second HD with drive image

[Jud McCranie]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image
program such as Norton Ghost, if the first HD fails, will I be able to
simply swap the second HD in for the first and have _everything_ back?
Everything, like all programs installed, all desktop icons, Windows
settings - everything?

 

[Rock]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image
program such as Norton Ghost, if the first HD fails, will I be able to
simply swap the second HD in for the first and have _everything_ back?
Everything, like all programs installed, all desktop icons, Windows
settings - everything?

You would have to clone the drive, not image it. Imaging is the process of
taking the contents of a drive and placing it in a file (generally
compressed). To restore the image, the program that created it has to be
used.

A clone, on the other hand, is an exact duplicate of the drive. If
everything is done right, yes a clone can be substituted for the original as
if it were the original.

A clone requires a drive of at least the same size. If you want to have a
clone of the drive at two different points in time, then you need to
different drives, one for each clone.

With an image it is compressed and only includes the data, not the empty
space, so you can keep multiple images (made at different times) on a backup
drive, and restore to any one of those images.

What is it you are trying to accomplish?

 

[Jud McCranie]

A clone, on the other hand, is an exact duplicate of the drive. If
everything is done right, yes a clone can be substituted for the original as
if it were the original.

What software will clone a drive?

What is it you are trying to accomplish?

Last year I had a HD die. I had a "full backup" on an external HD,
and I thought I was safe. I got a replacement drive, formatted it,
got it booted, and then started to restore the "full backup". Turns
out that I couldn't put the computer back like it was with the "full
backup" - you can't copy the Windows registry file. So all of that
was worthless. I did get back the data but nothing else. Everything
had to be installed again. Some were from CDs, some were downloads.
Many of the things for which I had the original CD, I had downloaded
updates. I spent about four weeks trying to get dozens of things
reinstalled. I still haven't gotten everything done.

What I want is that if the HD crashes, all I have to do is switch the
drive over and be back in business, with everything just as it had
been (except for the second HD). I'm an in dependant software
developer, so when my computer is down, I'm out of work.

 

[Jud McCranie]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image

PS, I have no experience with RAID, but I think that what I want is
basically RAID 1.

 

[Jud McCranie]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image

Another PS: I'm using XP Home Media Center SP2, with all updates.

 

[Rock]

What software will clone a drive?

Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, CasperXP, BootItNG, and others. CasperXP
can close on a partition as weall as a drive basis. The others clone only
on a drive basis. They also do drive/partition imaging, except for
CasperXP. CasperXP can clone on a partition basis. I know ATI and I
believe Ghost, only clone on a drive basis.

ATI does file backups as well and restores can be done on a file, partition
or drive basis.

Last year I had a HD die. I had a "full backup" on an external HD,
and I thought I was safe. I got a replacement drive, formatted it,
got it booted, and then started to restore the "full backup". Turns
out that I couldn't put the computer back like it was with the "full
backup" - you can't copy the Windows registry file. So all of that
was worthless. I did get back the data but nothing else. Everything
had to be installed again. Some were from CDs, some were downloads.
Many of the things for which I had the original CD, I had downloaded
updates. I spent about four weeks trying to get dozens of things
reinstalled. I still haven't gotten everything done.

What I want is that if the HD crashes, all I have to do is switch the
drive over and be back in business, with everything just as it had
been (except for the second HD). I'm an in dependant software
developer, so when my computer is down, I'm out of work.

Ok, I suggest drive imaging, not cloning. I use Acronis True Image Home,
version 10. One approach is to full image the system once a week to an
external hard drive, then a nightly incremental image (which is just what
has been changed since the last incremental image). To restore to a bare
drive, for example if the hard driver crashes, install the drive, boot from
the ATI CD with the external hard drive connected and do the restore.

Alternate between two different external drives. Keep one off site, the
other is used that week. Then switch. How many weeks worth of full and
incremental images will fit on the drive obviously depends on how much is to
be imaged, and how big is the external drive.

How often would you be cloning? Once a week? Once a month? Say you clone
once a week and the drive dies on the 6th day. You've lost 6 days worth of
work. Imaging can be done quickly on a daily basis with an incremental
image. Cloning takes much longer.

