HDD Image Backup Restore Software Recommendations

[Bill in Co.]

Bill,

You asked,

"How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does
a
menu always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to."

When the Dell logo appears on bootup, I press F12 for several seconds
which
initiates the boot options list that includes my "C", "E" and "F" HDs,
and
my DVD-RW "D" drive. "C" of course is the default so if I let the boot
sequence continue without pressing F-12, that's the one it boots to.

I see. Yeah, I'm familiar with that bootup option (and occasionally use it
to boot to a DOS flash thumbnail drive, for example).

My other drive letters are for non-bootable stuff, xD/SM Drive "H", SD
Card Drive "J", Compact Flash Drive, "G", Memory Stick Drive, "I" and
Removable Disk, "K" for an external Camera SD reader.
Most of the latter stuff I don't often use.

It's interesting that D:, E:, and F: aren't in there, and/or I may be still
unclear on something. When you normally boot up, and then use windows
explorer to look at your second internal drive in windows explorer, which is
storing the clone of C:, what drive letter shows up for it? (I'm guessing
it says D

IF, and that's a big if, one needs only a fast, ultra reliable way of a
complete "C" drive backup, the cloned "hot spare" approach is hard to
beat.
Although I like Casper because of the speed of the "smart clone" feature,

Yeah, I'm aware of that advantage (Anna has made the point

there are other clone packages out there, some free ones that work well
but
are slower than Casper.

Just my biased opinion -- As always, YMMV ;-)

Like most of us.

I have several generational (different dated) image copies on my internal
backup drive, so imaging is working best for me, at least at this point in
time. (But I was still a bit curious about Casper, that's all).

Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C"
in internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the
external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local
disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

Like you I have a Dell, but I wasn't counting those hidden partitions (I
have the same thing), as those are not assigned drive letters.

And in my case, unlike yours, my source drive now has C:, D:, E:, and F:
(but I rarely need to backup the last two partitions, however).

C:, of course, is most critical, as it has the majority of everything on
it,
and is the one I routinely backup (to an image in my case).

I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original
2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this
configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or
"E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one
of
the three by selection during the boot sequence.

How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to.

The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the
additional
hard drives

I was going to ask you how it got to F: Wow. That's *quite* a jump
(from
C: all the way to F:

I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can
be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space.

I think Anna has testified to that too, but I can't recall for sure now
(it
was awhile ago). Several of us had an extended discussion on that in
here,
with some folks saying it couldn't be done, and some saying it could be
done
(in Casper). I believe the end result (according to Anna) was that
individual partitions *could* indeed be cloned to the target drive
(assuming
the target drive had sufficient un-partitioned space). Of course, for
each
one you do that for, that will end up adding a new drive letter.

I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Some time ago I checked out their website and even downloaded the manual,
for an older version, but I don't recall the answer now.

Casper Support: (e-mail address removed)

The above support address takes you directly to a guy named Jim, who
wrote most of the Casper software

I




I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on
this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming
you
only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer show
for
the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning? E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process
was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that
right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my
backup
drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E: and F:
partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files,
respectively).

 

[bobster]

Bill,

You said,

"It's interesting that D:, E:, and F: aren't in there, and/or I may be still
unclear on something."

Yes - they are there. As I said, "D" is my DVD-RW drive, and "E" and "F"
are my extra HDs, all fully bootable. G, H, I, J, and K are as I noted. I
have no floppy so "A" is missing and I can't remember what "B" was
originally used for as it too is missing.

When I go to Windows Explorer and look at "My Computer", the drive letters
are just as I stated, with "D" being my DVD-RW drive. I do have a remnant
"D" listing under "My Documents" that seems to be a holdover from stuff
transferred several years ago when I moved from Win 98SE to XP when I got my
Dell 530. It seems to have nothing to do with anything current.

Bill,

You asked,

"How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does
a
menu always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to."

When the Dell logo appears on bootup, I press F12 for several seconds
which
initiates the boot options list that includes my "C", "E" and "F" HDs,
and
my DVD-RW "D" drive. "C" of course is the default so if I let the boot
sequence continue without pressing F-12, that's the one it boots to.

I see. Yeah, I'm familiar with that bootup option (and occasionally use it
to boot to a DOS flash thumbnail drive, for example).

My other drive letters are for non-bootable stuff, xD/SM Drive "H", SD
Card Drive "J", Compact Flash Drive, "G", Memory Stick Drive, "I" and
Removable Disk, "K" for an external Camera SD reader.
Most of the latter stuff I don't often use.

It's interesting that D:, E:, and F: aren't in there, and/or I may be still
unclear on something. When you normally boot up, and then use windows
explorer to look at your second internal drive in windows explorer, which is
storing the clone of C:, what drive letter shows up for it? (I'm guessing
it says D

IF, and that's a big if, one needs only a fast, ultra reliable way of a
complete "C" drive backup, the cloned "hot spare" approach is hard to
beat.
Although I like Casper because of the speed of the "smart clone" feature,

Yeah, I'm aware of that advantage (Anna has made the point

there are other clone packages out there, some free ones that work well
but
are slower than Casper.

