PING Anna: cloning question

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Pflueger

Anna,

In a previous post you stated that you do drive to drive cloning but never
incremental. My question is if you do updated images, what do you do with
the old --delete them?

I have a USB External drive I want to clone onto, that is why I ask.

Thanks, Pflu
 
Pflueger said:
Anna,

In a previous post you stated that you do drive to drive cloning but never
incremental. My question is if you do updated images, what do you do with
the old --delete them?

I have a USB External drive I want to clone onto, that is why I ask.
Click to expand...

Cloning a drive by definition destroys what is on the target. It makes the
target identical to the source. I think you are mixing up imaging and
cloning. You could have several image files on the backup USB drive but only
one clone.

Kerry
 
Kerry Brown said:
Cloning a drive by definition destroys what is on the target. It makes
the target identical to the source. I think you are mixing up imaging
and cloning. You could have several image files on the backup USB
drive but only one clone.
Click to expand...


A "clone" is a bootable exact copy of an OS. Since it is bootable
it must be on an IDE hard drive, not a USB hard drive. And, just
as you can have multiple OSes resident on one hard drive, you
can have multiple clones on a hard drive. And, in fact, I maintain
several clones of my working WinXP OS on a large capacity IDE
hard drive which I keep in a removable tray, each clone in a separate
primary or logical partition, and each directly bootable by the WinXP
multi-boot capability. And on an internal 2nd hard drive I have a
single most recent clone which is immediately ready to be booted
up at any time without powering down the PC.

An "image", on the other hand, is a file (or files) which contain the
information necessary to reconstruct a bootable (or self-bootable)
OS in a process called "restoration". Since they are just files and
don't have to be directly bootable, "images" can be kept on USB
hard drives and on CDs and DVDs.

*TimDaniels*
 
Pflueger said:
Anna,

In a previous post you stated that you do drive to drive cloning but never
incremental. My question is if you do updated images, what do you do with
the old --delete them?

I have a USB External drive I want to clone onto, that is why I ask.

Thanks, Pflu
Click to expand...


Yes, that's exactly what happens. When you use a disk imaging program, e.g.,
Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, to clone the contents of one
HD to another HD (internal or external), the previous contents of the
recipient of the clone, i.e., the destination drive, are completely deleted
through the cloning process. The destination drive, in your case the USBEHD,
is then, for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of the source disk.
Any previous data is gone. A clone is a clone is a clone. So if there is
data on the intended destination drive that you still want, then you would
*not* use the cloning process I've described at least until you backed up
that data through other resources.

Just one other thing while we're on the subject. The USBEHD will *not* be
bootable under these circumstances. You can, however, re:clone the contents
back from the EHD to a non-defective internal HD for restoration purposes
should the need arise. That, of course, is the primary purpose for using
your USBEHD in the way described.
Anna
 
Timothy Daniels said:
A "clone" is a bootable exact copy of an OS. Since it is bootable
it must be on an IDE hard drive, not a USB hard drive. And, just
as you can have multiple OSes resident on one hard drive, you
can have multiple clones on a hard drive. And, in fact, I maintain
several clones of my working WinXP OS on a large capacity IDE
hard drive which I keep in a removable tray, each clone in a separate
primary or logical partition, and each directly bootable by the WinXP
multi-boot capability. And on an internal 2nd hard drive I have a
single most recent clone which is immediately ready to be booted
up at any time without powering down the PC.
Click to expand...

That is a clone of a partition, not a clone of a drive. Not all imaging
programs support this. The OP didn't mention what program they are using.
An "image", on the other hand, is a file (or files) which contain the
information necessary to reconstruct a bootable (or self-bootable)
OS in a process called "restoration". Since they are just files and
don't have to be directly bootable, "images" can be kept on USB
hard drives and on CDs and DVDs.
Click to expand...

With True Image you can clone a drive to an external USB, Firewire, or SCSI
drive. The drive can then be installed internally and booted. I haven't
tried this with other programs. Although cloning to an external drive does
work you are right in one sense. External drives are usually used to store
images. Personally I prefer using images for backup as you can have several
copies, some of which are stored off site in case of a disaster. I only use
cloning for upgrading to new drives.

