Newb: How copy p hidden partition onto new drive & what hard drive to get

[Jesse]

Hello everyone.

I have two questions:

1. I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden partitions within my
only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB). I want to backup just the
hidden partition that allows me to re-establash my Dell to the way it
was when I first bought it. I also want to copy this hidden partition
to a new non Toshiba hard drive. I have both Ghost and Acronis. I
prefer to use Acronis as it is more user friendly. I dont know how to
go about doing this.

2. I would like a cooler but faster, bigger hard drive. Any suggestions
on one? BTW, I am in Canada so I would prefer a drive that most
retailers carry but is reliable. Any suggestions?

Here are my specs on my drive C:

*Dell Utility Pri 39.2 MB
C: NTFS Prim Boot 53,599 MB
CP/M Prim 3584.8 MB
Unall Prim 7.8 MB

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have two questions:

1. I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden partitions within
my only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB). I want to backup
just the hidden partition that allows me to re-establash my Dell to the
way it was when I first bought it. I also want to copy this hidden
partition to a new non Toshiba hard drive. I have both Ghost and
Acronis. I prefer to use Acronis as it is more user friendly. I
dont know how to go about doing this.

The simplest approach is to use Acronis, clone the entire physical
drive, and then delete the non hidden partition(s) once its cloned.

Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant have
both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most notebooks.

So you need to image the original drive to say a desktop over
the lan, replace the drive with the new one and restore that
image from the desktop over the lan. Then delete the non
hidden partition(s) you dont want and install what you want.

Gets more tricky if you dont have a desktop
system with enough room on it, but still possible.

2. I would like a cooler but faster, bigger hard drive.

Yeah, those low end Dells do run the drives right
on the edge of what the hard drive manufacturer
allows temperature wise. Not good for the drive at all.

Any suggestions on one?

Thats harder. There arent all that many drives that
will take less power than the current one when the
new one is bigger than the original. Samsung maybe.

BTW, I am in Canada so I would prefer a drive that
most retailers carry but is reliable. Any suggestions?

Fraid not for one that satisfys both criteria.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Re: "Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant
have both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
notebooks."

Not true, since the latest versions of the imaging programs will
recognize external USB drives.

For the original poster:

With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all current
drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts), which is [not
coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered USB port.
Some may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not being used.

Also, your terminology is incorrect and may cause confustion to this
extent: you say "I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden
partitions within my only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB)"

Drive "C:" refers only to the active, visible partition that the OS
recognizes as drive C:. It is not a reference to the entire physical
hard drive. By definition, there can be no "partitions within Drive C".
Drive C: itself is a partition within the entire physical drive.

 

[Beemer Biker]

Hello everyone.

I have two questions:

1. I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden partitions within my
only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB). I want to backup just the
hidden partition that allows me to re-establash my Dell to the way it
was when I first bought it. I also want to copy this hidden partition
to a new non Toshiba hard drive. I have both Ghost and Acronis. I
prefer to use Acronis as it is more user friendly. I dont know how to
go about doing this.

2. I would like a cooler but faster, bigger hard drive. Any suggestions
on one? BTW, I am in Canada so I would prefer a drive that most
retailers carry but is reliable. Any suggestions?

Here are my specs on my drive C:

*Dell Utility Pri 39.2 MB
C: NTFS Prim Boot 53,599 MB
CP/M Prim 3584.8 MB
Unall Prim 7.8 MB

Thanks in advance.

Rod has pretty much explained it. I might add that you should clean your
disk and run defrag first. if you got XP then set a system restore point
and when you run clean disk be sure to have it delete all restore points
except the most recent. This is an option you must select or you will back
backing up your restores which might include virii if you ever had an
infection in the past. Clear off history, cookies, scan for virus with
latest updates. This might be a good opportunity to clean out your disk and
defrag. If you got a bunch of music, movies, iso images, they dont compress
good and you might end up with a really huge acronis backup.

You seem set on getting a bigger disk. 60gb is a pretty large disk for a
notebook even one haveing dual boot. If it is really full, a backup might
be 10 or so dvds in size and the more disks in the backup set the more
likely a blemish can ruin your backup. If you got a modern notebook and
have firewire or usb2.0 you might consider getting external firewire or 2.0
drive. Then you can get 250...400 gb disk fairly cheap. If you got an
older notebook (i got a couple of p3 700 thinkpads) then ebay has really
cheap docking stations.

 

[Rod Speed]

Re: "Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant
have both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
notebooks."

Not true,

Fraid so.

since the latest versions of the imaging programs will recognize external
USB drives.

