O.T. Backup suggestions

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I appreciate all your time and effort in helping
me and explaining things but I really don't have
the money to invest.

My best option at this point is what you originally
suggested:

You can do the following:

1) Boot the 8200 with the Macrium CD. Does the
GUI for Macrium appear on the screen ? Does
the software successfully find the .mrimg
file on the external disk ? You don't actually
need to do the restore, just test that the CD
seems to be working. Now, go to the File menu and
select Quit. The PC should reboot, and you can
refuse to "press any key" to get it to boot back
into Windows. The Macrium CD would normally prompt you
to press a key, to get it to start properly (a ten
second window).

2) Repeat for the 8500. Both PCs should be tested,
as working with the Macrium CD. Make sure your
external USB hard drive, is seen by Macrium while
running on both of those PCs.

Now, back in Windows, under the Macrium Restore menu, there
is an option to "Mount" the .mrimg file. You could
look at the files inside it from there. I've done this
while running Macrium on Windows 8 - the archived C: drive
shows up in a File Explorer window just fine, but some
desktop file gets a bit confused. (Some minor problems
show up, in the form of a dialog box, if you're
clearing the trash while having the archived C:
mounted.) You can right-click on the icon for that
mounted "fake disk" and select "eject" or "unmount Macrium
partition" from the menu. There's some option like that
to make the mounted archive disappear again. This is actually
a way you can copy individual files, from a .mrimg backup.
By mounting the backup and using drag and drop file copy.

Those are examples of tiny things you can do, to reduce
the risk of a restore not working. They prove that
certain things work, but not that everything works.

Only actually doing a restore to a blank hard drive,
really tells you it works. But that costs money.


Again, I want to thank you for your time and effort
and good help,

Robert

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I hate to bother you again but I tried booting
with the Macrium CD and the software didn't
load but loaded as normally after I selected the
User Account. I then changed the boot sequence
in the BIOS and saved all changes.

However, when it started to reboot it gave me
the 'Boot Device Menu' again. I selected
IDE CD-ROM Device and it comes back with:

strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility; I hit F1
and it keeps repeating. I selected F2 to check my
settings and it's still checked for IDE CD-ROM
Device.

I checked the contents of the disk:

boot folder
drivers folder
efi folder
sources folder
bootmgr
PEVersion
UDC
Version

Thoughts, suggestions,
Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

I hate to bother you again but I tried booting
with the Macrium CD and the software didn't
load but loaded as normally after I selected the
User Account. I then changed the boot sequence
in the BIOS and saved all changes.

However, when it started to reboot it gave me
the 'Boot Device Menu' again. I selected
IDE CD-ROM Device and it comes back with:

strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility; I hit F1
and it keeps repeating. I selected F2 to check my
settings and it's still checked for IDE CD-ROM
Device.

I checked the contents of the disk:

boot folder
drivers folder
efi folder
sources folder
bootmgr
PEVersion
UDC
Version

Thoughts, suggestions,
Robert

Are you by any chance, attempting to boot a DVD
on a CD-only drive (on your Dimension 8200).
I don't know if your 8200 is modern enough
to have a CD/DVD combo drive. Maybe it just
reads CDs. And then, you needed to buy a pack
of CD rather than DVD.

Don't worry, I did this too. DVDs were easy to get,
CDs weren't, and I tried plugging a freshly burned
DVD into a CD-only drive. I think that CD drive is
in my storage room now.

Your disc contents look correct. If I look at my
rescue.iso made here, I have a [Boot] entry showing
in 7ZIP, but that's for the boot sector on the disc.
That would not show up in a casual listing of the file
contents.

And if your 8200 does have a CD/DVD drive, then I haven't
a clue why it insists on ignoring the disc.

When the 8200 is booted into Windows, does it
read that disc OK ? I presume that's where you
collected the above info, but I have to ask.

Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I believe it's only a CD-only drive. Which
means I need to repeat the process but
put it on CD's. Which to buy? ( Maxell
CD-R, CD-RW?).

I do have some used CD's but I assume you
would prefer me to use new ones.

When the 8200 is booted into Windows it
doesn't read the disc. I had to put it in
my 8500 to read the contents.

If I recall correctly, I tried opening it
in Word to view the contents and Word got
hung up.

Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

I believe it's only a CD-only drive. Which
means I need to repeat the process but
put it on CD's. Which to buy? ( Maxell
CD-R, CD-RW?).

I do have some used CD's but I assume you
would prefer me to use new ones.