Kerry
 
Kerry Brown said:
That is a clone of a partition, not a clone of a drive. Not all imaging
programs support this. The OP didn't mention what program they
are using.
Click to expand...


The OP referred to "drive-to-drive cloning". He didn't specify
"entire drive-to-entire drive cloning" as True Image is limited
to doing. And, in fact, the old and new Ghost can clone single
partitions (as could Drive Image by Powerquest), and as
can Partition Magic, and as can Casper XP, to mention the
most prominent utilities. These single partition cloning ops
are done "drive-to-drive", and in the case of Casper XP,
can be directed to clone the entire drive or just a single partition
from among many on a hard drive.

I mentioned this because the term "clone" does not necessarily
refer to an entire hard drive but usually to the partition that
contains the OS since "cloning" a partition that just contains
data can be done with much simpler software, even drag 'n
drop. "Cloning" involves copying the *functionality* of the OS
as well as its data, and that is the reason for using the biological
term - an analogy to making an exact living copy of a living
thing.

With True Image you can clone a drive to an external USB, Firewire,
or SCSI drive. The drive can then be installed internally and booted.
I haven't tried this with other programs.
Click to expand...


This is surprising to me. Would you please elaborate on
how you boot from a USB or Firewire hard drive?

Although cloning to an external drive does work you are right in
one sense. External drives are usually used to store images.
Personally I prefer using images for backup as you can have
several copies, some of which are stored off site in case of a
disaster. I only use cloning for upgrading to new drives.
Click to expand...


As I explained, you can have several clones on a HD.
In my case, my OS and my data reside in one partition
that is 20GB in size. I can fit 5 or 6 clones on a 120GB
hard drive that I have in a removable tray or "caddy" that
I can keep across town in a bank vault if I want. On that
hard drive I can put 3 clones in primary partitions and
1 or 2 more in logical partitions, any of them bootable
when I slide the tray into its rack.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
The OP referred to "drive-to-drive cloning". He didn't specify
"entire drive-to-entire drive cloning" as True Image is limited
to doing. And, in fact, the old and new Ghost can clone single
partitions (as could Drive Image by Powerquest), and as
can Partition Magic, and as can Casper XP, to mention the
most prominent utilities. These single partition cloning ops
are done "drive-to-drive", and in the case of Casper XP,
can be directed to clone the entire drive or just a single
partition
from among many on a hard drive.

I mentioned this because the term "clone" does not necessarily
refer to an entire hard drive but usually to the partition that
contains the OS since "cloning" a partition that just contains
data can be done with much simpler software, even drag 'n
drop. "Cloning" involves copying the *functionality* of the OS
as well as its data, and that is the reason for using the
biological
term - an analogy to making an exact living copy of a living
thing.




This is surprising to me. Would you please elaborate on
how you boot from a USB or Firewire hard drive?
Click to expand...

I already explained it. Remove the drive from the enclosure and install it
internally. Other than SCSI drives all of the external drives I have seen
( > 100 ) are IDE drives in an enclosure. Some are 2.5" drives which may
need an adapter to hook up a 40 pin IDE cable. It is a true clone not an
image.
As I explained, you can have several clones on a HD.
In my case, my OS and my data reside in one partition
that is 20GB in size. I can fit 5 or 6 clones on a 120GB
hard drive that I have in a removable tray or "caddy" that
I can keep across town in a bank vault if I want. On that
hard drive I can put 3 clones in primary partitions and
1 or 2 more in logical partitions, any of them bootable
when I slide the tray into its rack.
Click to expand...

Your system is overly complex and beyond the ability of most people. I agree
it is an excellent backup method. It is just way more than most will be able
to understand and use. In my experience it is very rare that backups are
even done. If the procedure is complex most users will not bother to do it.
Very few users have your experience or knowledge.