Just my biased opinion -- As always, YMMV ;-)

Like most of us.

I have several generational (different dated) image copies on my internal
backup drive, so imaging is working best for me, at least at this point in
time. (But I was still a bit curious about Casper, that's all).

Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C"
in internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the
external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local
disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

Like you I have a Dell, but I wasn't counting those hidden partitions (I
have the same thing), as those are not assigned drive letters.

And in my case, unlike yours, my source drive now has C:, D:, E:, and F:
(but I rarely need to backup the last two partitions, however).

C:, of course, is most critical, as it has the majority of everything on
it,
and is the one I routinely backup (to an image in my case).

I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original
2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this
configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or
"E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one
of
the three by selection during the boot sequence.

How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to.

The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the
additional
hard drives

I was going to ask you how it got to F: Wow. That's *quite* a jump
(from
C: all the way to F:

I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can
be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space.

I think Anna has testified to that too, but I can't recall for sure now
(it
was awhile ago). Several of us had an extended discussion on that in
here,
with some folks saying it couldn't be done, and some saying it could be
done
(in Casper). I believe the end result (according to Anna) was that
individual partitions *could* indeed be cloned to the target drive
(assuming
the target drive had sufficient un-partitioned space). Of course, for
each
one you do that for, that will end up adding a new drive letter.

I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Some time ago I checked out their website and even downloaded the manual,
for an older version, but I don't recall the answer now.

Casper Support: (e-mail address removed)

The above support address takes you directly to a guy named Jim, who
wrote most of the Casper software

I




I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on
this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming
you
only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer show
for
the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning? E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process
was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that
right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my
backup
drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E: and F:
partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files,
respectively).

 

[Daave]

and I can't remember what
"B" was originally used for as it too is missing.

Unless your PC is from 1987, I doubt you have a B: drive. That was
used for the second floppy (*actual* floppy disk; they were _very_
thin!).

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Unless your PC is from 1987, I doubt you have a B: drive. That was
used for the second floppy (*actual* floppy disk; they were _very_
thin!).

Although my current desktop still has an A: floppy drive, I never use
it any more. But perhaps five or ten years ago, my computer had both
an A: floppy drive (3.5") and a B: (5.25"). The B: was there just in
case I ever needed to get something off an old 5.25" diskette I had
laying around.

So your point is well taken; very few people still have two diskette
drives. But you don't have to go back anywhere near as far as 1987 to
find computers like that.

And for Bobster: both the A: and B: drive letters are reserved for
floppy drives and can't be used for anything else.

 

[Daave]

Although my current desktop still has an A: floppy drive, I never use
it any more. But perhaps five or ten years ago, my computer had both
an A: floppy drive (3.5") and a B: (5.25"). The B: was there just in
case I ever needed to get something off an old 5.25" diskette I had
laying around.

So your point is well taken; very few people still have two diskette
drives. But you don't have to go back anywhere near as far as 1987 to
find computers like that.

You are correct. But I had a PC from around that time. It had the two
floppy drives: one for DOS and apps and the other for data. No hard
drive that I recall.

I am surprised that as recently as five to ten years ago, PCs had two
floppy drives. Then again, if you build them yourself, they can have
anything you want them to. I wonder if any big brand PCs (from the
Windows 98 era and later) had two floppy drives...

 

[Pete B]

Bill, I have never actually cloned a primary HDD to a new internal secondary HDD (already configured in the BIOS), but years ago I did try to do the following when I was running Win2K (not that the OS matters I think): I had purchased a new HDD of higher capacity than the current primary boot drive. I installed the new drive as the master drive in the BIOS and moved the old primary drive (with the current OS and software installed) to be the secondary drive as set in the BIOS. I formatted the new primary drive and installed Win2K on it so it would boot and run.

My hope was that I could copy all the non-Windows stuff off of the secondary (former original) drive to the new primary drive. But try as I might, Windows would not recognize the secondary drive at all because it was configured with a primary bootable partition (naturally). No matter what, I was never able to find a way to actually use or access that original/secondary HDD to recover any of the stuff on it (at least not that way). The new install of Win2K knew the drive was there, it provided a logical letter for it (D as I recall), but it would just tell me it did not have the proper type of partition to run as a secondary non-boot drive (and warned me that if I repartitioned it as a data drive, kiss the current data goodbye forever).

AFAIK this dual-boot stuff is a Windows thing accomplished using the boot record and separate partitions on the one primary HDD, because the BIOS itself only allows one HDD to be the boot drive; you can have different boot **partitions** with different OSs that can be used to run an OS, but the hardware itself only allows one master BIOS-bootable HDD.

I finally went back and reinstalled my old drive, recovered all the files I needed to tape backups, then just reinstalled it again as a secondary slave drive and reformatted and repartitioned it from scratch as a data drive (I still have that PC running that way for my son to use).

Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect it to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA).

That was my experience anyway. I have partitioned my current HDD at one time to run two different OSs, Windows and Linux (did this using Acronis Disk Director to make two software boot partitions, piece of cake), and used the dual-boot startup function, but both boot partitions were on the same HDD, my only current HDD in this PC. That is different though, I do not see any way in my BIOS to specify two separate physical boot HDDs, the only option is to specify a particular drive as the boot drive in all cases. It is the boot record on the HDD itself that performs the dual boot function.