You dont even know that he has one.

For the original poster:

With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all current
drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts),

Wrong again. They are all spec'd at that for a MAXIMUM.

What matters with those low end Dells is how much they actually take.

which is [not coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered
USB port. Some may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not
being used.

And some draw less even when not in standby.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod has pretty much explained it. I might add that you should clean your
disk and run defrag first.

No point if you're gunna delete the non hidden partitions.

if you got XP then set a system restore point and when you run clean disk
be sure to have it delete all restore points except the most recent.
This is an option you must select or you will back backing up your
restores which might include virii if you ever had an infection in the
past. Clear off history, cookies, scan for virus with latest updates.
This might be a good opportunity to clean out your disk and defrag. If
you got a bunch of music, movies, iso images, they dont compress good and
you might end up with a really huge acronis backup.

He appears to want to delete everything except the hidden partition.

And its not a great idea to do a cleanup without an image too.

 

[Beemer Biker]

Re: "Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant
have both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
notebooks."

Not true, since the latest versions of the imaging programs will recognize
external USB drives.

acronis has had the ability to backup across usb or firewire for some time.
It is supported in the OS. Restoring is a totally different matter. You
boot a cd to restore. Acronis uses (as I recall) lilo, a linux boot. You
dont have XP, win2k. Acronis can find a network and restore from a
"mcrosoft" network. I have done a number of restores and have observed
first hand that acronis willl not see a usb or firewire drive. Maybe a
motherboard that supports booting of the USB will have enough hooks so that
acronis willl see a usb drive.

So are you saying that the latest acronis can restore from a USB drive? If
so, I will look at doing that again. I think you mean acronis can backup to
usb rather than restore????

For the original poster:

With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all current
drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts), which is [not
coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered USB port. Some
may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not being used.

Also, your terminology is incorrect and may cause confustion to this
extent: you say "I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden
partitions within my only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB)"

Drive "C:" refers only to the active, visible partition that the OS
recognizes as drive C:. It is not a reference to the entire physical hard
drive. By definition, there can be no "partitions within Drive C". Drive
C: itself is a partition within the entire physical drive.

The simplest approach is to use Acronis, clone the entire physical
drive, and then delete the non hidden partition(s) once its cloned.

Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant have
both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
notebooks.

So you need to image the original drive to say a desktop over
the lan, replace the drive with the new one and restore that
image from the desktop over the lan. Then delete the non
hidden partition(s) you dont want and install what you want.

Gets more tricky if you dont have a desktop
system with enough room on it, but still possible.




Yeah, those low end Dells do run the drives right
on the edge of what the hard drive manufacturer
allows temperature wise. Not good for the drive at all.




Thats harder. There arent all that many drives that
will take less power than the current one when the
new one is bigger than the original. Samsung maybe.




Fraid not for one that satisfys both criteria.

 

[Jesse]

Rod Speed wrote:
:
: The simplest approach is to use Acronis, clone the entire physical
: drive, and then delete the non hidden partition(s) once its cloned.
:
: Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant have
: both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
: notebooks.
:
: So you need to image the original drive to say a desktop over
: the lan, replace the drive with the new one and restore that
: image from the desktop over the lan. Then delete the non
: hidden partition(s) you dont want and install what you want.

I don't know if this forum can answer it or not, but I am just "writing
outloud". Will my Dell know to reinstall my hidden partition "CP/M Prim
3584.8 MB" if I don't install the other ones? Me thinks right now that
maybe I should just create an entire image of the drive and then use PM
to resize the main NTFS and keep everything as it is?
:
:: 2. I would like a cooler but faster, bigger hard drive.
:
: Yeah, those low end Dells do run the drives right
: on the edge of what the hard drive manufacturer
: allows temperature wise. Not good for the drive at all.

I bought an el cheapo laptop cooler, but that doesnt help. I don't know
anyone that actually uses a laptop cooler or if it makes any difference.
I know Antech makes one: http://www.antec.com/us/pro_notebookcooler.html
:
:: Any suggestions on one?
:
: Thats harder. There arent all that many drives that
: will take less power than the current one when the
: new one is bigger than the original. Samsung maybe.

Hmm. The reason I want a new hard drive is of course, due to capacity
but also speed wise. I cant stand the speed of this 4200 rpm drive.
Arggh!!

 

[Rod Speed]

I don't know if this forum can answer it or not, but I am just
"writing outloud". Will my Dell know to reinstall my hidden partition
"CP/M Prim 3584.8 MB" if I don't install the other ones?

It isnt at all clear that that is what you need to keep.

The Dell forums should know.

