"Hardware-Independent Restore": Real-World Feasible?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I'm looking at a backup/imaging/restore product at
http://www.storagecraft.com.

One of the claims they make is that a system image from machine
"A" can be restored to machine "B" - even though the machines are
different (i.e. mobo, drives, and so-forth).

The rationale seems tb that the restore can supply the needed
drivers on-the fly.

Has anybody actually used a utility like this?

Does the concept work in the Real World?

 

[Tim Meddick]

As you point out, the logistics of resting the image of a drive (including
it's operating system, most importantly) are massive, and, in my opinion,
unrealistic.

I think then, rather than what you heard actually meaning that, what it
really meant was just that you may STORE a drive-image on one machine or
device and then restore it to another...

But the source-drive must be the same as the destination-drive or the
restored image would not work.

I could be wrong about this, but I seriously doubt that an image from one
machine would work on another - if we are talking about it's containing the
machine's operating system, that is (if it was just an image of a
data-drive, then there's no reason to expect it would cause problems).

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[VanguardLH]

I'm looking at a backup/imaging/restore product at
http://www.storagecraft.com.

One of the claims they make is that a system image from machine
"A" can be restored to machine "B" - even though the machines are
different (i.e. mobo, drives, and so-forth).

The rationale seems tb that the restore can supply the needed
drivers on-the fly.

Has anybody actually used a utility like this?

Does the concept work in the Real World?

That's a link to a company's web site, not to one of their products.
They make several products. Barring a link to their actual product page
and based solely on what you said (but never mentioned "server" so I'll
assume you asking about home/personal use), a guess would be you're
asking about their ShadowProtect Desktop product at:

http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_desktop.php

which mentions:

"Rapid recovery from bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from
virtual environments."

I have seen this feature mentioned in other backup products but I can't
recall right now which ones. For example, but on a different type of
product (turning real hosts into virtual machines), their P2V (physical
to virtual converter) uses a "Smart Driver Injector" is used to migrate
the image of the real host to dissimilar [emulated] hardware in a
virtual machine.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/go-virtual/features.html

At their comparison page for their backup programs shown at:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/comparison.html

is mentioned a P2P (physical to physical) converter for their backup
programs (which also include the P2V feature). They mix in their
different products into their backup products, like partition managers,
so it appears they mixed in some features from their Rescue Kit:

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/rk-professional/features.html#2

where a short blurb mentions their P2P feature.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per VanguardLH:

so I'll
assume you asking about home/personal use), a guess would be you're
asking about their ShadowProtect Desktop product at:

http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_desktop.php

Mea Culpa. Yes, the ShadowProtect Desktop product is what I was
looking at.

Actually, I d/l'd the 30-day trial and am fooling around with it
now.

Did a few basic backups/restores.

Right now, it's munching on an old 500-gig drive that has a
System and a Data partition on it. about 5 hours remaining in
the backup process, then we'll see how the virtual boot feature
works - where you can fire up a pretend-PC running the backed-up
system.

After that, I've got an old Micron box that I'm going to try to
image and then restore to my "real" PC which is a GigaByte mobo.

 

[Tim Meddick]

What you describe is still a long way from restoring an image to a *real*
machine and hoping it will boot-up?!!

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

I'm looking at a backup/imaging/restore product at
http://www.storagecraft.com.

One of the claims they make is that a system image from machine
"A" can be restored to machine "B" - even though the machines are
different (i.e. mobo, drives, and so-forth).

The rationale seems tb that the restore can supply the needed
drivers on-the fly.

Has anybody actually used a utility like this?

Does the concept work in the Real World?

That's a link to a company's web site, not to one of their products.
They make several products. Barring a link to their actual product page
and based solely on what you said (but never mentioned "server" so I'll
assume you asking about home/personal use), a guess would be you're
asking about their ShadowProtect Desktop product at:

http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_desktop.php

which mentions:

"Rapid recovery from bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from
virtual environments."