That's my experience anyway for what it is worth.

 

[Pete B]

I'm wondering whether you could use PCMover to migrate your stuff to a

file on a separate drive (they say you can use separate media rather
than the cable connection), then do a complete clean OS reinstall, then
re-migrate your apps back onto the drive. What a cool way to clean
things up, assuming none of your apps is contaminated... Reinstalling
everything that I work with, including all the updates and patches,
could take a couple of days.

It seems you could (in my case I would use my external USB drive to save and recover. But I still have a USB 2 cable somewhere, and since I would only need to do this with a new PC different from the old one, I think it would be just as easy to use the cable. My question is whether the move software to actually automatically **install** the old PCs software onto a new PC, not just copy the settings and stuff. If it can install it, it must be one hell of an app, because I would think ytou would actually need all of the original product install media to accomplish setting up things where the hardware difference matters.

Like you, I too would have a problem doing things manually from scratch. I have been using this system for many years, I porobably have hndreds of big and small apps of various knds, commercial and pd stuff and little addins and licenses and updates and such, that would take a month or more to reinstall fresh. So if thissoftware does do the trick, it would be great. I installed Windows on a virtual PC I was running on my PC one time, and it took Windows itself three **days** nonstop just to install all the updates and service packs that applied to the original OS software -- and virtual PCs are slow on net access anyway; the AV took forever too. Got rid of the whole VM awhile ago so it is past history).

 

[Daave]

Pete, your posts are still difficult to read!

You still haven't turned off Quoted Printable. Please follow the
directions here:

http://mailformat.dan.info/config/oex.html

Make sure you choose "News sending format" and then "Plain text
settings."

Then:

Encode "Encode text using:"

None

(Or choosing Uuencode would work, too.)

Thx.

 

[Anna]

I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on
this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming
you only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer
show for the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning?
E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that
right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my
backup drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E:
and F: partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files,
respectively).


Bill continues...
I have several generational (different dated) image copies on my internal
backup drive, so imaging is working best for me, at least at this point in
time. (But I was still a bit curious about Casper, that's all).

Bill:
As you have indicated we have had an extensive exchange of posts on this
issue some time ago. For one reason or another I fear I've been unable to
convey to you an understanding of the relative unimportance of drive letter
assignments affecting the "destination" HDD (internal or external), i.e.,
the disk that serves as the recipient of the cloned contents of the "source"
HDD.

In the usual scheme of things it really doesn't matter how the OS and/or the
disk-cloning program, e.g., Casper, treats the assignment of drive letters
to individual partitions that are cloned from the source HDD to the
destination HDD (again, internal or external drive.)

Let's take, for example, the OP Pete's current 120 GB HDD, i.e., his source
HDD. (And Pete will forgive me if I manipulate his drive without his
permission!). Let's say that Pete has partitioned that disk so that he has
four partitions - C: of 30 GB, F: of 40 GB, G: of 35 GB, and H: of 15 GB.
Pete's system contains two optical drives designated D: & E: by the OS.

Now Pete purchases the 500 GB HDD he's interested in. Assume that he desires
to use that drive as his destination HDD to house the cloned contents of
this 120 GB source HDD. Let's further say that (for one reason or another)
that 500 GB HDD had been previously partitioned with a single partition (the
drive letter, should one have been assigned to that drive) is
inconsequential. Although I should add that it's of no consequence re this
disk-cloning process whether the designated destination HDD (again, internal
or external) has been previously partitioned/formatted.

Now Pete, using Casper, clones the entire contents of his 4-partitioned
source 120 GB HDD over to the 500 GB HDD. Casper will create the four
partitions on the destination HDD sizing the partitions relative to their
size on the source HDD. So that Pete's current C: partition will occupy 25%
of the disk space on the destination HDD - roughly 125 GB; his current F:
partition will occupy 33 1/3% of the destination disk's space - roughly 165
GB; and the other two partitions (G: & H will occupy partitions on a
similar percentage basis relative to their size on the source HDD.

(Let me quickly add that the above - in terms of partition sizing of the
destination HDD - is more or less the default mode; Pete would have full
control over sizing the partitions on the destination HDD should he wish to
do so. The only limitation, of course, is that whatever partitions he
created be sufficient in size to contain the cloned partition's data
contents.)

Now following the disk-cloning operation obviously the four partitions
created on the destination HDD will bear other drive letters than the source
HDD ones. So that, for example, Pete's C: partition will become I:; his F:
partition will become J:; his G: partition K:; his H: partition L:.

So that following the disk-cloning operation, should Pete boot to his
day-to-day working HDD (his source HDD) with the newly-cloned destination
HDD (again, internal or external) connected, the OS would reflect the drive
letters of each drive as above, i.e., his source HDD would reflect the C:,
F:, G: & H: drive letters together with the D: & E: drive letters assigned
to his optical drives, and the secondary HDD (the recipient of the source
HDD's cloned contents) would reflect the I:, J:, K:, & L: drive letter
assignments re the four partitions on that drive.

