I start the XP clone on the second partition I get a blue
>> screen. I already found out by installing a fresh XP that the
>> BOOT.INI
>> should be changed to point to the second partition. But there seems
>> to
>> be something else to, because I still can't boot the clone partition.
>> I get a blue screen with lots or errors-numbers.
>>
>>
>> IN SHORT:
>> Does anyone know how to start from a second partition having a clone-
>> copy from the normal intalled XP-mce first partition? Or could it be
>> that this only works with a FAT32 instead of my NTFS partitions !?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Michel
>>
>>

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> Hi,
> I am trying to set up a XP(mce 2005) dual-boot where I could make a
> copy of 1 partition to a second one. Just to test some software and
> configurations while being able to startup the older XP without the
> changes when needed.
>
> After testing over 10 freeware's to clone and multiple-boot, I
> finally
> am using "SelfImage" with which I can backup or clone a running XP-
> partition to a file or other partition.
> Using the multi-boot menu "Vamos" to boot from any partition, naming
> it C: and have an option to hide the other partition just to be shure
> not to harm it.
>
>
> Now when I start the XP clone on the second partition I get a blue
> screen. I already found out by installing a fresh XP that the
> BOOT.INI
> should be changed to point to the second partition. But there seems
> to
> be something else to, because I still can't boot the clone partition.
> I get a blue screen with lots or errors-numbers.
>
>
> IN SHORT:
> Does anyone know how to start from a second partition having a clone-
> copy from the normal intalled XP-mce first partition? Or could it be
> that this only works with a FAT32 instead of my NTFS partitions !?

Try this:

Lets assume that you have two partitions, C & D, and that the original
Windows installation is on C and that D is the clone.

Boot to the original Windows installation on C and start Regedit. Use
the Load Hive feature to load the System hive of the cloned installation
(on D). The hive will be in D:\WINDOWS\system32\config and it is the
hive named "system", without any extensions.

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

You will see a \DosDevice\ value for each drive (partition), one being
C: and the other D:

Rename the Value Name: \DosDevices\C: to another unused name, lets say
\DosDevices\X:

Rename the Value Name: \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\C:

Now rename the original \DosDevices\C: (now named \DosDevices\X, to
\DosDevices\D:

Unload the hive and exit Regedit. Try to boot the second (cloned)
installation and see what happens.

*DO NOT* change the MountedDevices values of the original Windows
installation! Only change the values in the registry hive of the cloned
installation. Easy instructions on how to load remote registry hives is
shown here: http://www.rwin.ch/xp-live/regedit.htm

John

First off all thank you all for the responces,

Andrew E.: XCOPY can't copy long file names from plain DOS and from a
XP-DOS-windows it can't copy the running XP, SelfImage can!

Timothy Daniels: I don't have a second HDD and I want a clone because
of all the work that has already been done setting up and finetuning
the first XP. I want an exact copy to test all kinds of software and
other drivers and always be able to quick boot back to the original XP
do some housework. Then later when I have time I can continue to test
and alter the clone. If the clone would become better I want to clone
it back to the original ;-)

Pegasus (MVP): You can copy, clone or backup a running XP with the
freeware "SelfImage" ;-) Though you need the "XP Ultimate Boot CD" to
be able to restore the backup the cloning works fine after altering
BOOT.INI and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices


John John and all: ...

I did some more testing in the mean time.
It seems I can alter BOOT.INI and the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
\MountedDevices while running XP, before I use "SelfImage" (http://
selfimage.excelcia.org) to clone C: to D: and restore the original
BOOT.INI and MountedDevices. This way the clone is ready to boot. I
even made a batchfile do to it, see later....
Note that I am using NTFS partitions where I hide the original 1e
partition C: when booting from the second partition (=clone) with the
free bootmanager "Vamos".

The only problem left now, is that for some reason XP still starts up
the BOOT.INI from the first original partition. I can see this because
I altered the menu-text. So I always need to change the default
selection to point BOOT.INI to the second partition. Works fine, but
if one forgets to select the other partition in the BOOT.INI-menu you
get blue-screen-errors.