When the 8200 is booted into Windows it
doesn't read the disc. I had to put it in
my 8500 to read the contents.

If I recall correctly, I tried opening it
in Word to view the contents and Word got
hung up.

Robert

Something like this, for a re-writable. CD-RW.
It makes them slightly easier to find online, if you have
the model number. These are 95156.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/verbatim-verbatim-10-pack-12x-700mb-cd-rw-95156/10127911.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95156-CD-RW-Silver-Pack-VER95156/dp/B004E2PY0G

And I still have half a box of these left. CD-R
which you write once. This is what I'd put
Kaspersky or Macrium 5 on.

http://www.amazon.com/VERBATIM-94691-80-Minute-700MB-Spindle/dp/B00J8GJD6O

Your CD drive isn't ancient. I had a drive from around
1999 that wouldn't read CD-RW properly. The laser
was too weak or something. So there was a transition
at some point, where CD drives were built that could properly
read all the CD media you can find in the store today.
Your 8200 is probably OK. Just a guess.

The problem with optical media these days, is there
isn't nearly as much choice. At one time, I could get 5-packs
here, which is a "sampler" for media. When they make you
buy 50-packs, then you end up with a lot more left-overs.
I bought the box of CD-R (94691) about ten years ago,
and I've only used about half of them. My jewel box stack seems to
have a lot more DVDs in it. And the drive that can't read them,
sits in my junk room.

Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,


Perhaps it's also case of a blue laser
versus a red laser? I didn't think the
drive itself was bad although it doesn't
get much use.

I checked and all I have is CD-R's all
used and the DVD-RW's I just bought. So
I'll have to wait to buy these.

I hate to even ask this, but should I
try the 8500 CD to see if it works?

If so, should I change the boot sequence
in the BIOS first? Isn't the computer
suppose to auto-detect a disc in the
drive?


Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,


Perhaps it's also case of a blue laser
versus a red laser? I didn't think the
drive itself was bad although it doesn't
get much use.

I checked and all I have is CD-R's all
used and the DVD-RW's I just bought. So
I'll have to wait to buy these.

I hate to even ask this, but should I
try the 8500 CD to see if it works?

If so, should I change the boot sequence
in the BIOS first? Isn't the computer
suppose to auto-detect a disc in the
drive?


Robert

On my machines here, a typical BIOS boot order
is set to:

Floppy
CD
Some hard drive

The BIOS can check whether media is inserted in
the floppy slot, whether media is in the CD drawer.
If neither is true, it boots off the hard drive.

You can enter the BIOS and modify that default
setup. You can remove references to floppy and
CD and set them to "None". If you had done that,
then putting a disc in the CD drawer, will do
nothing at boot time.

If you use the above defaults, the computer
does the right thing "most of the time". Your
daily boot from the hard drive works, because
the BIOS checks the removable media and sees
that none is present.

*******

Your XPS 8500 is modern enough, to support "popup boot".
There should be a function key you press, early in
BIOS POST sequence, that causes a blue menu to appear
on the screen, with the names of all storage devices.
That gives a way for a user to select, for just the
one boot cycle, what device to use. That's how I boot
from my CD/DVD drive here. I press the F8 my computer
uses, the blue menu appears, and I select the CD/DVD
drive. My CD/DVD drive is connected by a USB cable,
and the drive is not normally even powered up. So it
isn't always visible to the computer. Rather than
modify the main BIOS setup screen to account for it,
I use "popup boot" menu instead. The selection you
make in popup boot, is not saved from session to session.
It is intended, to save people from having to edit the
BIOS setup every time they need to do something.

Your Dimension 8200 is too old for the popup boot feature.
Popup boot appeared perhaps a year after your 8200.
Just to give some idea when it came about. Popup
boot was introduced around the same time as USB2
configuration pages were added to the BIOS setup
screens. So don't be surprised, if the only way
to get the boot going on the 8200, is to enter
the BIOS setup screen, and set the boot order to
the defacto

Floppy
CD
Some hard drive

Since your Dell could have two optical drives,
in that case you may have to nominate one
of the drives for the purposes of booting.
The other optical drive would then be ignored
at boot time.

I can't always give advice on Dell BIOS screens,
because I don't have pictures or documentation
for all of them. You will have to do the looking
for me.

Usually, on the first page of the BIOS
when it starts up, a text string tells you what
keys to press. You can press the "Pause" key to
make the first BIOS screen stand still long enough
to read it. That's the only way I know of, to
present the screen long enough, to actually read
it. On my laptop for example, the initial screen is
only visible for one second, too short a time
to do anything. Hammering "Pause" is where I
start with that laptop, so I can read it.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I thought you told me I couldn't use a USB
cable to create recovery disk?