I have seen this feature mentioned in other backup products but I can't
recall right now which ones. For example, but on a different type of
product (turning real hosts into virtual machines), their P2V (physical
to virtual converter) uses a "Smart Driver Injector" is used to migrate
the image of the real host to dissimilar [emulated] hardware in a
virtual machine.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/go-virtual/features.html

At their comparison page for their backup programs shown at:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/comparison.html

is mentioned a P2P (physical to physical) converter for their backup
programs (which also include the P2V feature). They mix in their
different products into their backup products, like partition managers,
so it appears they mixed in some features from their Rescue Kit:

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/rk-professional/features.html#2

where a short blurb mentions their P2P feature.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Tim Meddick:

What you describe is still a long way from restoring an image to a *real*
machine and hoping it will boot-up?!!

Yeah... that's the next step.... maybe by tomorrow nite....
"hoping" being the operative word... -)

I suspect the "real world" test comes when it's time to pony up
the drivers for the destination box. Right now, for the GigaByte
EP45-UD3L that I'll try to install the Micron system on I have no
clue driver-wise. I've always just installed XP and then fed it
the GigaByte install CD and let 'er rip - the install process
rebooting the PC at least a half-dozen times...

But I find the virtual PC thing tb significant functionality.

I can imagine rebuilding a machine, getting the new build 95%
right, and then realizing that I forgot to document something
from the old build, or some list of settings or something was
lost because I foolishly left it on the system drive.... or maybe
it was innately on the system drive.

With the virtual PC feature it's a no-brainer: back up the old
system before proceeding. Then, if one needs to look at the old
system, boot it up as a virtual PC, and copy what needs tb
copied.

My inner wanna-be geek is warming up to this app.

 

[VanguardLH]

What you describe is still a long way from restoring an image to a *real*
machine and hoping it will boot-up?!!

P2P (physical to physical) is the image backup to dissimilar *real*
hardware. Injecting drivers is noted.

 

[wilby]

I'm looking at a backup/imaging/restore product at
http://www.storagecraft.com.

One of the claims they make is that a system image from machine
"A" can be restored to machine "B" - even though the machines are
different (i.e. mobo, drives, and so-forth).

The rationale seems tb that the restore can supply the needed
drivers on-the fly.

Has anybody actually used a utility like this?

Does the concept work in the Real World?

Pete.

I understand that ShadowProtect (the paid for version) does have the
"bare metal" backup to a different computer ability. Acronis also claims
to have that ability but as I recall it is an additional cost option.

I've read that the way this is done is to reduce the drivers, for both
video and hard drives, to a very basic mode that is hopefully universal,
but very slow. After rebooting, the correct drivers are installed.

The other drivers (printer, etc.) are discovered and installed during
reboots after the image is installed on the bare metal drive.

By the way, Shadowprotect will send you a free trial license key that
will give you full access for a trial number of days, just email them
and ask nicely.

Please let us know how it works for you. I'd like to know how well it
really works.

Wilby

 

[Tim Meddick]

Again ; the link you originally gave "to the short blurb on P2P" indicates
(to my thinking, at any rate) that the feature (in P2P) is of a recovery
type, and not a complete overhaul of *all* it's drivers (which is what it
would take in most circumstances).

It just seems to me unfeasible to believe that such a migration were
possible - I've never heard of it and most established thinking is that
transfer of an established OS from one machine to another is not possible.

IMHO even with such a feature, the machines would have to be of a
relatively exacting similarity for it to stand any chance of success.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[VanguardLH]

Again ; the link you originally gave "to the short blurb on P2P" indicates
(to my thinking, at any rate) that the feature (in P2P) is of a recovery
type, and not a complete overhaul of *all* it's drivers (which is what it
would take in most circumstances).

It just seems to me unfeasible to believe that such a migration were
possible - I've never heard of it and most established thinking is that
transfer of an established OS from one machine to another is not possible.

IMHO even with such a feature, the machines would have to be of a
relatively exacting similarity for it to stand any chance of success.

I see no technical obstacle to injecting drivers into a restore. In
fact, when you build a bootable installer for Windows using nLite, one
of the steps is to inject the drivers that you'll need when the
installer runs. Of course, that means you must have on hand the drivers
you need to add using their Smart Driver Injector.