Me thinks right now that maybe I should just create an
entire image of the drive and then use PM to resize the
main NTFS and keep everything as it is?

Yes, that should work fine. Or just clone the entire physical
drive, delete the NTFS partition after you have done that,
and then image the NTFS partition and restore it to the
new drive to occupy all the free space with Acronis.

I bought an el cheapo laptop cooler, but that doesnt help.

Yeah, the problem is the lousy design of
those low end Dells hard drive cooling wise.

I don't know anyone that actually uses a laptop cooler
or if it makes any difference. I know Antech makes one:
http://www.antec.com/us/pro_notebookcooler.html

I doubt it will help any.

Hmm. The reason I want a new hard drive is of course,
due to capacity but also speed wise. I cant stand the
speed of this 4200 rpm drive. Arggh!!

Yeah, its always what I notice with notebooks, the drive speed.

 

[Richard Bonner]

I have a Dell Inspiron notebook that has hidden partitions within my
only Drive C (60 GB Toshiba 4200 rpm, 2MB). I want to backup just the
hidden partition that allows me to re-establash my Dell to the way it
was when I first bought it. I also want to copy this hidden partition
to a new non Toshiba hard drive. I have both Ghost and Acronis. I
prefer to use Acronis as it is more user friendly. I dont know how to
go about doing this.

*** I would use the disc that came with the laptop to prepare the new
drive. It should set up the hidden partition and copy the appropriate
files to it. After that, partition the drive as normal and transfer your
operating system and files to it. Be aware that you may be required to use
the DELL disc to do this partitioning as opposed to say, FDISK.

BTW, I am in Canada

*** What location? I am in Nova Scotia.

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

 

[Barry Watzman]

He doesn't need to restore from an exernal USB drive, only to be able to
backup to it.

Remember what he was going to do: Copy his existing partitions to an
external larger drive, then put the larger drive into the computer
replacing the smaller drive currently installed.

As long as he can backup to the external USB drive (the new, larger
drive) that's all that he need, because the subsequent use of that drive
will be as an internal drive. There is no requirement to subsequently
backup from the external USB drive.

However, I do believe that Drive Image 7 can also do a restore from a
USB drive, although it's irrelevant to this particular question.

 

[J. Clarke]

The simplest approach is to use Acronis, clone the entire physical
drive, and then delete the non hidden partition(s) once its cloned.

Its not that easy with a notebook tho, basically because you cant have
both the old and the new drive in the notebook at once with most
notebooks.

So you need to image the original drive to say a desktop over
the lan, replace the drive with the new one and restore that
image from the desktop over the lan. Then delete the non
hidden partition(s) you dont want and install what you want.

Gets more tricky if you dont have a desktop
system with enough room on it, but still possible.


Yeah, those low end Dells do run the drives right
on the edge of what the hard drive manufacturer
allows temperature wise. Not good for the drive at all.


Thats harder. There arent all that many drives that
will take less power than the current one when the
new one is bigger than the original. Samsung maybe.

He said that he has a 60 GB 4200 RPM Toshiba. Toshiba lists only two such
models, the current MK6025GAS and the older MK6021GAS, both of which have
identical power consumption specifications. The Samsung HM120JC draws less
power across the board, while the Hitachi 5K100 and Seagate Momentus
5400.3 drives draw less in all areas except startup where they need .3
watts more. The Hitachi 7K100 also draws less power across the board
except for startup, where it requires 5.5 watts vs 4.7 for the Toshiba.
Any of these should be cooler and all are larger and faster.

Hitachi has an upgrade kit that includes a 5K100 and everything that is
needed to do the drive swap including software--that's probably the closest
thing available to a painless solution, but it's a bit pricey compared to a
bare drive.

 

[Jesse]

Rod Speed wrote:
:: Me thinks right now that maybe I should just create an
:: entire image of the drive and then use PM to resize the
:: main NTFS and keep everything as it is?
:
: Yes, that should work fine. Or just clone the entire physical
: drive, delete the NTFS partition after you have done that,
: and then image the NTFS partition and restore it to the
: new drive to occupy all the free space with Acronis.

Hmm. You lost me with your second sentence on cloning and then deleting
the partition and imaging it afterwards. Can all this be done within
Acronis? Wouldn't I be taking a chance in deleting the partition that
may affect the hidden partition when I may have to restore Windows and
the partition again in case of an emergency within the Dell Utility? In
essence, I will no longer have the original Dell partition?

Wouldn't another way be to clone the drive and then use Partition Magic
to change the size of the partition and then save it later for backup?