It's strange why XP still can find the BOOT.INI from the hidden NTFS,
first partition!? Any idea to solve this last thing of a perfect fast,
easy and free XP dual-booting ???? Maybe a programming language in
BOOT.INI to autoselect the default partition, like a batchfile....

------------------------------ copy of my working CLONE.BAT
-----------------------------
@echo off
cls

echo.
echo. *************** SETTING UP A DUAL CLONED XP with NTFS
PARTITIONS*************
echo.
echo. No warrenty is given using this cloning batchfile. Date
19/10/2007 MR
echo.
echo.
echo. FREEWARE
echo "SelfImage" from selfimage.excelcia.org for backup and cloning
your running XP
echo "Cute" and/or "Ranish" partition manager" to make a 2nd partition
echo "VAMOS" boot manager to swap between partitions
echo.
echo.
echo. TO DO
echo Setup a second partition for the clone and format it.
echo Make shure windows has labled the new partition with a letter!
echo Set up a dual-boot where booting the clone, the original
partition is hidden!!!
echo Boot the original XP where the new clone partition is visible.
echo.
pause

attrib -r -h -s c:\boot*.* > nul

:BOOTREG
set OrgP=1
set NewP=2
if exist c:\bootpar1.ini set OrgP=2
if exist c:\bootpar1.ini set NewP=1
if exist c:\bootpar1.reg if exist c:\bootpar2.reg goto:BOOTINI
reg export "HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" c:\bootreg.tmp >nul
type c:\bootreg.tmp | find /i "Registry Editor" > c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg
echo. >>c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg
type c:\bootreg.tmp | find /i "MountedDevices" >>c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg
type c:\bootreg.tmp | find /i "\DosDevices\" >>c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg
del c:\bootreg.tmp >nul
copy c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg c:\bootpar%NewP%.reg >nul
echo.
echo Edit c:\bootpar%NewP%.reg:
echo. - change "C:" to a free and new driveletter
echo. - change the new clone partition to "C:"
echo. - delete all other lines
echo.
pause
goto:BOOTREG

:BOOTINI
if exist c:\bootpar1.ini goto:CLONE
if exist c:\bootpar2.ini goto:CLONE
echo.
echo Edit c:\boot.ini and add a line under the label [operating
systems]
echo which points to the new cloned partition and set TimeOut to 20.
echo.
pause
copy c:\boot.ini c:\bootpar%NewP%.ini >nul
echo.
echo Edit c:\bootpar%NewP%.ini and change under the label [boot
loader]
echo the default partition-number to the new clone-number.
echo.
pause
goto:BOOTINI

:CLONE
reg import c:\bootpar%NewP%.reg >nul
if exist c:\bootpar%OrgP%.ini del c:\bootpar%OrgP%.ini
ren c:\boot.ini bootpar%OrgP%.ini >nul
ren c:\bootpar%NewP%.ini boot.ini >nul
attrib +r +h +s c:\boot.ini > nul
attrib +r c:\bootpar?.ini > nul
attrib +r c:\bootpar?.reg > nul
echo.
echo waiting on SelfImage to complete...
echo.
"C:\Program Files\SelfImage\SelfImage.exe"
attrib -r -h -s c:\boot*.* > nul
ren c:\boot.ini bootpar%NewP%.ini
ren c:\bootpar%OrgP%.ini boot.ini
reg import c:\bootpar%OrgP%.reg >nul
echo.
echo Done

:EXIT
attrib +r +h +s c:\boot.ini > nul
attrib +r c:\bootpar?.ini > nul
attrib +r c:\bootpar?.reg > nul