Drivers aren't the big obstacle. I see the HAL (hardware abstraction
layer) as the biggest obstacle. Many drivers are not the actual
interfaces between the system API and the hardware; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Foundation. They may merely
describe the behavior to the OS. In some cases, the "driver" is nothing
more than an oem<N>.inf file under the \Windows\Inf folder.

Even if you don't supply the drivers to inject during the restore,
remember that Windows already comes with loads of embedded drivers. In
fact, you couldn't install Windows without them to provide some basic
functionality AFTER which you then start installing the
hardware-specific drivers. About the only driver that you must install,
and only if required because the install CD didn't have it, is whatever
is needed to access the mass storage subsystem so the OS can write to
the hard disks.

Usually when restoring an imge to another host, an in-place upgrade (aka
repair install) may have been required to get the correct HAL installed
into Windows. As I recall, ACPI/APM also gets involved in selecting the
proper HAL. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_layer.
Whenever a HAL replacement was needed, I had to go dig out the install
CD to do the repair install. I haven't dug into Paragon's P2P or other
restore mechanisms to see how they handle a HAL replacement but, again,
I don't see this so much as a technological impossibility but rather a
licensing issue.

 

[Tim Meddick]

So the current advice I have read time and time again given by MPVs here
about copying a Windows installation over to another machine is a big NO,
is just plain wrong - and it's going to work, is it, after you replace a
couple of drivers and maybe keep back your 'hal'?

Yes, I agree about basic functionality of an UNINSTALLED copy of windows,
then selecting basic drivers - like a "compatible"one for the video and
only then getting 16 colours as a result.

But that is NOT the same as having all the WRONG drivers installed!

Not to mention, as you did, the HAL...

And were not talking about base-bones Windows OSes here, the OS could (and
most probably will) have hundreds of highly-integrated pieces of
third-party software installed, many of which will have their own methods
of hardware-specific configuration. Half-a dozen of those will stop your
system dead with "BSOD" errors....

There is NO system of "driver injection" for hardware-oriented software.

The whole thought of it is just daft!

It's 2000% different from porting bare-bones OS from a virtual environment,
or to an almost exact-same machine.

We are not talking Preinstalled Environment either, we are talking about an
incredibly detailed configuration specifically for a given machine with a
load of installed third-party software.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[glee]

Yeah... that's the next step.... maybe by tomorrow nite....
"hoping" being the operative word... -)

I suspect the "real world" test comes when it's time to pony up
the drivers for the destination box. Right now, for the GigaByte
EP45-UD3L that I'll try to install the Micron system on I have no
clue driver-wise. I've always just installed XP and then fed it
the GigaByte install CD and let 'er rip - the install process
rebooting the PC at least a half-dozen times...

But I find the virtual PC thing tb significant functionality.

I can imagine rebuilding a machine, getting the new build 95%
right, and then realizing that I forgot to document something
from the old build, or some list of settings or something was
lost because I foolishly left it on the system drive.... or maybe
it was innately on the system drive.

With the virtual PC feature it's a no-brainer: back up the old
system before proceeding. Then, if one needs to look at the old
system, boot it up as a virtual PC, and copy what needs tb
copied.

My inner wanna-be geek is warming up to this app.

Let us know how it works for you. Both ShadowProtect and Acronis
Universal Restore have the feature to restore an image to dissimilar
hardware. I have never had an opportunity to use it, but have heard
reports from others using the Acronis version, that it does work. It
uses a different method that simply cloning the system.

Acronis has KB article on how their system works, to allow changing the
HAL and system drivers:
Acronis Universal Restore -
http://kb.acronis.com/content/2149

 

[dadiOH]

So the current advice I have read time and time again given by MPVs
here about copying a Windows installation over to another machine is
a big NO, is just plain wrong - and it's going to work, is it, after
you replace a couple of drivers and maybe keep back your 'hal'?

Yes, I agree about basic functionality of an UNINSTALLED copy of
windows, then selecting basic drivers - like a "compatible"one for
the video and only then getting 16 colours as a result.

But that is NOT the same as having all the WRONG drivers installed!

Not to mention, as you did, the HAL...

They modify HAL as needed and provide basic HDD and NIC drivers if available
so the image can boot. Other hardware - sound, video, etc. - has to be
installed later by user. Presumably user also later uninstalls hardware
stuff that is no longer there.