For example on one system the total size of the compressed image file is
about 62GB. It takes just under 2 hours to create the image and 1 3/4 hours
to verify it. The daily incremental images can vary from 1/2GB to 5GB.
They take on the order of 10 minutes to create. Verification involves all
the incremental images back to and including the last full image it's based
on so it takes about the same time, 2 hours. One option is to not verify
the the incremental images if you verified the full image on which it's
based. Of course you would have to have confidence in the reliability of
the imaging process. Working with it for some time will give you that.

A restore of the full image takes about an hour. You need to test the
restore under real conditions to have confidence in it.

Using two external drives and alternating them will archive backups going
back a month or two on a daily basis. You can also save images at different
stages of your system setup. Image right after a clean install before apps
are installed, after all base apps are installed, etc, - organize this as
you want. I think this is much more practical than cloning once a week or
month.

Another approach that can be used is dependent on whether the computer case
has a spare 5 1/4" drive bay. If so fit it with a removable drive rack.
You can get an individual drive tray that fits in the rack. Mount multiple
drives in different trays; it's easy to swap out. You could set it up to
image to one drive, and clone on another for example.

 

[Rock]

PS, I have no experience with RAID, but I think that what I want is
basically RAID 1.

RAID 1 is not what you want. It does not eliminate the need for having a
full and complete backup.

 

[Lil' Dave]

PS, I have no experience with RAID, but I think that what I want is
basically RAID 1.

Well, there is also a problem I call hard drive creep. It creeps up on you
a little at time. Then, one day, the hard drive crashes. During the creep
period, the hard drive is starting to fail, not holding data as it should.
But not reporting it.

If you're using RAID1, the 2nd hard drive is getting the same data on it. I
think you see my point.

Dave

 

[Lil' Dave]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image
program such as Norton Ghost, if the first HD fails, will I be able to
simply swap the second HD in for the first and have _everything_ back?
Everything, like all programs installed, all desktop icons, Windows
settings - everything?

This is what I do.

Have two identical ide hard drives. One master, one slave, on primary ide.
For a clone, I copy with partition commander built into my boot manager,
system commander at boot time. All partitions, including logical drives are
hidden after the copy on the 2nd hard drive. I recopy every 30 days or so.
XP can see the partitions, can do nothing with them as it doesn't recognize
any filesystem. No drive letters designated for partitions on 2nd hard
drive as a result. If the first hard drive fails, there's 2 ways to use the
second. One is the bios booting from the 2nd drive as a bios option, if the
1st hard drive is still recognized but not usable. Or, pull out the first
hard drive, rejumper the slave as master alone, and system commander will
show up at boot time again. Open partition commander to unhide the logical
partitions if needed.

In your position, I would use a similar plan with a hard drive mounted in a
removable tray as the clone. Anna seems the best at advising on this
option.

As a secondary more current backup, use imaging software to image the 1st
hard drive to an external hard drive on USB or firewire. Or perhaps, a 2nd
alternate removable hard drive on a removable tray. I use both. Am using
DriveImage 7.0 for imaging. Its old but still works. So do the
restorations.

After making clones or images, physically remove these hard drives from your
PC. Onboard clones like mine are subject to electrical problems like power
surges (lightning). I have an UPS, but, that's not 100% fullproof.
Dave

 

[Anna]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image
program such as Norton Ghost, if the first HD fails, will I be able to
simply swap the second HD in for the first and have _everything_ back?
Everything, like all programs installed, all desktop icons, Windows
settings - everything?

And he adds...

Last year I had a HD die. I had a "full backup" on an external HD,
and I thought I was safe. I got a replacement drive, formatted it,
got it booted, and then started to restore the "full backup". Turns
out that I couldn't put the computer back like it was with the "full
backup" - you can't copy the Windows registry file. So all of that
was worthless. I did get back the data but nothing else. Everything
had to be installed again. Some were from CDs, some were downloads.
Many of the things for which I had the original CD, I had downloaded
updates. I spent about four weeks trying to get dozens of things
reinstalled. I still haven't gotten everything done.

What I want is that if the HD crashes, all I have to do is switch the
drive over and be back in business, with everything just as it had
been (except for the second HD). I'm an in dependant software
developer, so when my computer is down, I'm out of work.

And he adds...