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> First off all thank you all for the responces,
>
> Andrew E.: XCOPY can't copy long file names from plain DOS and from a
> XP-DOS-windows it can't copy the running XP, SelfImage can!
>
> Timothy Daniels: I don't have a second HDD and I want a clone because
> of all the work that has already been done setting up and finetuning
> the first XP. I want an exact copy to test all kinds of software and
> other drivers and always be able to quick boot back to the original XP
> do some housework. Then later when I have time I can continue to test
> and alter the clone. If the clone would become better I want to clone
> it back to the original ;-)
>
> Pegasus (MVP): You can copy, clone or backup a running XP with the
> freeware "SelfImage" ;-) Though you need the "XP Ultimate Boot CD" to
> be able to restore the backup the cloning works fine after altering
> BOOT.INI and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
>
>
> John John and all: ...
>
> I did some more testing in the mean time.
> It seems I can alter BOOT.INI and the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
> \MountedDevices while running XP, before I use "SelfImage" (http://
> selfimage.excelcia.org) to clone C: to D: and restore the original
> BOOT.INI and MountedDevices. This way the clone is ready to boot. I
> even made a batchfile do to it, see later....
> Note that I am using NTFS partitions where I hide the original 1e
> partition C: when booting from the second partition (=clone) with the
> free bootmanager "Vamos".
>
> The only problem left now, is that for some reason XP still starts up
> the BOOT.INI from the first original partition. I can see this because
> I altered the menu-text. So I always need to change the default
> selection to point BOOT.INI to the second partition. Works fine, but
> if one forgets to select the other partition in the BOOT.INI-menu you
> get blue-screen-errors.
>
> It's strange why XP still can find the BOOT.INI from the hidden NTFS,
> first partition!? Any idea to solve this last thing of a perfect fast,
> easy and free XP dual-booting ???? Maybe a programming language in
> BOOT.INI to autoselect the default partition, like a batchfile....

Like others have already said, you should be using a boot manager to
accomplish what you want.

The problem you are now experiencing is because of the active partition.
Any primary partition can be marked as active but there can only be
one active partition at a time on a basic disk. You need an active
partition to boot the operating system, when you boot your setup it is
booting from the files on your original partition because it is the
active partition. You cannot change that after the operating system
starts to boot and there is no batch file that will accomplish what you
want.

If you are using installation #1 and decide that you want to use
installation #2 then go in the Disk Management tool and mark the second
partition as active, when the computer is rebooted it will boot on
partition #2 instead of partition #1.

If the computer is turned off and you want to select which partition to
boot to without having to start Windows and use the Disk Management tool
then you need a boot manager, or you can use a Windows 98 startup
diskette and try to toggle the active partitions with fdisk, a rather
clumsy approach to your "problem". As Timothy said earlier, you would
be much better off using two hard disks, it will make things a lot
easier for you, hard disks are not that expensive, if money is an issue
try asking a computer repair shop for a second hand disk, you might be
able to get a 40 or 80 GB hard disk for a very small amount of money.
If you really cannot use a second hard disk then I strongly suggest that
you use one of the freely available boot managers.

John

<snip>
> Pegasus (MVP): You can copy, clone or backup a running XP with the
> freeware "SelfImage" ;-) Though you need the "XP Ultimate Boot CD" to
> be able to restore the backup the cloning works fine after altering
> BOOT.INI and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
>

I'm always interested in new disk cloning tools. This one looks
interesting but appears to be rather immature. Here a couple of
big issues:
- When SelfImage creates an image file then it attempts to copy
the whole partition. It does not appear to be aware of what's
data and what's empty space. A 30 GByte partition will
therefore result in a 30 GByte image file, even if only 6 GBytes
are used. It is possible to use the compression option but
even then SelfImage wades through all of the disk.
- The program does not appear to be able to restore a partition
unless the target partition is exactly the same size as the source
partitition. This is a serious limitation.

I assume that both of these restrictions will be addressed in
due course. Commercial programs have addressed them a
long time ago.