Biggest advantage time wise that I can see is that user doesn't have to
re-install programs and that isn't exactly a wow factor as most programs
don't *have* to be reinstalled; merely copying from old to new will suffice
in many/most cases..

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[glee]

They modify HAL as needed and provide basic HDD and NIC drivers if
available so the image can boot. Other hardware - sound, video,
etc. - has to be installed later by user. Presumably user also later
uninstalls hardware stuff that is no longer there.

Biggest advantage time wise that I can see is that user doesn't have
to re-install programs and that isn't exactly a wow factor as most
programs don't *have* to be reinstalled; merely copying from old to
new will suffice in many/most cases..

Not sure what you're implying here, dadiOH, but if you install to
dissimilar hardware and don't use this "bare metal" restore option, you
are usually doing a clean install on the new hardware....and programs
must be reinstalled. You can't copy them from one install to another in
that scenario. So, these options (like Acronis Universal Restore) let
the user avoid having to reinstall all their programs and suites (like
Office).

Since I am pretty sure you already know that, I'm not clear on what you
are trying to say here.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per wilby:

By the way, Shadowprotect will send you a free trial license key that
will give you full access for a trial number of days, just email them
and ask nicely.

Please let us know how it works for you. I'd like to know how well it
really works.

I just sent a request for the "Full Evaluation" version - which
includes the recovery CD (apparently not included with the
regular 30-day version).

Fooled around with the virtual PC feature last night and this
morning.

Aimed it at the backup of the 500-gig, 2-partition drive that
used to be my system drive before I re-built on an SDD drive.

It actually worked. Not blazingly fast, but fast enough - and
what can one expect from a virtual PC on a regular desktop
machine with only 512 k of memory allocated to the virtual PC?

That feature alone just might enable me to rationalize spending
the ninety bucks... but I'll hang back until I can try the
recovery CD - both for the dissimilar-machine scenario and for
the straight-up re-image-the-same-box scenario.

I like ShadowProtect's UI - very intuitive and user-friendly
IMHO.

For the straight-up re-image, I am currently using something
called TeraByte Image (DOS version), which, if anybody's
shopping, has served me well over the years for a very modest
price (as in less than twenty bucks when I bought it all those
years ago).

 

[dadiOH]

Not sure what you're implying here, dadiOH, but if you install to
dissimilar hardware and don't use this "bare metal" restore option,
you are usually doing a clean install on the new hardware....and
programs must be reinstalled. You can't copy them from one install
to another in that scenario. So, these options (like Acronis
Universal Restore) let the user avoid having to reinstall all their
programs and suites (like Office).

Since I am pretty sure you already know that, I'm not clear on what
you are trying to say here.

I'm saying that many/most programs do not need to be "installed" on the new
machine, merely copied to it.

I know that flies in the face of "normal" but IME these are the
possibilities after doing so and when running a "non-installed" program...

1. The program will not run. Not many ME

2. The program will start but complain of a missing dll. Again, not many
IME. Copying the needed file to where it should be will fix it.

3. The program will start and say it needs to be "registered" (with the key
obtained when purchasing it). Feed it the key.

4. The program will run just fine. It may (will probably) write various
entries to the registry since the original ones no longer exist but
generally those are trivial - MRUs, GUI position, options originally set in
the program, etc - and it isn't much of a chore to redo those that need
redoing.

I base the above on personal experience. I had many, many programs on my
Win98 machine. I have no idea how many but there are 1980 folders; of
course, many programs have multiple folders so there are way less than 1980
programs.

I then went to WinXP, dual booting with Win98 which was rarely used. I
continued using the Win98 programs with WinXP and the results were as I said
above.

Later, I built a new machine...different mobo, new SATA drive plus the old
IDE drive with a SATA adapter, new sound, new video, etc. Even a nice new
Lian Li case

XP was installed on a partition on an extended one on the primary drive; the
old C: was *COPIED* intact to the new C: which was a primary on the primary
drive. Win98 was on the copy, dumped it except for SYSTEM and SYSTEM32
which I kept in case I needed some library file in those folders. I also
kept the "Start Menu" and "Favorites" folders which I stuck in a "My Old
Win98 Stuff" folder on new C:. Obviously, any hardware specific programs
(such as SoundBlaster ones) can't work but in general, running those old
Win98 programs under XP on the totally different machine gave results as
detailed above.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[glee]

I'm saying that many/most programs do not need to be "installed" on
the new machine, merely copied to it.