PS, I have no experience with RAID, but I think that what I want is
basically RAID 1.

And finally...

Another PS: I'm using XP Home Media Center SP2, with all updates.

Jud:
I believe you've received some good responses from Rock & Dave as to various
approaches you can take to meet your basic objective which is to establish &
maintain a comprehensive backup system so that in the event of your
day-to-day working HDD becoming dysfunctional for any reason you would be
able to restore your system to a workable state in a reasonable amount of
time & effort. That's what you're about, isn't it?

I really don't think a RAID configuration would be best for you under those
circumstances. Without going into any detail why that would be so I would
encourage you to do some research on the net learning about RAID
configurations - their advantages & disadvantages as applied to backup
systems.

As both Rock & Dave have indicated, a disk imaging/disk cloning program such
as the Acronis True Image one would probably best meet your needs. Another
program which we've been using for the past few months and which greatly
impresses us is the Casper 4.0 program - a disk cloning program.

Using those types of programs you can clone the contents of your working HDD
to another HDD and have, in effect, a duplicate of the "source" disk,
including the OS, all programs & applications, and, of course, user-created
data. What better backup system can one have?

If you use the disk cloning process with the "destination" drive being
another internal HDD that destination HDD will be bootable. (You mention
adding another internal HDD to your system; it need not be an identical HDD
just one with sufficient disk capacity for the clone. And since you're
apparently working with a desktop PC you may be interested in equipping that
computer with a removable HDD - maybe even two - as suggested by Dave). On
the other hand, if you clone the contents of your source drive to an
*external* HDD, e.g., a USB external HDD, that drive will not be bootable
but you could clone the contents of the external HDD back to an internal HDD
for "bootability".

I trust you now have a reasonably clear idea as to how these disk cloning
programs work. We haven't touched on their "disk imaging" capability; that's
another aspect in which you may be interested.

I've previously posted step-by-step instructions for using the Acronis
program. If you (or anyone) is interested I'll reost them.
Anna

 

[Jud McCranie]

maintain a comprehensive backup system so that in the event of your
day-to-day working HDD becoming dysfunctional for any reason you would be
able to restore your system to a workable state in a reasonable amount of
time & effort. That's what you're about, isn't it?

Yes. I had a daily "full backup" to external drive, which I couldn't
use. I also have more frequent backups of changed data.

 

[Jud McCranie]

How often would you be cloning? Once a week? Once a month? Say you clone
once a week and the drive dies on the 6th day. You've lost 6 days worth of
work. Imaging can be done quickly on a daily basis with an incremental
image. Cloning takes much longer.

Probably once a week or anytime I add new software or some other major
change. I've always been in the habit of making copies of my data
every time it changes, so losing six days of data won't be a problem
for me. If I could just get the computer back to the way it was in
the last few days, I can restore my data files that have been altered
since then.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

If I add a second HD identical to the first, and use a drive image
program such as Norton Ghost, if the first HD fails, will I be able to
simply swap the second HD in for the first and have _everything_ back?
Everything, like all programs installed, all desktop icons, Windows
settings - everything?

For a quick recovery of *everything* on the Local Disk (i.e.
partition), make a clone - a byte-for-byte copy of the partition.
I use Future Systems Solutions' Casper XP, and their new
Casper 4.0 handles Vista as well. I've finally noticed that
subsequent "cloning" to an existing clone will update the clone
incrementally, so just the 1st cloning might take 10s of minutes,
while subsequent cloning might take a minute. To boot the
clone, either remove the primary HD, or adjust the BIOS's
HD Boot Order to put the secondary HD at the head of the
HD Boot Order. If the primary HD still works and you
know boot.ini syntax, you can also boot the clone in a multi-
boot scenario. Removable HD trays can be used to
facilitate the HD-removal technique. "Anna" uses this with
her business clients for great flexibility.

Since my OS's partition only takes 40GB, I keep 4 or more
clones on a large 2nd HD. For the 1st thru 3rd clone, I use
Primary partitions, and the one that is set "active" is the one
that gets control at boot time. For the 5th and higher clone,
I store them in the Extended Partition, and they can be booted
with one of the Primary partitions' boot files. To boot from
among multiple clones on a HD, though, you have to know
the boot.ini file's syntax, and that has been the subject of
many posts by me - search on "rdisk() boot.ini" and my name
as author in the microsoft.public.windowsxp.* NGs.