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:

> <snip>
>
>>Pegasus (MVP): You can copy, clone or backup a running XP with the
>>freeware "SelfImage" ;-) Though you need the "XP Ultimate Boot CD" to
>>be able to restore the backup the cloning works fine after altering
>>BOOT.INI and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
>>
>
>
> I'm always interested in new disk cloning tools. This one looks
> interesting but appears to be rather immature. Here a couple of
> big issues:
> - When SelfImage creates an image file then it attempts to copy
> the whole partition. It does not appear to be aware of what's
> data and what's empty space. A 30 GByte partition will
> therefore result in a 30 GByte image file, even if only 6 GBytes
> are used. It is possible to use the compression option but
> even then SelfImage wades through all of the disk.
> - The program does not appear to be able to restore a partition
> unless the target partition is exactly the same size as the source
> partitition. This is a serious limitation.
>
> I assume that both of these restrictions will be addressed in
> due course. Commercial programs have addressed them a
> long time ago.

Yesterday I "played" with this SelfImage tool. I wanted to see if I
could clone from one partition to another on the same disk, Acronis
absolutely will not do this so I was intrigued about the claims that
SelfImage would do it.

I stuck a small 40GB disk in a test machine and divided it into two
partitions, one 10GB and the other 30GB. I installed Windows 2000 on
the 10GB partition and then "tried" to use SelfImage to clone the 10GB
partition to the 30GB one. SelfImage said that it couldn't do that, it
said that it could only copy an image file to the second partition but
it suggested or offered to use the "whole" disk as the destination to
clone the partition. I didn't want an image, I wanted to clone the
partition in one step, so I figured that maybe using the option to use
the whole disk it might put the clone on the second partition, little
did I know what was about to happen...

SelfImage went through the motions and appeared to be copying a 9.X GB
partition (the 10GB one) to somewhere on the hard disk, where was it
copying to? One could only assume to the other 30GB partition. I
thought of this as a bit odd because the whole Windows 2000
installation, including the pagefile is less than 1.5GB, I figured that
it was doing a sector by sector copy, something that I thought of as
being a bit odd for a "modern" cloning tool. It took about 45 minutes
to do its thing, when it was done the only thing left to do was click on
the SelfImage exit button and see what it had done. As soon as I hit
the exit button the computer died as quickly as if I had pulled the plug
from the wall outlet! Then it wouldn't reboot at all, it would display
the post information but after the post nothing at all, not even a
blinking cursor!

I then thought that the active flag had been toggled so I booted with a
Windows 98 floppy and tried to use fdisk to see what was going on.
Fdisk started ok but as soon as I tried to use any of the options to
query the disk or change anything on it the computer hung and only a
hard reset would take me out of the crash. The BIOS correctly
identified the disk's model number and size, so I decided to try to
reinstall Windows 2000. When I got to the disk partitioning/selection
screen the setup program reported the disk as having two unknown
partitions on it and an extra available unpartitioned space of more than
88,000MB, a bit remarkable for a 40GB disk! While the setup program
could delete the two unknown partitions it couldn't make head or tails
of anything else on the disk and it couldn't properly format and return
the correct disk size.

I then figured that the disk might have been toasted by SelfImage, so I
downloaded a diagnostic utility from the disk manufacturers site and it
reported the disk as being in good condition, yet another try at W98
fdisk failed to query the disk. I had to use the disk diagnostic
utility and zero out the first sector (MBR) to get the disk back to a
usable condition. All I can think of, is that when I accepted the
option to copy to the only place that the utility would allow when used
with a single disk, it doubled the size of the disk (2x 40GB) then added
the 9.x GB partition to the total and rewrote the partition table to
show the disk as being some 88,000+ MB in size.

Of course what I did was stupid and I knew better than that when I did
it but hey, it was only a test on a test disk. Nonetheless, the program
should have *never* even tried to do such a cloning job! I was less
than impressed to say the least and I give SelfImage the "half baked"
award of the month!

