Full System Backup (bfk) Restore Advice.

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I have three hard drives on my system:

Disc0 = XP Pro Installed = 10GB Drive
Disc1 = G/H/I/J Logical drives (This is the largest Drive = 80GB)
Disc 2 = F = 40GB = Main Backup .bfk of full system.

I would like to have XP (Disk 0) and the contents of Disk 1 all on Disk 1

Using the Windows Backup Restore feature I have the option to restore to
"Alternative" location.

Questions
1. By restoring to Disk 1 (overwrite), will I have a fully functioning XP
Operating System Primary partition along with the previous contents of Drive
1 from the bkf file?

2. I am not sure this is possible......What might I be overlooking?

3. Any further advice regarding consolidating everything onto drive 1 would
be appreciated.
 
Dermot said:
I have three hard drives on my system:

Disc0 = XP Pro Installed = 10GB Drive
Disc1 = G/H/I/J Logical drives (This is the largest Drive = 80GB)
Disc 2 = F = 40GB = Main Backup .bfk of full system.

I would like to have XP (Disk 0) and the contents of Disk 1 all on
Disk 1

Using the Windows Backup Restore feature I have the option to
restore to "Alternative" location.

Questions
1. By restoring to Disk 1 (overwrite), will I have a fully functioning
XP Operating System Primary partition along with the previous
contents of Drive 1 from the bkf file?

2. I am not sure this is possible......What might I be overlooking?

3. Any further advice regarding consolidating everything onto
drive 1 would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Do you really mean that there are 4 Logical Drives (i.e. logical
partitions) within an Extended partition on Disk 1? Or do you
mean some mixture of Primary partitions and possibly one Extended
partition? Although an OS can reside on a logical drive within an
Extended partition, somewhere on one of the drives in the system -
even on another disk - there must be a Primary partition that has the
boot files "boot.ini", "ntldr", and "ntdetect.com" just below the root
of its file system, and the boot.ini file must have an entry that points
to the location of the OS. Right now, those boot files most likely
reside on the Primary partition that contains the OS (on disk 0).
If you want to have only 1 hard drive in the system, and all your
partitions on that one hard drive, you'll need at least one Primary
partition available on disk 1 for the boot files. The easiest thing to
do would be to clone the OS's Primary partition on disk 0 to
disk 1.
..
What I would do is to get a copy of Symantec's "Ghost" or
Future Systems Solutions' "Casper" (both of which can clone individual
partitions) and start cloning. First, I'd clone all 4 of the partitions on
disk 1 to disk 2 in a single operation. There are such "all-to-all" cloners
downloable from disk drive makers' websites for free (as long as one or
both of the hard drives is one of theirs), but Ghost and Casper (and a
number of other cloners) can do that. Then I'd use Ghost or Casper
to clone the single Primary partition that contains the XP OS from disk 0
to a Primary partition on disk 1. If you're using Ghost, tell it to clone the
MBR and to mark the destination partition "active". That would also
conveniently make the OS's partition partition 1 AND the one with the
boot files - the most common scenario and as it it now set up - and you
wouldn't have to diddle with the entries in the boot.ini file.

Then, one by one, I'd simply drag the directories from each of the 4
partitions that had been saved on disk 2 to partitions that I'd made and
formatted on disk 1. Since you'd need 5 partitions to contain them all,
one of the partitions would have to be an Extended partition that contained
2 logical partitions (i.e. 3 Primary partitions, and one Extended partition
that contained 2 logical partitions).

Then what you'd have is all of your stuff on one hard drive where
it could all be lost at the same time if the hard drive failed. Why would
you want that?

*TimDaniels*
 
To Quote you:
Do you really mean that there are 4 Logical Drives (i.e. logical
partitions) within an Extended partition on Disk 1?
My Answer
Disc0 = Primary partition (active) with XP Pro.

Disc1 = Extended partition, split into 4 logical drives.

Disc 2 = Extended Partition : 1 Logical Drive with XP Pro Generated Backup
(.bfk file)

My Current Senario
Using the XP Pro Back Utilty (In XP System Tools).
I chose the option to backup the full system....which I did to Disc2.

Question 1
Using the restore feature of the XP backup utility.....to restore the full
system backup from Disc2 to Disc1.....
Wouldn't that just overwrite everything on Disc 1 with a full system backup?

Question 2
Please clarify...
Does the Full System Backup include: Full Windows install ...all data etc..

To Quote You
Then what you'd have is all of your stuff on one hard drive where
it could all be lost at the same time if the hard drive failed. Why would
you want that?

My experience to date
I haven't found any benefit to having XP Pro installed on a separate drive
from all my programs. Any time I have had a problem and had to reinstall XP
Pro...it didn't see the programs on the other drive and I had to reinstall
all of them anyway.

Current Plan
To Install XP Pro and All my Programs on Disc 1.
And use Disc0 and Disc2 strickly for backing up my data.
If restoring the full system backup ( using the XP Backup Utility) to disc 1
worked...
I could then transfer all my date to the other two discs.

Ghost Cloning
I have a copy of Ghost, but any time I have used it I had problems after.

To help my understanding please answer Question 1 and 2 above

Any further advice regarding using the XP Pro Backup Utility in the manner I
have described would be appreciated......if you don't think it will do what I
am describing please advise what I am overlooking.