Again as the OP didn't specify what program they are using your method may
or may not work for them. I would assume by drive to drive they meant just
that clone an entire drive. You obviously read it differently. It's a silly
argument anyway. What is important is that the drive is somehow backed up.
As long as the backup works and the OP can understand how to do it and
restore it is all that is important.

Kerry
 
Anna said:
When you use a disk imaging program, e.g.,
Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, to clone
the contents of one HD to another HD (internal or external),
the previous contents of the recipient of the clone, i.e., the
destination drive, are completely deleted through the cloning
process. The destination drive, in your case the USBEHD,
is then, for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of the
source disk.
Click to expand...


Your terminology is a little loose, Anna. In that last
sentence, for instance, you refer to a "destination drive"
being "an exact duplicate of the source disk". The drive
is a physical disk which can contain many partitions,
a disk in this discussion is a logical disk which Microsoft
calls a "Local Disk", i.e. a partition. Ghost, Drive Image,
Partition Magic, and Casper XP (and others) allow the
cloning of individual partitions, i.e. Local Disks, and
True Image only does cloning of entire physical disks,
that is, *all* Local Disks within a physical disk. Thus,
True Image can be used just as the others for upgrading
to a larger hard drive, but its cloning function can't be used
for archiving individual partitions - individual partions
must be archived as "image" files.

And "cloning" cannot be done with an external hard drive
as the destination (assuming a FireWire or USB external
hard drive) because it cannot be booted without first
doing a "restoration" to an IDE hard drive. What is put
on external media is an "image" file or files.

[..........]
Just one other thing while we're on the subject. The USBEHD
will *not* be bootable under these circumstances. You can,
however, re:clone the contents back from the EHD to a non-
defective internal HD for restoration purposes should the need
arise. That, of course, is the primary purpose for using
your USBEHD in the way described.
Click to expand...


Yes, and that is the main difference between a "clone" and
an "image" file - the clone is bootable and can be used
immediately, the image file must be restored to an IDE hard
drive first; the "image" file contains the information necessary
to reconstruct an installed OS, the clone *is* an installed OS.

*TimDaniels*
 
Kerry Brown said:
I already explained it. Remove the drive from the enclosure and
install it internally. Other than SCSI drives all of the external drives
I have seen ( > 100 ) are IDE drives in an enclosure. Some are
2.5" drives which may need an adapter to hook up a 40 pin IDE
cable. It is a true clone not an image.
Click to expand...


Have you actually done this - taken a USB or FireWire hard
drive out of its external enclosure, connected it to an IDE
controller inside a PC and then booted it up successfully?
This would mean that external USB and FireWire hard drives
are storing MBRs and boot sectors and "active" partition flags
in the same locations as BIOSes and IDE controllers and
OSes expect to find them although the external hard drives
have no use for them.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
Have you actually done this - taken a USB or FireWire hard
drive out of its external enclosure, connected it to an IDE
controller inside a PC and then booted it up successfully?
This would mean that external USB and FireWire hard drives
are storing MBRs and boot sectors and "active" partition flags
in the same locations as BIOSes and IDE controllers and
OSes expect to find them although the external hard drives
have no use for them.
Click to expand...

Yes.

Kerry
 
Kerry Brown said:
Yes.
Click to expand...


Was the hard drive that was taken out of its external
USB/FireWire enclosure and connected to the IDE
controller inside the PC the only hard drive in the PC
at its time of booting?

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
Was the hard drive that was taken out of its external
USB/FireWire enclosure and connected to the IDE
controller inside the PC the only hard drive in the PC
at its time of booting?
Click to expand...

Yes

I did this once in an emergency for a customer when their drive died. As
near as I can remember it was True Image 8, Windows 2000 with an NTFS
partition, and a firewire drive. I don't know why they were cloning the
system drive and not using an image. It was the weekend and I did not have a
spare drive in stock. I don't know why it would surprise you that this
works. There must be some kind of a simple controller inside an external
drive. Why wouldn't it use the same scheme for translating LBA access as
other controllers? Cloning a drive as opposed to imaging a drive means it
makes a duplicate including the boot sector, partition table etc.. I am
finished with this thread. We are way beyond what the OP asked.