I know that flies in the face of "normal" but IME these are the
possibilities after doing so and when running a "non-installed"
program...

1. The program will not run. Not many ME

2. The program will start but complain of a missing dll. Again, not
many IME. Copying the needed file to where it should be will fix it.

3. The program will start and say it needs to be "registered" (with
the key obtained when purchasing it). Feed it the key.

4. The program will run just fine. It may (will probably) write
various entries to the registry since the original ones no longer
exist but generally those are trivial - MRUs, GUI position, options
originally set in the program, etc - and it isn't much of a chore to
redo those that need redoing.

I base the above on personal experience. I had many, many programs on
my Win98 machine. I have no idea how many but there are 1980 folders;
of course, many programs have multiple folders so there are way less
than 1980 programs.

I then went to WinXP, dual booting with Win98 which was rarely used.
I continued using the Win98 programs with WinXP and the results were
as I said above.

Later, I built a new machine...different mobo, new SATA drive plus the
old IDE drive with a SATA adapter, new sound, new video, etc. Even a
nice new Lian Li case

XP was installed on a partition on an extended one on the primary
drive; the old C: was *COPIED* intact to the new C: which was a
primary on the primary drive. Win98 was on the copy, dumped it except
for SYSTEM and SYSTEM32 which I kept in case I needed some library
file in those folders. I also kept the "Start Menu" and "Favorites"
folders which I stuck in a "My Old Win98 Stuff" folder on new C:.
Obviously, any hardware specific programs (such as SoundBlaster ones)
can't work but in general, running those old Win98 programs under XP
on the totally different machine gave results as detailed above.

You can get away with that for small programs that don't require needed
Registry settings prior to first run, but not for Office suites,
security suites, large apps that use or add file extensions like Nero or
Roxio or AutoCAD.

Were any of the programs you refer to installed via an .msi rather than
an .exe installer? Even if you find a small enough program via .msi
that it might run, all repair and other .msi features would likely be
lost.

I transferred a lot of utilities and old apps the same way, but most did
not even require an installer. The same can't be said for more complex
apps. Heck, you can even copy Microsoft games like Spider Solitaire
from one OS to another if you have all the supporting .dll files.

I'm curious what programs you transferred. I suspect most were fairly
old apps and small, not more recent offerings.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Have you still got your head in 1998?

Today's software is very different and installation CDs contain their own
driver databases.

For one example, if I tried to simply export my Nokia PC Suite / Ovi Player
to another machine it would not be possible. It's hardware specific in
it's drivers and configuration with application extensions in many
different locations other than it's own and the "system32" directories.

How would you "inject" any of that?!

And that is just one of a dozen or more of similar modern software of my
own installation.

I'm not going to stand here and say "It will never work under any
circumstances" but I feel that, in many cases it would just cause far more
work than to just create either a genuine PE boot disk or a slipstreamed
installation disk for a PC.

I think that, in most cases, it would fail due to too many unresolved
issues.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[dadiOH]

Have you still got your head in 1998?

If a program does what I want it to do I don't *care* when it was written.
I have Visicalc - the first computer spreadsheet, circa 1979 - on my PC.
Works fine but I don't use it much, it can't make pretty letters .

Today's software is very different and installation CDs contain their
own driver databases.

Some do, some don't. I have very few installation CDs.

dadiOH
_____________________________

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[Tim Meddick]

Again with the "you" "you" "you" !!

It's not about what one person does, it's about the sort of software that's
typically installed on today's machines and most of it now cannot be simply
copied over to another system by transferring it's "Program Files" folder
across!

And I have tried, that's how I know.

3rd party software is now far more integrated with the OS and hardware.

It's not a case of saying it's a better world for it's ever getting more
complex, but a statement of fact that a working Windows installation is a
very different concept from one that it used to be only ten years ago...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.