Thanks

Again
 
Oh. You didn't say that the 4 logical partitions on disk 1 had
installed applications. I thought they just contained data. I'm not
sure what effect restoring the entire system backup to disk 1
would have. First of all, you'd either have to have enough unallocated
space on disk 1 to accomodate all 5 partitions that are now on
disks 0 and 1, or you'd have to re-format disk 1 (and wipe out the
original 4 logical partitions thereon), and that's dangerous. And it
would require that you had used "Normal" as the backup type and
that you chose to backup "All information on this computer". But
whether it would work or not to overwrite the exising original files
in restoring the backup files, I don't know. I suspect that it would
since what ntbackup has *probably* made is what is known as an
"image file" of the system - a single huge file that contains all the
information necessary to reproduce the entire system (which may
be stored in a compressed form). And in restoring the backup,
it wouldn't matter that the originals were destroyed. But.... your
mileage may vary.

What you need is someone intimately familiar with the restoration
side of ntbackup. But I'm not that guy, and it seems that all the
how-tos on the 'Net describe how to do the backing up, not the
restoration. In absence of any expert replies in this NG, I suggest
you try "comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage" and ask if ntbackup
(using the "Normal" backup type and "All information" options) will
1) restore correctly to another hard drive, and
2) whether it can produce a backup file that spans multiple
hard drives, i.e. includes installed apps that reside on other
hard drives.

As for Ghost (and all cloning utilities), be sure that the clone is
started up for its very 1st run *without* its "parent" OS seen by
the clone. (The reverse, that the clone is viewable to its "parent" OS
upon the "parent" restartung after cloning, is OK.) The easiest
way to do that is to merely disconnect the hard drive containing the
"parent" immediately after cloning and then restarting the PC. If the
clone's hard drive is the only one left in the system, it will by default
be the hard drive that controls booting. After that 1st startup in
isolation, the clone may see its "parent" without any problems. To
make the clone's hard drive continue to control booting with other
hard drives re-connected, either move the clone's hard drive to the
connector that had previously served the "parent's" hard drive, or
adjust the Hard Drive Boot Order in the BIOS to put the clone's
hard drive at the head of that boot order. If you hadn't done this
when using Ghost before, that may have been the problem. (You
also have to tell it to mark the destination partition "active" if it is
to control booting.)

Good luck.
*TimDaniels*
 
Dermot said:
Hi Timothy
Thanks for the reply

I'll let you know how I get on.
Click to expand...


That would be cool. It would be a help to all to
hear how backup works in restoring to a different
hard disk drive.

*TimDaniels*
 
Hi Tim

It doesn't work across multiple drives.
When I tried it although it went through the restore process and completed
it, but everything is on a single primary partition and only half the the
drive content is only half the size of what I expected to see. (hoped to
see:) ).

I suppose realistically, if what I was trying to do was possible....it would
need to recognise all the separate drives /partition types / etc.

I also suppose if it was as simple .....there would be no point to programs
such as Ghost?

Fortunately, I did clone all my drives separately first :)
 
"Dermot" replied:
Hi Tim

It doesn't work across multiple drives.
When I tried it although it went through the restore process and
completed it, but everything is on a single primary partition and
only half the the drive content is only half the size of what I
expected to see. (hoped to see:) ).
Click to expand...


It's to be expected that the backup file will be smaller in
size than the sum of the files and partitions that have been
backed up because the data has been compressed. What I
had my doubts about was the restoration from multiple
partitions and back to multiple partitions as I saw no way
of directing ntbackup about where to find or allocate the
destination partitions.

I suppose realistically, if what I was trying to do was possible...
it would need to recognise all the separate drives /partition types /
etc.

I also suppose if it was as simple .....there would be no point
to programs such as Ghost?

Fortunately, I did clone all my drives separately first :)
Click to expand...


I don't think Ghost can do what you want to do in one
operation. You'd have to move an entire HD's contents, or
a single partition's contents, at a time. Since you have all
your partitions backed up on external media, you could do
what you want by following the procedure in my original posting.
But to keep things brain-dead simple, just clone the partitions to
disk 1 partition by partition, starting with the XP partition
on disk 0. Since that partition is currently on partition 1 of
disk 0, it is on rdisk(0), i.e. the HD at the head of the Hard
Drive Boot Order. When it is on partition 1 of disk 1 - which
will be rdisk(0) when disk 1 is moved to the position and
jumpering that disk 0 had - the boot.ini file won't need any
editing. Just remember to tell Ghost to mark that partition
"active", and remember to disconnect disk 0 before you try
starting up the clone XP for its first-ever run.

*TimDaniels*
 
Hi Tim
Thanks for the reply.
I will take on board your suggestions in the transfer method of the drive to
Disk 1.

To ensure I don't make any error, and disconnect Disk 0 before
booting....I'll write a check list to follow.....as it all take a bit of
time...I could still overlook something....the check list should is a plan I
think.

Thanks again
 
Dermot said:
Hi Tim
Thanks for the reply.
I will take on board your suggestions in the transfer method of the
drive to Disk 1.

To ensure I don't make any error, and disconnect Disk 0 before
booting....I'll write a check list to follow.....as it all take a bit of
time...I could still overlook something....the check list should is a
plan I think.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

You're welcome. The process will be tedious, but it is
conceptually simple - and a check list is a good idea.

*TimDaniels*
 
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