Now let's say that Pete's current source HDD, the 120 GB one, becomes
defective. Should Pete desire to install his 500 GB (current destination)
HDD as his boot HDD to replace the defective disk the current I:, J:, K:, &
L: partitions would simply revert to C:, F:, G:; & H:, just like the
original source HDD. The previous drive letter assignments on the former
destination disk would simply disappear.

And the same scenario would occur should Pete opt to purchase a new drive
for his source disk and clone the contents of the 500 GB HDD to that new
disk. Again, the drive letter assignments on the new source HDD would be as
above. The sizing of the partitions on the new source HDD would follow the
process I outlined above.

As we previously discussed, Casper can clone individual partitions as well
as the entire disk. In the example you cited above where your source HDD
contained two partitions - C: & D: and you cloned only the C: partition over
to the destination HDD; the drive letter on the destination HDD assigned to
that former C: partition would depend on whatever other partitions (drive
letters) - if any - had been previously assigned on the destination disk.
But again - and this is what's important to understand; it simply doesn't
matter what drive letter is assigned to that boot/system partition on the
destination drive. If & when the time comes when you must clone the contents
of that partition back to a source HDD for restoration purposes, it will
take on the C: drive letter assignment, regardless of what drive letter was
assigned to it on the destination HDD.

With respect to maintaining "generational" copies of one's system, as I have
previously indicated in a number of posts re the Casper disk-cloning program
and as I believe we have discussed...

Casper, by & large, like any disk-cloning program, does not lend itself to
that process. In most cases a user who is primarily or exclusively concerned
with that aspect, i.e., maintaining copies of his/her system at various
points-in-time will generally prefer a disk-imaging program, e.g., Acronis,
to achieve that objective. While Casper, like any other disk-cloning
program, can clone one's system at different points-in-time so as to
maintain "generational" copies on a partition-by-partition basis, it's more
times than not an awkward process particularly when the user is working with
a multi-partitioned source HDD. And perhaps even more importantly it negates
what we consider the chief advantage of Casper over other
disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs - Casper's "SmartClone" technology that
results in comprehensively backing up one's entire system in a fraction of
the time it takes other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. However that
latter capability is really present only when the user is employing the
program on a routine/frequent basis to back up his/her system that had been
only rather recently cloned. In our experience that particular capability is
desired by most PC users but we do understand that many users are interested
in maintaining generational copies of their system.
Anna

 

[Daave]

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain
drive letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F),
and my backup drive used to store images only has one partition (G).
(The E: and F: partitions are for (the rather large) music and video
files, respectively).

That seems to me to be a very convoluted partitioning system.

Data is data. I see no reason to segregate music, video, and other data
files.

If you evere decide to start from scratch, I would *highly recommend*
one or two partitions. Period. That is, C: would contain:

1. OS, apps, *and* data (the whole kit and kaboodle)

or

2. OS and apps (and your second partition would contain *all* your
data). This way, you won't have *any* "apps expecting certain drive
letters."

 

[Pete B]

Anna, see my other post this morning. I would like to know if you have actually done the operation you describe, cloning a boot-partitioned primary drive to a secondary drive, then being able to immediately start using all of the drives without further problems. As I describe in that other post, when years ago I did the functional equivalent of this by installing Windows on a new primary HDD and installing my old untouched smaller HDD, also a HDD with a primary OS partition, the Windows OS running on the new HDD would not read the older second HDD I moved to the secondary. It recognized that the older HDD was there but claimed it was unreadable, and I never could get it to see what was on it until I repartyioned the entire old HDD as a data drive rather than a boot HDD.

The rest of your post seems correct. The letters that Windows uses to refer to drive partitions are **logical** drive letters, each partition and device gets assigned the next available unassigned letter, and that is not the same as the reference terms we use for the drive. The C drive is always the bootable physical drive specified in the BIOS as the primary master HDD, then would come the D drive as the second slave physical HDD in the BIOS, the E drive would be the secondary master physical HDD in the BIOS and the F drive would be the secondary slave physical HDD in the BIOS (if there were four physical HDDs installed in the PC). At least with my Intel BIOS. But you can install DVD devices, USB devices, make multiple partitions on a HDD, and so on and all can have a separate software OS logical drive letter so that Windows knows which is what when it does an I/O operation. You can also reassign existing logical drive letters to various physical storage devices and partitions in the OS software, although it is rather unintuitive to do so.

So you have a separate unique logical letter designation for each unique hardware storage target, be it HDD partition, CD, DVD, USB device, whatever. But that is all a Windows thing. The BIOS just refers to them as physical devices as described: pri m&s, sec m&s for HDDs, and I/O devices of other types like CDs and floppies etc.

 

[Pete B]

When I read my posts to the newsgroup everything has always been fine, so
what is going on anyway? I have never seen the problem you describe when I
read any of the newsgroup messages, including thes I have posted here, so I
suspect the problem is some setting of yours, not mine. All my messages are
perfectly formatted for reading in my mail client (IE 7 OEx).