 

[Jesse]

J. Clarke wrote:
:: He said that he has a 60 GB 4200 RPM Toshiba. Toshiba lists only two
: such models, the current MK6025GAS and the older MK6021GAS, both of
: which have identical power consumption specifications. The Samsung
: HM120JC draws less power across the board, while the Hitachi 5K100
: and Seagate Momentus 5400.3 drives draw less in all areas except
: startup where they need .3 watts more. The Hitachi 7K100 also draws
: less power across the board except for startup, where it requires 5.5
: watts vs 4.7 for the Toshiba. Any of these should be cooler and all
: are larger and faster.
:
: Hitachi has an upgrade kit that includes a 5K100 and everything that
: is needed to do the drive swap including software--that's probably
: the closest thing available to a painless solution, but it's a bit
: pricey compared to a bare drive.

Checking the local computer papers, the only laptop drives available all
belong to Samsung. The highest capacity I have seen advertised is 80G.
and that's $169.00 CDN. I don't mind, in fact, I prefer Seagate but I
don't wish to deal with Shipping, Customs and Duty if I have warranty
issues with the drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

Hmm. You lost me with your second sentence on cloning
and then deleting the partition and imaging it afterwards.

Sorry. Acronis wont clone just one partition on a physical drive.
So you need to clone the entire physical drive, and delete the
partitions you dont want on the clone. Then image the NTFS
partition and restore that image to the free space on the clone.

Can all this be done within Acronis?
Yes.

Wouldn't I be taking a chance in deleting the partition that
may affect the hidden partition when I may have to restore
Windows and the partition again in case of an emergency
within the Dell Utility?

Dunno how the dell system works on that, but you can try
that on the new drive, without doing anything to the original
drive except clone it, and see if it works on the new drive.

In essence, I will no longer have the original Dell partition?

Yes you will. You're just deleting the NTFS
partition, not the hidden dell partition.

Wouldn't another way be to clone the drive and then
use Partition Magic to change the size of the partition
Yes.

and then save it later for backup?

Sure.

 

[Notan]

Sorry. Acronis wont clone just one partition on a physical drive.

<snip>

Wrong.

I frequently clone single partitions.

Notan

 

[Jesse]

Richard Bonner wrote:
:
: *** I would use the disc that came with the laptop to prepare the
: new drive. It should set up the hidden partition and copy the
: appropriate files to it. After that, partition the drive as normal
: and transfer your operating system and files to it. Be aware that you
: may be required to use the DELL disc to do this partitioning as
: opposed to say, FDISK.
: :: BTW, I am in Canada
: : *** What location? I am in Nova Scotia.

Thank you fellow Canuck. I have a few discs? Hmm. Would it be the
Windows Disc? Or the one with that says "Reinstalling Inspiron System
Software? BTW, I am in Vancouver.

 

[Jesse]

Barry Watzman wrote:

: For the original poster:
:
: With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all
: current drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts), which is
: [not coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered USB
: port.
: Some may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not being
: used.

With the new Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 2.5 inch drives, the startup peak
is 5.0 Watts Max while the Toshiba is 2.6. This is almost double.
Which begs the question: can the motherboard and powersupply handle the
additional power requirement, especially when using USB 2.0 add-on
devices like external DVD burners and hard drives?

 

[Rod Speed]

For the original poster:

With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all
current drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts), which is
[not coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered USB
port.
Some may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not being
used.

With the new Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 2.5 inch drives,
the startup peak is 5.0 Watts Max while the Toshiba is 2.6.

What matters with the drive temperature is
the running current, not the startup current.

This is almost double. Which begs the question: can the motherboard
and powersupply handle the additional power requirement,

Should be able to, its only an amp.

especially when using USB 2.0 add-on devices
like external DVD burners and hard drives?

Yes, its should still be fine.

 

[J. Clarke]

Barry Watzman wrote:

: For the original poster:
:
: With regard to heat, heat = power consumption, and virtually all
: current drives are spec'd at 5 volts at 500ma (2.5 watts), which is
: [not coincidently] the spec for power available from a powered USB
: port.
: Some may draw less only by going into a "standby" mode when not being
: used.

With the new Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 2.5 inch drives, the startup peak
is 5.0 Watts Max while the Toshiba is 2.6.

Which Toshiba is that? The only 2.5" 60GB 4200 RPM Toshiba drive with 2 MB
buffer that is listed on their site is the MK6021GAS, which according to
the datasheet require 4.7 watts max at startup, not 2.6. It requires 2.6
watts during seek.

On the odd chance that it is a 1.8" drive I checked them and they show 1.8
watts at startup.