A fast trick that did not work

[Lars]

Hi group,

Background; A friend has a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with an 80 GB HD.
There are only abt 12 GB files and folders on it, but still Windows
says there is only a handful GB free space on it. So there must be
some crap taking up space. The drive has only one partition. Rather
than having him find all installation files etc for a clean install I
thought it may work to copy all his files and folders onto my PC and
then format his drive, and finally copy everything back.

Story and Q:
I decided to try out my idea on an old laptop HD that I only use for
experiments. It has 2 partitions with XP on the first.

1. I copied everything visible from the first partition onto another
laptop.
2. Then I formated that first partition from within Windows of that
other laptop. Only format, no messing with partitions at all.
3. Then I copied all those files back again.
4. When I plugged that HD in to the laptop where it previously worked
fine it wouldl not boot at all.

I am not entirely surprised, but I also don't really understand why it
does not work.
All the visible files are there. Maybe something hidden missing?

Any clues?

Lars
Stockholm

 

[Rod Speed]

Lars wrote

Hi group,

Lo groupy.

Background; A friend has a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with an 80 GB HD.
There are only abt 12 GB files and folders on it, but still Windows
says there is only a handful GB free space on it. So there must be
some crap taking up space. The drive has only one partition. Rather
than having him find all installation files etc for a clean install I
thought it may work to copy all his files and folders onto my PC and
then format his drive, and finally copy everything back.

Thats a very poor approach with Win.

Story and Q:
I decided to try out my idea on an old laptop HD that I only
use for experiments. It has 2 partitions with XP on the first.

1. I copied everything visible from the first partition onto another laptop.
2. Then I formated that first partition from within Windows of that
other laptop. Only format, no messing with partitions at all.
3. Then I copied all those files back again.
4. When I plugged that HD in to the laptop where it previously worked
fine it wouldl not boot at all.

You cant just copy Win around like that.

I am not entirely surprised, but I also don't
really understand why it does not work.

Essentially because it doesnt doo the boot files properly.

All the visible files are there. Maybe something hidden missing?

Yes, the early boot stuff doesnt get setup properly with that sort of copy.

Any clues?

If you want to move win from one drive to another, you need to
clone the drive, not just manually copy the files. I prefer to use
Acronis True Image, but you can use any cloner and some are free.

On the fundamental question of where the free space
has gone, are you running Nortons on that system ?

 

[GMAN]

Hi group,

Background; A friend has a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with an 80 GB HD.
There are only abt 12 GB files and folders on it, but still Windows
says there is only a handful GB free space on it. So there must be
some crap taking up space. The drive has only one partition. Rather
than having him find all installation files etc for a clean install I
thought it may work to copy all his files and folders onto my PC and
then format his drive, and finally copy everything back.

Story and Q:
I decided to try out my idea on an old laptop HD that I only use for
experiments. It has 2 partitions with XP on the first.

1. I copied everything visible from the first partition onto another
laptop.
2. Then I formated that first partition from within Windows of that
other laptop. Only format, no messing with partitions at all.
3. Then I copied all those files back again.
4. When I plugged that HD in to the laptop where it previously worked
fine it wouldl not boot at all.

I am not entirely surprised, but I also don't really understand why it
does not work.
All the visible files are there. Maybe something hidden missing?

Any clues?

Lars
Stockholm

You most likely wiped out his factory restore partition.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi group,

Background; A friend has a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with an 80 GB HD.
There are only abt 12 GB files and folders on it, but still Windows
says there is only a handful GB free space on it. So there must be
some crap taking up space. The drive has only one partition. Rather
than having him find all installation files etc for a clean install I
thought it may work to copy all his files and folders onto my PC and
then format his drive, and finally copy everything back.

What file system is he using with his drive? FAT? And if so, does he
have a ton of little files rather than a smaller number of big files?

Story and Q:
I decided to try out my idea on an old laptop HD that I only use for
experiments. It has 2 partitions with XP on the first.

1. I copied everything visible from the first partition onto another
laptop.
2. Then I formated that first partition from within Windows of that
other laptop. Only format, no messing with partitions at all.
3. Then I copied all those files back again.
4. When I plugged that HD in to the laptop where it previously worked
fine it wouldl not boot at all.

The days of doing a simple copy and restore are over when it comes to
boot disks. You should never treat your boot disks so callously. If you
had an old laptop drive with just data on it, then it's fine. For the
boot disk you need to copy with special boot disk utilties, such as
BootItNG or XXClone, which are both free or shareware. Acronis True
Image was also mentioned.


It's probably too late now, you'll have to reinstall the OS on that
drive from its original CD, and then reinstall all of the applications
on it again.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Harry]

Hi group,

Background; A friend has a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with an 80 GB HD.
There are only abt 12 GB files and folders on it, but still Windows
says there is only a handful GB free space on it. So there must be
some crap taking up space. The drive has only one partition. Rather
than having him find all installation files etc for a clean install I
thought it may work to copy all his files and folders onto my PC and
then format his drive, and finally copy everything back.

How much total disk space Windows explorer could see?

There may be a hidden partition. Many laptop vendors nowsaday store
copies of OS backups onto laptop HDD's, in hidden partitions.
In case customers screw up their OS and call the tech supports,
the later could just ask the users to invoke a restore program to
restore the OS back to day-one status.