 

[Daave]

Whatever you did, you just fixed it.

Current header:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
format=flowed;
charset="Windows-1252";
reply-type=response
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Previous header:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I would be curious to know if others using Outlook Express saw what I
did. Whenever one uses Quoted Printable, word wrap disapears.

You can see the difference in your posts if you select Control + F3. The
text of your QP posts have "=" or "=20" at the end of each line.

For what it's worth, I also have IE7 (not that the Web browser should
matter) and Outlook Express. Perhaps it's a *combination* of your QP
(now in the past) setting *and* something on my end.

I am cross-posting to microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general to see if
anyone can shed some light.

Anyway, thanks for 86ing Quoted Printable.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You are correct. But I had a PC from around that time. It had the two
floppy drives: one for DOS and apps and the other for data. No hard
drive that I recall.

I am surprised that as recently as five to ten years ago, PCs had two
floppy drives. Then again, if you build them yourself, they can have
anything you want them to. I wonder if any big brand PCs (from the
Windows 98 era and later) had two floppy drives...

I don't buy big-brand PCs. I usually have them custom-built for me to
my specs.

When I had the 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives, if I remember correctly,
I started out with just the 3.5" and then later added the 5.25" (an
old one I had laying around) myself.

 

[Daave]

Perhaps the reason you never noticed it is that you don't maximize the
OE window?

 

[bobster]

Pete B,

You said,

"Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA)."

If you have read any of my previous posts, you would know that I have done
just that -- added a second (and third) bootable drive numerous times.
Here's exactly how I did it for my XP Dell Inspiron 530.

(1) Mount and connect a new HD of equal or greater capacity than the "C"
drive HD in the second SATA slot or a suitable external enclosure. It will
NOT be recognized as a bootable drive nor assigned a drive letter until the
following steps are carried out.

(2) Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Under
Storage, Select Disk Management. In my case, it identified my "C" drive as
Disk 0 and the new HD as Disk 1. Left click on the cross hatched portion of
the Disk 1 entry. Click on "format" and follow the directions to format to
NTFS. This took about 45 minutes for my 320 Gig new drive. When it
finishes, you will see a new, bootable drive in your BIOS and "My computer".
It will have been assigned the next available drive letter -- in my case it
is my "F" drive. You can then, using cloning software such as Casper, clone
the contents of your "C" drive to your new drive. The "C" drive will remain
your default bootable drive and unless you select your new drive during the
pre-boot sequence, your computer will always boot to "C". To boot to the
new drive, on a Dell computer after the Dell logo appears, you are offered
the opportunity to click on F12 which will take you into the BIOS boot page
and you can select the new HD, hit enter and it will boot to the new drive.
I have added another 320gig WDC bootable HD located in an external Vantec
(eSATA connected) enclosure using the above method. Booting to any one of
the three HDs takes less than one minute. The active booted HD can be
cloned to either of the other 2 HDs in 6-8 minutes using Casper.

The above procedure has proved to be fool proof for me. As always, YMMV

Bill, I have never actually cloned a primary HDD to a new internal secondary
HDD (already configured in the BIOS), but years ago I did try to do the
following when I was running Win2K (not that the OS matters I think): I had
purchased a new HDD of higher capacity than the current primary boot drive.
I installed the new drive as the master drive in the BIOS and moved the old
primary drive (with the current OS and software installed) to be the
secondary drive as set in the BIOS. I formatted the new primary drive and
installed Win2K on it so it would boot and run.

My hope was that I could copy all the non-Windows stuff off of the secondary
(former original) drive to the new primary drive. But try as I might,
Windows would not recognize the secondary drive at all because it was
configured with a primary bootable partition (naturally). No matter what, I
was never able to find a way to actually use or access that
original/secondary HDD to recover any of the stuff on it (at least not that
way). The new install of Win2K knew the drive was there, it provided a
logical letter for it (D as I recall), but it would just tell me it did not
have the proper type of partition to run as a secondary non-boot drive (and
warned me that if I repartitioned it as a data drive, kiss the current data
goodbye forever).

AFAIK this dual-boot stuff is a Windows thing accomplished using the boot
record and separate partitions on the one primary HDD, because the BIOS
itself only allows one HDD to be the boot drive; you can have different
boot **partitions** with different OSs that can be used to run an OS, but
the hardware itself only allows one master BIOS-bootable HDD.

I finally went back and reinstalled my old drive, recovered all the files I
needed to tape backups, then just reinstalled it again as a secondary slave
drive and reformatted and repartitioned it from scratch as a data drive (I
still have that PC running that way for my son to use).

Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA).

That was my experience anyway. I have partitioned my current HDD at one
time to run two different OSs, Windows and Linux (did this using Acronis
Disk Director to make two software boot partitions, piece of cake), and used
the dual-boot startup function, but both boot partitions were on the same
HDD, my only current HDD in this PC. That is different though, I do not see
any way in my BIOS to specify two separate physical boot HDDs, the only
option is to specify a particular drive as the boot drive in all cases. It
is the boot record on the HDD itself that performs the dual boot function.

That's my experience anyway for what it is worth.

