Copying Bootable Drive in XP

[RSS]

Hello-

I am trying to copy my main boot drive to another drive so that I can
have a backup that is bootable and fully functional with the same
software, etc. I have Partition Magic 8.0 and I am not having luck
with the settings and configuration.

I successfully created a partition on the 2nd drive, and performed the
copy. All the files were there, and it obviously copied fine. But
it's not bootable. There's obviously something else I need to do
either before or after to make this fly, right?

I did some searching in the groups, but I am not finding the answer
that works for me yet. I don't need to use Partition Magic if there's
something easier or better to use.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Anna]

Hello-

I am trying to copy my main boot drive to another drive so that I can
have a backup that is bootable and fully functional with the same
software, etc. I have Partition Magic 8.0 and I am not having luck
with the settings and configuration.

I successfully created a partition on the 2nd drive, and performed the
copy. All the files were there, and it obviously copied fine. But
it's not bootable. There's obviously something else I need to do
either before or after to make this fly, right?

I did some searching in the groups, but I am not finding the answer
that works for me yet. I don't need to use Partition Magic if there's
something easier or better to use.

Thanks in advance.

RSS:
We've had extensive experience using Partition Magic over the years, nearly
exclusively with the objective of manipulating partitions - shrinking,
merging, extending, etc. As I'm sure you know, by & large it's the "industry
standard" for those types of operations. But for a variety of reasons we've
never been really taken with PM's ability to copy partitions where, in
effect, the ultimate objective is to create a bootable clone. For that type
of work we believe a disk imaging program, e.g., Acronis True Image or
Symantec's Norton Ghost would be the program of choice.

Might you consider using a disk imaging program to meet your objective? That
type of program is also ideal for maintaining a comprehensive backup system
through its disk cloning or disk imaging process.

One of the more popular programs of that type is the Acronis True Image
program. Their latest version 10 is available for a 15-day trial. You might
want to give it a try.
(http://www.acronis.com)

BTW, I'm assuming that when you state "I am trying to copy my main boot
drive to another drive so that I can have a backup that is bootable and
fully functional with the same software, etc....", you're referring to two
HDDs, so that the "destination" HDD would be the recipient of the clone of
the primary HDD or the recipient of that drive's disk image.

Incidentally, I recently (11/18/06) posted to this newsgroup some detailed
step-by-step instructions for using the ATI program. The thread was "Re: XP
home backup utility".
You might want to take a look at it.
Anna

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello-

I am trying to copy my main boot drive to another drive so that I can
have a backup that is bootable and fully functional with the same
software, etc. I have Partition Magic 8.0 and I am not having luck
with the settings and configuration.

I successfully created a partition on the 2nd drive, and performed the
copy. All the files were there, and it obviously copied fine. But
it's not bootable. There's obviously something else I need to do
either before or after to make this fly, right?

I did some searching in the groups, but I am not finding the answer
that works for me yet. I don't need to use Partition Magic if there's
something easier or better to use.

Thanks in advance.

Answered in the item "Swap boot disk C:", posted here just three
hours before your post.

 

[George]

RSS,

The missing step may be making the drive an "active" drive. Right click on
the drive and see if "make active" or something like that comes up in the
menu. You can also use Fdisk for the same purpose, assuming XP has Fdisk or
something equivalent??

I have done what you are attempting many many times and it works just fine.
But, the disk image programs are probably a bit easier - I have used a
shareware program called Drive2Drive but it does not work with XP. There are
others if you do a search and the 15 day trial on Acronis can be used.

Good Luck

Graham

 

[RSS]

I read the posts that are mentioned in this thread. I am trying to use
the Acronis True Image but the problem is that the "source" in my case
is ONE partition of my primary drive. This one partition is the same
size as the "destination" drive. But ATI wants to clone the entire
primary drive, which is much larger than the destination, so obviously
a no-go.

Is there a setting or mode I can use in ATI that will allow me to clone
the C: partition of the primary drive (75GB out of 200GB total on that
drive) to the 75GB E: slave drive that I have?

Thanks again.

I apologize for missing some of these other posts, and I *am* trying to
do some searching before posting. Just not very experienced in these
procedures.

Bob

 

[DL]

You are not using ATI correctly

I read the posts that are mentioned in this thread. I am trying to use
the Acronis True Image but the problem is that the "source" in my case
is ONE partition of my primary drive. This one partition is the same
size as the "destination" drive. But ATI wants to clone the entire
primary drive, which is much larger than the destination, so obviously
a no-go.

Is there a setting or mode I can use in ATI that will allow me to clone
the C: partition of the primary drive (75GB out of 200GB total on that
drive) to the 75GB E: slave drive that I have?

Thanks again.

I apologize for missing some of these other posts, and I *am* trying to
do some searching before posting. Just not very experienced in these
procedures.