At this point I'm leery of trying the recovery
disk on the 8500 when I have both computers
up and running and all that's lacking is a
recovery disk.

Also, I'm not up to it as I injured my back
pretty good recently.

I guess I'll wait until next month and buy the
CD-R's and we'll pick it up from there.

Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

I thought you told me I couldn't use a USB
cable to create recovery disk?

At this point I'm leery of trying the recovery
disk on the 8500 when I have both computers
up and running and all that's lacking is a
recovery disk.

Also, I'm not up to it as I injured my back
pretty good recently.

I guess I'll wait until next month and buy the
CD-R's and we'll pick it up from there.

Robert

I would suggest the following.

1) Install Macrium on the 8200 and the 8500.
(You've probably already achieved this milestone.)
2) Plug the USB external backup drive into
the two computers in turn.
3) Make a backup image of each computer.
The result will be a separate .mrimg for
each computer. When preparing the backup,
there is a Comment field, where you can type
in a description of the backup.

Now you will have two large .mrimg files on your
external drive.

(Before disconnecting or turning off the external
USB drive, you can use the "Safely Remove" icon
on the lower right, to close the file system
so it is prepared for removal of the disk. While
some disk setups are inherently safe [cache turned
off], I always use Safely Remove just to be sure.)

You can do this, without your recovery CD being
ready for both the 8200 and the 8500. You can solve
that problem in a month's time.

If either the 8200 or the 8500 become infected
or have an internal disk failure, you will at
least have the good clean backup image on the external drive.
And the problem will be "half solved". At that point,
you can decide when or how to finish the job of
making the recovery media. The recovery media
is used to boot any computer, where the Windows
OS is not able to run any more.

The important thing at this point, is to make a
backup. You can worry about the rest of it later.

Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

This is what I've done,

I put the Recovery CD for the 8500
into the 8500 and it auto-read it on
the restart and I selected CD-DVD and
it gave me this:

Choose operating system to Start or press
TAB to select a tool. (use the arrow keys
to highlight your choice, then press Enter.

To specify an advanced option for this choice,
press F8.

Tools - Windows memory diagnosic

Enter = choose Tab = menu ESC = cancel


I selected cancel.

Robert

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,



This is what I've done,



I put the Recovery CD for the 8500

into the 8500 and it auto-read it on

the restart and I selected CD-DVD and

it gave me this:



Choose operating system to Start or press

TAB to select a tool. (use the arrow keys

to highlight your choice, then press Enter.



To specify an advanced option for this choice,

press F8.



Tools - Windows memory diagnosic



Enter = choose Tab = menu ESC = cancel





I selected cancel.



Robert

I also tried to do a backup
image but I guess I already
did one and it wouldn't let
me over write.

Robert

 

[Mark Twain]

I tried to do an image backup on the 8500
and it gave me this:

Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

This is what I've done,

I put the Recovery CD for the 8500
into the 8500 and it auto-read it on
the restart and I selected CD-DVD and
it gave me this:

Choose operating system to Start or press
TAB to select a tool. (use the arrow keys
to highlight your choice, then press Enter.

To specify an advanced option for this choice,
press F8.

Tools - Windows memory diagnosic

Enter = choose Tab = menu ESC = cancel


I selected cancel.

Robert

Just hit ENTER.

http://i58.tinypic.com/33e5yl4.gif

You seem to be booting the Macrium media OK.

After you hit enter, there will be the off-white boot bar
nearer the bottom of the screen, as the CD loads. The
Macrium program window eventually appears, like this.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2crko0m.gif

The reason my picture doesn't fully populate the
Image Restore window, is I haven't made any backups
inside that test virtual machine. I don't need to,
as I have an original copy of the VM suited to restoring
things. If you had an .mrimg available to the program,
it might find it and display more details on the right.
You only "Image Restore", if you need to replace your
C: on the 8500, with the backup copy.

If you select File:Exit, the machine should reboot.

In which case, removing the CD or not "pressing any key"
will likely get you back into Windows.

Paul

 

[Paul]

I also tried to do a backup
image but I guess I already
did one and it wouldn't let
me over write.

Robert

Of course it will let you make another one.
It uses a different file name for each .mrimg file.
And nothing prevents you from changing the .mrimg
file name later, if you like to "tag" the file
names with descriptive terms.