 

[bobster]

Oops, should have read ... "RIGHT click on the cross hatched portion of the
Disk 1 entry"

=====================================================
Pete B,

You said,

"Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA)."

If you have read any of my previous posts, you would know that I have done
just that -- added a second (and third) bootable drive numerous times.
Here's exactly how I did it for my XP Dell Inspiron 530.

(1) Mount and connect a new HD of equal or greater capacity than the "C"
drive HD in the second SATA slot or a suitable external enclosure. It will
NOT be recognized as a bootable drive nor assigned a drive letter until the
following steps are carried out.

(2) Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Under
Storage, Select Disk Management. In my case, it identified my "C" drive as
Disk 0 and the new HD as Disk 1. Left click on the cross hatched portion of
the Disk 1 entry. Click on "format" and follow the directions to format to
NTFS. This took about 45 minutes for my 320 Gig new drive. When it
finishes, you will see a new, bootable drive in your BIOS and "My computer".
It will have been assigned the next available drive letter -- in my case it
is my "F" drive. You can then, using cloning software such as Casper, clone
the contents of your "C" drive to your new drive. The "C" drive will remain
your default bootable drive and unless you select your new drive during the
pre-boot sequence, your computer will always boot to "C". To boot to the
new drive, on a Dell computer after the Dell logo appears, you are offered
the opportunity to click on F12 which will take you into the BIOS boot page
and you can select the new HD, hit enter and it will boot to the new drive.
I have added another 320gig WDC bootable HD located in an external Vantec
(eSATA connected) enclosure using the above method. Booting to any one of
the three HDs takes less than one minute. The active booted HD can be
cloned to either of the other 2 HDs in 6-8 minutes using Casper.

The above procedure has proved to be fool proof for me. As always, YMMV

Bill, I have never actually cloned a primary HDD to a new internal secondary
HDD (already configured in the BIOS), but years ago I did try to do the
following when I was running Win2K (not that the OS matters I think): I had
purchased a new HDD of higher capacity than the current primary boot drive.
I installed the new drive as the master drive in the BIOS and moved the old
primary drive (with the current OS and software installed) to be the
secondary drive as set in the BIOS. I formatted the new primary drive and
installed Win2K on it so it would boot and run.

My hope was that I could copy all the non-Windows stuff off of the secondary
(former original) drive to the new primary drive. But try as I might,
Windows would not recognize the secondary drive at all because it was
configured with a primary bootable partition (naturally). No matter what, I
was never able to find a way to actually use or access that
original/secondary HDD to recover any of the stuff on it (at least not that
way). The new install of Win2K knew the drive was there, it provided a
logical letter for it (D as I recall), but it would just tell me it did not
have the proper type of partition to run as a secondary non-boot drive (and
warned me that if I repartitioned it as a data drive, kiss the current data
goodbye forever).

AFAIK this dual-boot stuff is a Windows thing accomplished using the boot
record and separate partitions on the one primary HDD, because the BIOS
itself only allows one HDD to be the boot drive; you can have different
boot **partitions** with different OSs that can be used to run an OS, but
the hardware itself only allows one master BIOS-bootable HDD.

I finally went back and reinstalled my old drive, recovered all the files I
needed to tape backups, then just reinstalled it again as a secondary slave
drive and reformatted and repartitioned it from scratch as a data drive (I
still have that PC running that way for my son to use).

Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA).

That was my experience anyway. I have partitioned my current HDD at one
time to run two different OSs, Windows and Linux (did this using Acronis
Disk Director to make two software boot partitions, piece of cake), and used
the dual-boot startup function, but both boot partitions were on the same
HDD, my only current HDD in this PC. That is different though, I do not see
any way in my BIOS to specify two separate physical boot HDDs, the only
option is to specify a particular drive as the boot drive in all cases. It
is the boot record on the HDD itself that performs the dual boot function.

That's my experience anyway for what it is worth.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Bill,

You said,

"It's interesting that D:, E:, and F: aren't in there, and/or I may be
still
unclear on something."

Yes - they are there. As I said, "D" is my DVD-RW drive, and "E" and "F"
are my extra HDs, all fully bootable. G, H, I, J, and K are as I noted.
I
have no floppy so "A" is missing and I can't remember what "B" was
originally used for as it too is missing.

OK, sorry, I missed that.
B: was reserved for the old 5.25 floppy drives, a thing of the past.

One more question:
If you boot up and press <F12> to select your second internal SATA drive
(which is a clone of the primary C: drive), and Windows boots up, is E: now
your boot drive letter, or is it automatically reassigned as C:, as seen in
windows explorer?

When I go to Windows Explorer and look at "My Computer", the drive letters
are just as I stated, with "D" being my DVD-RW drive. I do have a remnant
"D" listing under "My Documents" that seems to be a holdover from stuff
transferred several years ago when I moved from Win 98SE to XP when I got
my
Dell 530. It seems to have nothing to do with anything current.

Bill,

You asked,

"How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does
a menu always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to."

When the Dell logo appears on bootup, I press F12 for several seconds
which
initiates the boot options list that includes my "C", "E" and "F" HDs,
and
my DVD-RW "D" drive. "C" of course is the default so if I let the boot
sequence continue without pressing F-12, that's the one it boots to.