John

"John John" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>Pegasus (MVP): You can copy, clone or backup a running XP with the
>>>freeware "SelfImage" ;-) Though you need the "XP Ultimate Boot CD" to
>>>be able to restore the backup the cloning works fine after altering
>>>BOOT.INI and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
>>>
>>
>>
>> I'm always interested in new disk cloning tools. This one looks
>> interesting but appears to be rather immature. Here a couple of
>> big issues:
>> - When SelfImage creates an image file then it attempts to copy
>> the whole partition. It does not appear to be aware of what's
>> data and what's empty space. A 30 GByte partition will
>> therefore result in a 30 GByte image file, even if only 6 GBytes
>> are used. It is possible to use the compression option but
>> even then SelfImage wades through all of the disk.
>> - The program does not appear to be able to restore a partition
>> unless the target partition is exactly the same size as the source
>> partitition. This is a serious limitation.
>>
>> I assume that both of these restrictions will be addressed in
>> due course. Commercial programs have addressed them a
>> long time ago.
>
> Yesterday I "played" with this SelfImage tool. I wanted to see if I could
> clone from one partition to another on the same disk, Acronis absolutely
> will not do this so I was intrigued about the claims that SelfImage would
> do it.
>
> I stuck a small 40GB disk in a test machine and divided it into two
> partitions, one 10GB and the other 30GB. I installed Windows 2000 on the
> 10GB partition and then "tried" to use SelfImage to clone the 10GB
> partition to the 30GB one. SelfImage said that it couldn't do that, it
> said that it could only copy an image file to the second partition but it
> suggested or offered to use the "whole" disk as the destination to clone
> the partition. I didn't want an image, I wanted to clone the partition in
> one step, so I figured that maybe using the option to use the whole disk
> it might put the clone on the second partition, little did I know what was
> about to happen...
>
> SelfImage went through the motions and appeared to be copying a 9.X GB
> partition (the 10GB one) to somewhere on the hard disk, where was it
> copying to? One could only assume to the other 30GB partition. I thought
> of this as a bit odd because the whole Windows 2000 installation,
> including the pagefile is less than 1.5GB, I figured that it was doing a
> sector by sector copy, something that I thought of as being a bit odd for
> a "modern" cloning tool. It took about 45 minutes to do its thing, when
> it was done the only thing left to do was click on the SelfImage exit
> button and see what it had done. As soon as I hit the exit button the
> computer died as quickly as if I had pulled the plug from the wall outlet!
> Then it wouldn't reboot at all, it would display the post information but
> after the post nothing at all, not even a blinking cursor!
>
> I then thought that the active flag had been toggled so I booted with a
> Windows 98 floppy and tried to use fdisk to see what was going on. Fdisk
> started ok but as soon as I tried to use any of the options to query the
> disk or change anything on it the computer hung and only a hard reset
> would take me out of the crash. The BIOS correctly identified the disk's
> model number and size, so I decided to try to reinstall Windows 2000.
> When I got to the disk partitioning/selection screen the setup program
> reported the disk as having two unknown partitions on it and an extra
> available unpartitioned space of more than 88,000MB, a bit remarkable for
> a 40GB disk! While the setup program could delete the two unknown
> partitions it couldn't make head or tails of anything else on the disk and
> it couldn't properly format and return the correct disk size.
>
> I then figured that the disk might have been toasted by SelfImage, so I
> downloaded a diagnostic utility from the disk manufacturers site and it
> reported the disk as being in good condition, yet another try at W98 fdisk
> failed to query the disk. I had to use the disk diagnostic utility and
> zero out the first sector (MBR) to get the disk back to a usable
> condition. All I can think of, is that when I accepted the option to copy
> to the only place that the utility would allow when used with a single
> disk, it doubled the size of the disk (2x 40GB) then added the 9.x GB
> partition to the total and rewrote the partition table to show the disk as
> being some 88,000+ MB in size.
>
> Of course what I did was stupid and I knew better than that when I did it
> but hey, it was only a test on a test disk. Nonetheless, the program
> should have *never* even tried to do such a cloning job! I was less than
> impressed to say the least and I give SelfImage the "half baked" award of
> the month!
>
> John
>

Your tests confirm my worst fears about SelfImage. The product
is still in its infancy. By the time it is mature it will probably go
commercial. In the meantime the company behind it gets some free
testing done by people who get their fingers burnt.

BTW, you're not quite right when you say that Acronis cannot
clone from one partition to the other on the same disk. Acronis
TrueImage can't - you need to go via the intermediate step of an
image file - but Acronis DiskDirector can, provided that the
receiving partition is of sufficient size.