Original file:

885AA98032D85940-00-00.mrimg

Paul changes the file name, for easy recognition:

885AA98032D85940-00-00__Win8_image_after_81U1_cleanup.mrimg

The .mrimg backup files, when you prepare the backup information,
there is a "Comment" box in the Options, where you can type
some text as well. I like messing with the file name, because
I can read those anywhere. For example, if later I decide
that is a useless backup, I can examine the file name, then
throw it in the trash can.

Normally, .mrimg will not be an overwrite, because the
new file name will be somewhat different than the old one.

Paul

 

[Paul]

I tried to do an image backup on the 8500
and it gave me this:

Robert

Perfectly understandable.

OEM machines have recovery partitions.

If you seek to protect the *entire* disk against a disk
hardware failure, you back up all three partitions.

Dell_Utility Recovery C:
FAT16 NTFS NTFS
39MB 25.67GB 906GB

The Recovery one contains 15GB of files to
be used to restore Windows 7 to factory state.
If the machine ever became badly infected, you
could restore to factory state using the information
stored in the Recovery partition. I don't know
what purpose the Dell_Utility serves. Unless maybe
that provides space to install a hardware diagnostic.

You could also back up just C: if you want.

Before doing that, I would also examine the
partitions on the 8500 using Disk Management.
Disk Management can be found in the Control Panels,
in something like Administrative Tools. Or, you
can type the name of the executable for it, which is...

diskmgmt.msc

There will be declarations about C:, such as "System"
and "Boot". You should back up whatever partition(s)
give you a complete set of System and Boot. In my
virtual machine example here, I need to back up
*both* the partitions shown in the example. It could
be, that your C: contains both "System" and "Boot",
and you then need, bare minimum, to back up C:.
Make sure your backup image is getting both a
"System" and a "Boot".

http://i57.tinypic.com/2inuab.gif

So, my approach would be:

1) First backup as an .mrimg, back up all partitions
contained on the 8500 internal drive. This is to
protect you against a future hard drive failure
of the 8500 internal hard drive.

2) Later, when you want to "checkpoint" or save a
current snapshot, backup C: and the MBR. As
long as Disk Management says C: contains both "System"
and "Boot", then that is sufficient for a later
backup.

Later, if the hard drive is broken, you can restore (1).
You can then locate a suitably recent (2), to put back
the best version of C: you've got.

If you resize the partitions at all, that will
have an impact on your backup strategy. Macrium
will not like it, if you radically alter the current
partition setup, then try to restore an ancient image.
So think about that before making a lot of changes
in Disk Management. It doesn't mean that you cannot
make changes to your internal drive - just that
the changes have to be "planned" properly.

Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I'll try and give the 8500 a
shot and see if I can do this.

Robert

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I checked the diskmgmt and the boot
is in one partition and the system
is in another partition. In any case,
I would feel safer with all three
partitions backed up.

I tried to create a backup but
after selecting 'Image this disk'
the destination doesn't 'see' the E:
drive for my external HD. Should I
be selecting 'Clone this disk' or
should I select 'Backup' above the
question mark and select 'image
local drives' ?

I didn't try the 8500 CD again but
I'll try running it later

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

I checked the diskmgmt and the boot
is in one partition and the system
is in another partition. In any case,
I would feel safer with all three
partitions backed up.

I tried to create a backup but
after selecting 'Image this disk'
the destination doesn't 'see' the E:
drive for my external HD. Should I
be selecting 'Clone this disk' or
should I select 'Backup' above the
question mark and select 'image
local drives' ?

I didn't try the 8500 CD again but
I'll try running it later

Thanks,
Robert

Below the three partitions on the disk, you
can see the legend

"Clone this disk" "Image this disk"

You want *Image*. Image copies the disk
drive and the partitions you click, to
a file ending in .mrimg. In this case,
you would want to store the .mrimg on
the external drive. The external drive will
have a drive letter, and you will need to
select that drive letter as the destination
of the file.

Image
(disk_drive) -----> somefile.mrimg

I just checked, and my internal hard drive is
being backed up to an external USB key right now.
So USB things seem to work as a destination.

*******

When you clone, it does this:

Clone
(disk_drive) -----> (some_other_disk_drive)

It does a hard drive to hard drive copy. It
attempts to make a "carbon copy" of the source
disk drive.

You don't want to clone right now. You could
easily wipe out all your backup files on the
external drive, if you cloned by accident.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Mark Twain]

Hello Paul,

I'm confused now,.. don't I want a carbon copy
of my HD so that if needed I could bring it back
up as if nothing happened?