Kerry
 
Kerry Brown said:
Yes

I did this once in an emergency for a customer when their drive
died. As near as I can remember it was True Image 8, Windows
2000 with an NTFS partition, and a firewire drive. I don't know
why they were cloning the system drive and not using an image.
It was the weekend and I did not have a spare drive in stock. I
don't know why it would surprise you that this works. There must
be some kind of a simple controller inside an external drive.
Why wouldn't it use the same scheme for translating LBA access
as other controllers? Cloning a drive as opposed to imaging a
drive means it makes a duplicate including the boot sector,
partition table etc...
Click to expand...


I guess the strange thing is that the customer hadn't used the
software that the manufacturer of the external HD provided -
which doesn't claim to make clones - but instead used True
Image, which doesn't mention USB or FireWire for cloning.
True Image must not have known that it was writing to FireWire,
and the FireWire channel just went ahead and transferred
everything as if it were just a bridge between 2 IDE controllers.

But it does make sense for the manufacturer to use its standard
IDE hard drives - circuit card and all - because it can just add a
power supply, the FireWire interface and an IDE controller to
make the guts of an external HD.

Have you ever wondered why hard drive manufacturers haven't
made SATA external hard drives since the SATA cable can
reach much farther than the PATA ribbon cable? There would
be no USB or FireWire bridge necessary.

*TimDaniels*
 
I guess the strange thing is that the customer hadn't used the
software that the manufacturer of the external HD provided -
which doesn't claim to make clones - but instead used True
Image, which doesn't mention USB or FireWire for cloning.
True Image must not have known that it was writing to FireWire,
and the FireWire channel just went ahead and transferred
everything as if it were just a bridge between 2 IDE controllers.

But it does make sense for the manufacturer to use its standard
IDE hard drives - circuit card and all - because it can just add a
power supply, the FireWire interface and an IDE controller to
make the guts of an external HD.

Have you ever wondered why hard drive manufacturers haven't
made SATA external hard drives since the SATA cable can
reach much farther than the PATA ribbon cable? There would
be no USB or FireWire bridge necessary.
Click to expand...

True Image will also clone to a USB external drive in a cheap generic USB
2.0 enclosure. I just tried it with an old Celeron 500 with a USB 1.0 port.
I was trying a worst case scenario to see if it would work. I'm not going to
remove the drive and test if it boots but the clone process didn't show any
errors. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't boot.

Kerry
 
Thanks everybody for the amazing dialogue. It went a bit beyond the scope of
my question it's true; but how often does that happen so as to enlighten the
questioner? -- it's more often that less than enough is provided.

Enlightenment is learning what you didn't know you need to know. I really
needed to know all about imaging and cloning and I am saving this thread to
study from.

Outstanding. Thank you. Pflueger
 
Kerry Brown said:
True Image will also clone to a USB external drive in a
cheap generic USB 2.0 enclosure. I just tried it with an
old Celeron 500 with a USB 1.0 port.
Click to expand...


I didn't know USB external drives were sold without
enclosures. Whose external USB drive did you use?

*TimDaniels*
 
Pflueger said:
Thanks everybody for the amazing dialogue.
Click to expand...

Hey, Pflu, if you want real thrills, do a search in
Groups.Google.com on "multi-boot clone boot.ini"
in the last 12 months. If you're willing to learn boot.ini
syntax, you can select which clone from among many
on a HD to boot.

*TimDaniels*
 
Kerry Brown said:
True Image will also clone to a USB external drive in a cheap generic USB
2.0 enclosure. I just tried it with an old Celeron 500 with a USB 1.0
port. I was trying a worst case scenario to see if it would work. I'm not
going to remove the drive and test if it boots but the clone process
didn't show any errors. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't boot.

Kerry
Click to expand...