Use a partition manager to check if there is a hidden partition.
Partition Magic, or Acronis Disk Director are good commercial
partition managers. If you want freebies, just google "free partition
manager".

Story and Q:
I decided to try out my idea on an old laptop HD that I only use for
experiments. It has 2 partitions with XP on the first.

1. I copied everything visible from the first partition onto another
laptop.
2. Then I formated that first partition from within Windows of that
other laptop. Only format, no messing with partitions at all.
3. Then I copied all those files back again.
4. When I plugged that HD in to the laptop where it previously worked
fine it wouldl not boot at all.

I am not entirely surprised, but I also don't really understand why it
does not work.
All the visible files are there. Maybe something hidden missing?

Any clues?

You did not know what you were doing.
Luckily you tried on your old HDD, instead of your friend's HDD.

Even in the 80's when people use MS DOS, your experiment would
fail. Not to mention Winows 3.1, Win95, Win98, Win-ME, NT3.5,
NT4, Win2000, XP, ..., etc where copying files back-and-forth would
not
preserve the bootability of HDD partitions after formatting them.

Start to use backup/restore programs today.
Acronis True Image is my favorite; some people use Norton
Ghost and etc.There are freebies as well; just google them.

Good luck.

 

[Rod Speed]

Timothy Daniels wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Perhaps with Vista, but with WinXP, the boot files (ntldr, NTdetect.com, and boot.ini) *can* be copied around like
that.

Thats not what the problem is.

It's the partition and file tables that can't be copied around

No such animal.

because their entries depend on physical locations.

Wrong, as always.

So, Lars blirde vörfukt.

You one of those wogchildren ?

 

[Lars]

How much total disk space Windows explorer could see?

Reasonable, about 76 GB I think. As normal after format.

There may be a hidden partition.

Well if it is hidden then it is hidden and that space would not be
visible in Windows at all.

Use a partition manager to check if there is a hidden partition.
Partition Magic, or Acronis Disk Director are good commercial
partition managers. If you want freebies, just google "free partition
manager".

Yes I know about those. I was short of time but next time I get my
hands on that Fujitsu I will have my fancy bootable USB stick along,
with both ADD and PM on it.

You did not know what you were doing.

Like I said, I tried a fast trick and it did not work. I have a bunch
of computers myself and double as many HD's. I clone and transplant
and know quite a bit, but I always want to find out the details of why
and why not.

Even in the 80's when people use MS DOS, your experiment would
fail. Not to mention Winows 3.1, Win95, Win98, Win-ME, NT3.5,
NT4, Win2000, XP, ..., etc where copying files back-and-forth would
not
preserve the bootability of HDD partitions after formatting them.

I thought the boot sector was not touched when formating in Windows,
but that was obviously wrong.

Start to use backup/restore programs today.
Acronis True Image is my favorite; some people use Norton
Ghost and etc.

I have all of those and have used Ghost since it first came on the
market some ten yars ago. But that is not was I was asking about
anyway.

I certainly did do a Ghost image of the C: partitiion of my experiment
drive before formating it. But it would be counter productive on my
friends drive. There is crap on I want to get rid of, that is the
whole point of the operation.

Thanks for replies. But please gentlemen, stick to the subject.

Lars
Stockholm

 

[Fred]

Lars wrote

Reasonable, about 76 GB I think. As normal after format.

Well if it is hidden then it is hidden and that space would not be visible in Windows at all.

Yes I know about those. I was short of time but next time I get my
hands on that Fujitsu I will have my fancy bootable USB stick along,
with both ADD and PM on it.

Like I said, I tried a fast trick and it did not work. I have a bunch
of computers myself and double as many HD's. I clone and transplant
and know quite a bit, but I always want to find out the details of why
and why not.

I thought the boot sector was not touched when formating in Windows,

That is correct.

but that was obviously wrong.

Nope. The problem isnt the boot sector.

I have all of those and have used Ghost since it first came on the
market some ten yars ago. But that is not was I was asking about
anyway.

I certainly did do a Ghost image of the C: partitiion
of my experiment drive before formating it. But it
would be counter productive on my friends drive.

Nope, that does allow you to recover from some ****up you do.

There is crap on I want to get rid of, that is the whole point of the operation.

Yes, but thrashing around like you are doing wont do that.

Thanks for replies. But please gentlemen, stick to the subject.

You wouldnt know what the real subject was if it bit you on your lard arse.

 

[Harry]

But please gentlemen, stick to the subject.

I am on topic ... and you're not ...

Subject:
A fast trick that did not work.

Problem:
HDD became unbootable about reformating.

Root Cause:
copying files back-and-forth would not
preserve the bootability of HDD partitions
after formatting them.

Resolution
Start to use backup/restore programs today.

 

[John Turco]

Timothy Daniels wrote


You one of those wogchildren ?

Hello, Rod:

I don't know, but..."vörfukt" seems kind of obscene, eh? ;-)

 

[John Turco]

Lars wrote


You wouldnt know what the real subject was if it bit you on your lard arse.

Hello, Rod:

"Lars, the lard arse" -- good one, man! <g>

 

[Rod Speed]

John Turco wrote

Rod Speed wrote

I don't know, but..."vörfukt" seems kind of obscene, eh? ;-)

Just a tad.

In spades if its chicken ****ing that he's on about.

 

[Rod Speed]

John Turco wrote

Fred wrote

"Lars, the lard arse" -- good one, man! <g>

I agree, boy |-)