I see. Yeah, I'm familiar with that bootup option (and occasionally use
it
to boot to a DOS flash thumbnail drive, for example).

My other drive letters are for non-bootable stuff, xD/SM Drive "H", SD
Card Drive "J", Compact Flash Drive, "G", Memory Stick Drive, "I" and
Removable Disk, "K" for an external Camera SD reader.
Most of the latter stuff I don't often use.

It's interesting that D:, E:, and F: aren't in there, and/or I may be
still
unclear on something. When you normally boot up, and then use windows
explorer to look at your second internal drive in windows explorer, which
is
storing the clone of C:, what drive letter shows up for it? (I'm
guessing
it says D

IF, and that's a big if, one needs only a fast, ultra reliable way of a
complete "C" drive backup, the cloned "hot spare" approach is hard to
beat.
Although I like Casper because of the speed of the "smart clone" feature,

Yeah, I'm aware of that advantage (Anna has made the point

there are other clone packages out there, some free ones that work well
but
are slower than Casper.

Just my biased opinion -- As always, YMMV ;-)

Like most of us.

I have several generational (different dated) image copies on my internal
backup drive, so imaging is working best for me, at least at this point in
time. (But I was still a bit curious about Casper, that's all).

Bill,

I have 3 identical WDC 3200AAKS gig drives. Their drive letters are "C"
in internal position 1, "F" in internal position 2, and "E" in the
external
eSATA connected Vantec enclosure. They show up as 3 independent local
disk
drives in "My Computer". The "C" drive is partitioned (as delivered
from
Dell) into three partitions:

Disk 1, Partition 1 [Dell OEM] 47.03 MB
Local Disk (C) 2 294.74 GB
Disk 1, Partition 3 [Dell PC Restore] 3.30 GB

Like you I have a Dell, but I wasn't counting those hidden partitions (I
have the same thing), as those are not assigned drive letters.

And in my case, unlike yours, my source drive now has C:, D:, E:, and F:
(but I rarely need to backup the last two partitions, however).

C:, of course, is most critical, as it has the majority of everything on
it,
and is the one I routinely backup (to an image in my case).

I have never changed the factory delivered partitioning of the original
2007
Dell configuration. When I do a Casper clone operation, this
configuration
is cloned intact from the "C" drive to the target drive, either "F" or
"E"
depending on which one I select. My computer can be booted from any one
of
the three by selection during the boot sequence.

How so? Are you doing that by pressing F12 at bootup, or does a menu
always come up at boot time to ask which one to boot to.

The default boot drive is
the "C". As I recall, the letters "F" and "E" were autoselected as they
were the next unused letters on my computer when I installed the
additional
hard drives

I was going to ask you how it got to F: Wow. That's *quite* a jump
(from
C: all the way to F:

I must confess that I have had no experience with cloning individual
partitions of the main "C" drive but I believe individual partitions can
be
cloned if the target drive has sufficient un-partitioned space.

I think Anna has testified to that too, but I can't recall for sure now
(it
was awhile ago). Several of us had an extended discussion on that in
here,
with some folks saying it couldn't be done, and some saying it could be
done
(in Casper). I believe the end result (according to Anna) was that
individual partitions *could* indeed be cloned to the target drive
(assuming
the target drive had sufficient un-partitioned space). Of course, for
each
one you do that for, that will end up adding a new drive letter.

I would
refer you to the Casper site for more information or to their support
function which is very responsive.

Casper website: http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx

Some time ago I checked out their website and even downloaded the manual,
for an older version, but I don't recall the answer now.

Casper Support: (e-mail address removed)

The above support address takes you directly to a guy named Jim, who
wrote most of the Casper software

I


bobster wrote:
Pete,

Like Anna, I also have no connection with Casper other than buying v5
from them a year ago and yesterday upgrading to v6.

Sounds like Casper will not do what you want, i.e. migrate a bootable
"C"
drive from one machine to a different one.

Sorry if my first post sounded like a commercial for Casper. And I also
might have misunderstood what it is you wanted to do.

The reason I like Casper is that I can keep a "hot spare" hard drive
either
in my second internal slot, or at the ready in an external eSATA
connected
Vantec enclosure,(actually, HDs being so cheap, I do both). I
automatically
update weekly or more often manually on occasion. If my regular "C"
drive
fails, or I muck it up by screwing around, I can get back on line in
about
45 seconds by re-booting into the other internal/ external drive.

I am curious about something here (I'm only used to ATI and disk
imaging,
and know that much better), but would like some more clarification on
this.

Using Casper to make a clone of your source drive C: to your second
*internal* drive, does your second internal drive then show up in
windows
explorer with a different drive letter, like D:, or is it hidden?

Or let's say your source drive has two partitions, C: and D:. Assuming
you
only wanted to clone the C: partition, what would windows explorer show
for
the drive letter on your second internal drive after cloning? E:?