Tim & Kerry:
Using either Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 or Acronis True Image 8, we've
cloned internal HDs to at least a dozen different USBEHDs, then removed the
EHD from its enclosure (where it was possible to do so), and installed the
drive in the computer as the bootable drive, and it booted with no problem.
Under those circumstances, the system treats the cloned drive as an ordinary
bootable internal drive.

Tim's reference to using SATA drives as external drives is surely the wave
of the future, since they have a major advantage over a USBEHD in that even
as an external device, the system will treat the SATA drive as an internal
drive. Thus, a cloned *external* SATA drive can be bootable whereas as we
know that's a decided limitation of a USBEHD - it's not bootable. At this
moment we're working with simple SATA I/O adapters containing a data port
and a power port. We've been using these devices with a bare external SATA
drive and have encountered no problems with it in terms of the drive being
the recipient of the clone and the subsequent ability to boot to that drive.

There are already SATA enclosures (containing a built-in power supply) on
the market and surely more to come as we move more & more to SATA drives.
Note also that many of the newer motherboards are now coming equipped with
eSATA (external) connectors. I haven't yet worked with those connectors in
order to determine whether a cloned SATA drive connected to the eSATA port
would be bootable. If anyone has some experience using that type of
connector I would certainly be interested in hearing about their experiences
in this regard.
Anna
 
Timothy Daniels said:
I didn't know USB external drives were sold without
enclosures. Whose external USB drive did you use?

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Check eBay or your closest computer store. Buy a USB or firewire drive
enclosure for 3.5 inch drives and any 3.5 inch IDE drive. Install the IDE
drive in the enclosure. I buy them both wholesale. If you want I can sell
you some :-) In this case it is a Maxtor 80 GB drive in a no name enclosure.
I normally use it to do a quick image of a customers system before
attempting repairs. I have several with different IDE drives installed. As a
test I tried cloning a system instead of imaging. I don't usually do this
because an image file takes up less room so if needed I can make a few
images as repairs proceed. All of the external drives I have seen are
standard IDE drives in an enclosure that has a power supply and a USB or
firewire to IDE interface. Note: some really cheap enclosures don't support
48 bit LBA.

Kerry
 
Anna said:
Tim & Kerry:
Using either Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 or Acronis True Image 8, we've
cloned internal HDs to at least a dozen different USBEHDs, then removed
the EHD from its enclosure (where it was possible to do so), and installed
the drive in the computer as the bootable drive, and it booted with no
problem. Under those circumstances, the system treats the cloned drive as
an ordinary bootable internal drive.
Click to expand...

That's what I've been trying to tell Tim. For some reason he is skeptical. I
tried it again just to confirm that TI would actually clone to a USB drive.
I had only done this once before as I normally use image files with external
drives. They offer the advantage of having more than one computer backed up
on the drive and/or multiple backups at different times from one computer.
It is also too much work to remove the external drive from the enclosure. It
is much easier just to install a new internal drive and reimage or reclone
to the new drive from the external.
Tim's reference to using SATA drives as external drives is surely the wave
of the future, since they have a major advantage over a USBEHD in that
even as an external device, the system will treat the SATA drive as an
internal drive. Thus, a cloned *external* SATA drive can be bootable
whereas as we know that's a decided limitation of a USBEHD - it's not
bootable. At this moment we're working with simple SATA I/O adapters
containing a data port and a power port. We've been using these devices
with a bare external SATA drive and have encountered no problems with it
in terms of the drive being the recipient of the clone and the subsequent
ability to boot to that drive.

There are already SATA enclosures (containing a built-in power supply) on
the market and surely more to come as we move more & more to SATA drives.
Note also that many of the newer motherboards are now coming equipped with
eSATA (external) connectors. I haven't yet worked with those connectors in
order to determine whether a cloned SATA drive connected to the eSATA port
would be bootable. If anyone has some experience using that type of
connector I would certainly be interested in hearing about their
experiences in this regard.
Click to expand...

I would also be interested in hearing any about experiences with external
SATA enclosures.

Kerry
 
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