Bob

 

[Anna]

I read the posts that are mentioned in this thread. I am trying to use
the Acronis True Image but the problem is that the "source" in my case
is ONE partition of my primary drive. This one partition is the same
size as the "destination" drive. But ATI wants to clone the entire
primary drive, which is much larger than the destination, so obviously
a no-go.

Is there a setting or mode I can use in ATI that will allow me to clone
the C: partition of the primary drive (75GB out of 200GB total on that
drive) to the 75GB E: slave drive that I have?

Thanks again.
(SNIP)
Bob

Bob:
Yes, you're absolutely correct. I hadn't realized that you were dealing with
a multi-partitioned source HDD. It is true that the Acronis program (unlike
some other disk imaging programs) does have that limitation of an "all or
nothing" proposition when it comes to its disk cloning operation.

But let me ask you this. What would be the negative consequences of cloning
the entire contents of your source HDD to the destination drive? Is there
concern on your part re insufficient disk space on the destination HDD to
accommodate the cloned contents of the *entire* primary HDD? What would be
the downside of having the cloned contents of *all* the other primary HDD
partitions residing on the destination HDD?

But, if for one reason or another, you want *only* to clone the contents of
a single partition of the primary (source) HDD to the destination HDD, you
can still use the Acronis program for creating a disk image of that
partition or partitions. Acronis does have the capability of creating disk
images of individual partitions. However, the downside here is that unlike
the disk clone, the disk image is not bootable. You would need to invoke the
Acronis recovery process to create a bootable HDD from the disk image. Not
complicated at all and many users consider using the disk imaging process in
general to be a more effective backup tool than the disk cloning process.
There are advantages to it which I've detailed in the step-by-step
instructions which I previously referred you to in a prior posting to this
newsgroup.
Anna

 

[Anna]

Bob:
Yes, you're absolutely correct. I hadn't realized that you were dealing
with a multi-partitioned source HDD. It is true that the Acronis program
(unlike some other disk imaging programs) does have that limitation of an
"all or nothing" proposition when it comes to its disk cloning operation.

But let me ask you this. What would be the negative consequences of
cloning the entire contents of your source HDD to the destination drive?
Is there concern on your part re insufficient disk space on the
destination HDD to accommodate the cloned contents of the *entire* primary
HDD? What would be the downside of having the cloned contents of *all* the
other primary HDD partitions residing on the destination HDD?

But, if for one reason or another, you want *only* to clone the contents
of a single partition of the primary (source) HDD to the destination HDD,
you can still use the Acronis program for creating a disk image of that
partition or partitions. Acronis does have the capability of creating disk
images of individual partitions. However, the downside here is that unlike
the disk clone, the disk image is not bootable. You would need to invoke
the Acronis recovery process to create a bootable HDD from the disk image.
Not complicated at all and many users consider using the disk imaging
process in general to be a more effective backup tool than the disk
cloning process. There are advantages to it which I've detailed in the
step-by-step instructions which I previously referred you to in a prior
posting to this newsgroup.
Anna

Bob:
Just an addendum to my above comments...

I do see now that since (apparently) the entire contents of your
multi-partitioned primary HDD exceed the disk space of the intended
destination HDD, the disk-to-disk cloning process would not be viable.

Assuming you're not in the market for a larger HDD to accommodate the entire
contents of your primary HDD, you could consider the disk imaging process I
mentioned above.
Anna

 

[RSS]

Anna-

Thanks for the posts... yes, you're correct - the multipartitioned
drive is 200GB, but my destination drive is only 80GB. I really
*don't* need another hard drive, i.e. a new 200GB drive, so I hesitate
to just keep replacing parts.

I will look at the procedure for creating the image of individual
partition. The other option is to just do a clean install of windows
on the other drive, and then reinstall only the critical software, and
backup all my documents... that might be easier to do.

 

[Anna]

Anna-

Thanks for the posts... yes, you're correct - the multipartitioned
drive is 200GB, but my destination drive is only 80GB. I really
*don't* need another hard drive, i.e. a new 200GB drive, so I hesitate
to just keep replacing parts.

I will look at the procedure for creating the image of individual
partition. The other option is to just do a clean install of windows
on the other drive, and then reinstall only the critical software, and
backup all my documents... that might be easier to do.

Bob:
While that latter option you mention may be something for you to consider,
it really won't do anything for future comprehensive backups of your system,
including the operating system, all your programs/applications, all your
user-created data, etc. The ongoing capability of a disk imaging program to
accomplish that on a routine & systematic basis would, it seems to me, be a
far superior course of action for you to undertake at this point and for the
future.
Anna

 

[RSS]

I wanted to summarize and let people know what I ended up doing.
Initially I was giving up on the partition mirroring and I did a clean
install of XP on the second drive and was going to use it as a backup
boot drive in case I needed to fix anything on my main drive. But
based on Anna's post above, I decided that I shouldn't give up so
easily. I ended up using Partition Magic to copy my main XP partition
to the second drive, and then I used the WinXP disc to perform a
"fixboot" on that drive. Everything worked, so it seems...