Or suppose you wanted to clone BOTH C: and D: partitions. What would
explorer show for your second internal drive letters after the process
was
completed in windows explorer? (I'm guessing E: and F - is that
right?):

Some of this matters to me since I have some apps expecting certain
drive
letters). My source drive now has 4 partitions (C, D, E, F), and my
backup
drive used to store images only has one partition (G). (The E: and F:
partitions are for (the rather large) music and video files,
respectively).

 

[Bill in Co.]

Pete - I used Laplink PC Mover to move all my stuff (programs and data) from
my old Win98SE computer to my newer WinXP computer, and yes, most of them
were automatically "installed" that way, but a few need to be reinstalled.
But it was a big time saver. I don't recall which ones needed to be
reinstalled, but I think Office was one of them, for example, but still, it
saved a lot of time. And most of the settings and customizations came over
too.

Nonetheless, the most ideal, foolproof, and cleanest solution, is, of
course, to install from scratch, as using PC Mover (or any such program)
isn't 100% foolproof, and you need to be careful with the settings as to
what to move, for example. And it hasn't always worked for some people,
from what I've read.
Still, what does one have to lose by trying.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Bill:
As you have indicated we have had an extensive exchange of posts on this
issue some time ago. For one reason or another I fear I've been unable to
convey to you an understanding of the relative unimportance of drive
letter
assignments affecting the "destination" HDD (internal or external), i.e.,
the disk that serves as the recipient of the cloned contents of the
"source"
HDD.

Some of the drive letter assignments are important to me for some of my
applications, and that must always stay fixed no matter how I choose to boot
up, or which drives are installed. For example, I have apps that expect E:
to be the default for music apps, and F: for video apps (and those settings
are used in the registry, of course). More comments relating to this
below..

In the usual scheme of things it really doesn't matter how the OS and/or
the
disk-cloning program, e.g., Casper, treats the assignment of drive letters
to individual partitions that are cloned from the source HDD to the
destination HDD (again, internal or external drive.)

Let's take, for example, the OP Pete's current 120 GB HDD, i.e., his
source
HDD. (And Pete will forgive me if I manipulate his drive without his
permission!). Let's say that Pete has partitioned that disk so that he has
four partitions - C: of 30 GB, F: of 40 GB, G: of 35 GB, and H: of 15 GB.
Pete's system contains two optical drives designated D: & E: by the OS.

Now Pete purchases the 500 GB HDD he's interested in. Assume that he
desires
to use that drive as his destination HDD to house the cloned contents of
this 120 GB source HDD. Let's further say that (for one reason or another)
that 500 GB HDD had been previously partitioned with a single partition
(the
drive letter, should one have been assigned to that drive) is
inconsequential. Although I should add that it's of no consequence re this
disk-cloning process whether the designated destination HDD (again,
internal
or external) has been previously partitioned/formatted.

Now Pete, using Casper, clones the entire contents of his 4-partitioned
source 120 GB HDD over to the 500 GB HDD. Casper will create the four
partitions on the destination HDD sizing the partitions relative to their
size on the source HDD. So that Pete's current C: partition will occupy
25%
of the disk space on the destination HDD - roughly 125 GB; his current F:
partition will occupy 33 1/3% of the destination disk's space - roughly
165
GB; and the other two partitions (G: & H will occupy partitions on a
similar percentage basis relative to their size on the source HDD.

(Let me quickly add that the above - in terms of partition sizing of the
destination HDD - is more or less the default mode; Pete would have full
control over sizing the partitions on the destination HDD should he wish
to
do so. The only limitation, of course, is that whatever partitions he
created be sufficient in size to contain the cloned partition's data
contents.)

Now following the disk-cloning operation obviously the four partitions
created on the destination HDD will bear other drive letters than the
source
HDD ones. So that, for example, Pete's C: partition will become I:; his F:
partition will become J:; his G: partition K:; his H: partition L:.

So that following the disk-cloning operation, should Pete boot to his
day-to-day working HDD (his source HDD) with the newly-cloned destination
HDD (again, internal or external) connected, the OS would reflect the
drive
letters of each drive as above, i.e., his source HDD would reflect the C:,
F:, G: & H: drive letters together with the D: & E: drive letters assigned
to his optical drives, and the secondary HDD (the recipient of the source
HDD's cloned contents) would reflect the I:, J:, K:, & L: drive letter
assignments re the four partitions on that drive.

Now let's say that Pete's current source HDD, the 120 GB one, becomes
defective. Should Pete desire to install his 500 GB (current destination)
HDD as his boot HDD to replace the defective disk the current I:, J:, K:,
&
L: partitions would simply revert to C:, F:, G:; & H:, just like the
original source HDD. The previous drive letter assignments on the former
destination disk would simply disappear.

Yes, I understand that.
But what if Pete just chooses to boot to the second internal drive for now
(because of some perhaps temporary issue with the primary drive), and run
Windows from there? What drive letters are being used in this case?
(After all, in the registry, most program drive letter references are to the
C: partition, and expect that). If the secondary SATA drive shows C: as the
boot partition, like the original, then there would be no issue for me.
(keep in mind the original drive is still in there, but we chose to boot to
the secondary drive; and that we have NOT physically swapped out the drives
in this example)