I've tried to do the backups as you describe(Image
the disk) but it doesn't recognize my E: drive
(external HD) So even if I used a USB key it still
wouldn't recognize it.

I tried the recovery CD again and after loading
it gave me this:

Drivers may need to be loaded for the following
devices in order to backup/restore.

Ethernet Controller
Network Controller
Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller

below that:

Scan for suitable drivers to load for the
currently selected device.

Select specific driver to load for the
currently selected device.

Save the list of devices to a file, suitable
for attaching to an email to Macrium support.

Continue using Macrium Reflect

I didn't know where to search for the drivers
and so I selected continue with Macrium Reflect
and it brought me to the Macrium screen which
appears blank.

Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

I'm confused now,.. don't I want a carbon copy
of my HD so that if needed I could bring it back
up as if nothing happened?

I've tried to do the backups as you describe(Image
the disk) but it doesn't recognize my E: drive
(external HD) So even if I used a USB key it still
wouldn't recognize it.

I tried the recovery CD again and after loading
it gave me this:

Drivers may need to be loaded for the following
devices in order to backup/restore.

Ethernet Controller
Network Controller
Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller

below that:

Scan for suitable drivers to load for the
currently selected device.

Select specific driver to load for the
currently selected device.

Save the list of devices to a file, suitable
for attaching to an email to Macrium support.

Continue using Macrium Reflect

I didn't know where to search for the drivers
and so I selected continue with Macrium Reflect
and it brought me to the Macrium screen which
appears blank.

Robert

It's "normal" for the Macrium boot to not have Ethernet
drivers. I don't know why it is complaining about USB.
It should have something suitable for USB1.1 or USB2 at
least. I don't know what the USB3 support is like.

I have not attempted to fix this, by adding drivers.
The reason I did not fix it, is the software still
can make backups to my drive, using the Macrium
boot CD. And that's why I didn't waste time
fixing it. If you couldn't get a basic backup
or restore to work, it would be a problem
worth solving.

You can attempt to make a backup (Image) using
the Macrium boot CD as your platform, as a means
of testing that three is some sort of USB driver present.
That would be a good test case.

*******

When making the backup, and it does not offer your E:
external drive as a target, check the "..." box to
the right of the "Destination" "Folder" line. Using
the "..." box brings up a File Explorer window, where
you can navigate to E: and put your .mrimg there.

*******

Why "Image" instead of "Clone" ?

Say the internal disk is 1TB. To clone a 1TB disk,
takes 1TB of space (and captures everything). If
instead, you Image the disk, it only takes as much
space as there are files present on the disk. None
of the "slack" or "unused" part of the disk is
recorded when you Image. Image captures everything
of interest if you tick the box on each partition.
Image is more economical and makes perfect copies.

Cloning also potentially takes more time, depending
on the tool used.

Say your internal drive was failing, you had bought
a new internal drive to replace it. Now, you want
to move the OS over. You "Clone" in that case, to
do the job. Clone does that job in one step. If you
Imaged as a way to copy the disk over, it would
require both a Backup and a Restore operation,
and also the presence of a third disk for the
Backup/Restore .mrimg. In this situation, that's
what Clone is for. Clone is the most economical
way to copy one disk *directly* to another, when
replacing a dying or damaged disk drive.

Rather that fill up your drive with just one
Clone, there is room to do multiple Images,
and change the file name of the .mrimg to
reflect what you did. In this example, I extended
the file name a bit, and put descriptive information
in it. This makes it easier for me to manage the
files later, like if I need to delete some to make
space for new backups.

48BB4A83E58EE5AF-00-00__Win7_May11_2014.mrimg 25,000,000,000 bytes
9E88E100F9306B4F-00-00__Win7_May18_2014.mrimg 26,000,000,000 bytes
F9306B4F9E88E100-00-00__Win7_May25_2014.mrimg 31,000,000,000 bytes

Notice that the file size of my capture, by using
"Image", means my external has room for maybe
thirty backups. I can delete Win7_May11_2014
one, six months from now perhaps, when it is
no longer relevant.

If you back up two computers, using a shared
external USB drive, you will need to put some
appropriate words in the file names. Here, I
have backed up both my computers on May 11,
and I seek to avoid confusing the two backups.

48BB4A83E58EE5AF-00-00__DIM8200_May11_2014.mrimg 25,000,000,000 bytes
9E88E100F9306B4F-00-00__XPS8500_May11_2014.mrimg 26,000,000,000 bytes

HTH,
Paul