As with any clone in the WinNT/2K/XP family of OSes,
remove the HD containing the "parent" OS before starting up
the clone for the 1st time. Once the clone has been run once,
it can be run subsequently with the "parent" OS visible to it.
The running OS will call its own partition by whatever the
"parent" OS called its own partition, and it will re-name the
other partitions by some other letter while it's running. That
will not be a problem if there are no shortcuts which refer
to other partitions. When you remove the "parent's" HD,
no re-jumpering will be necessary (assuming PATA HDs),
as the BIOS will just use the next HD in the HD Boot Order
as the boot HD, and the clone OS will boot just as if it were
the "parent" OS (assuming no mult-boot scenario). No
adjustments are needed when removing a SATA HD as
well..

*TimDaniels*

 

[Anna]

For a quick recovery of *everything* on the Local Disk (i.e.
partition), make a clone - a byte-for-byte copy of the partition.
I use Future Systems Solutions' Casper XP, and their new
Casper 4.0 handles Vista as well. I've finally noticed that
subsequent "cloning" to an existing clone will update the clone
incrementally, so just the 1st cloning might take 10s of minutes,
while subsequent cloning might take a minute. To boot the
clone, either remove the primary HD, or adjust the BIOS's
HD Boot Order to put the secondary HD at the head of the
HD Boot Order. If the primary HD still works and you
know boot.ini syntax, you can also boot the clone in a multi-
boot scenario. Removable HD trays can be used to
facilitate the HD-removal technique. "Anna" uses this with
her business clients for great flexibility.

Since my OS's partition only takes 40GB, I keep 4 or more
clones on a large 2nd HD. For the 1st thru 3rd clone, I use
Primary partitions, and the one that is set "active" is the one
that gets control at boot time. For the 5th and higher clone,
I store them in the Extended Partition, and they can be booted
with one of the Primary partitions' boot files. To boot from
among multiple clones on a HD, though, you have to know
the boot.ini file's syntax, and that has been the subject of
many posts by me - search on "rdisk() boot.ini" and my name
as author in the microsoft.public.windowsxp.* NGs.

As with any clone in the WinNT/2K/XP family of OSes,
remove the HD containing the "parent" OS before starting up
the clone for the 1st time. Once the clone has been run once,
it can be run subsequently with the "parent" OS visible to it.
The running OS will call its own partition by whatever the
"parent" OS called its own partition, and it will re-name the
other partitions by some other letter while it's running. That
will not be a problem if there are no shortcuts which refer
to other partitions. When you remove the "parent's" HD,
no re-jumpering will be necessary (assuming PATA HDs),
as the BIOS will just use the next HD in the HD Boot Order
as the boot HD, and the clone OS will boot just as if it were
the "parent" OS (assuming no mult-boot scenario). No
adjustments are needed when removing a SATA HD as
well..

*TimDaniels*

Tim:
As I know you to be a long-time fan of Casper products I thought you (and
others who might be interested in a disk cloning program) would be
interested in our experience with the Casper 4.0 program. I prepared the
following "treatise" for one of our local computer clubs...

We've been working with the Casper 4.0 disk cloning program for about three
months now and by & large we've been quite impressed with this program.
First of all, potential users should note that this is a *disk cloning*
program - not a disk imaging program - in the sense that the program is
designed to create (for all practical purposes) a bit-for-bit copy of the
HDD so that if the recipient of the clone is an internal HDD, that cloned
HDD will be bootable and its data immediately accessible, unlike the
situation where a disk image is created on the recipient HDD and a recovery
process is necessary to restore the image to a bootable, data-accessible
state.

In general, the chief advantage of a disk-imaging approach rather than a
disk-cloning one has always been that following the initial creation of a
disk image, subsequent incremental disk images can be created and this
allows for a significant (and desirable) increase in backup speed as
compared with the time it takes for a user to create a disk clone every time
a user backs up his or her system.

There's also a relatively minor (in our view) advantage of creating disk
images rather than disk clones in that the resultant disk image file can be
compressed in size, thus saving some disk space. However, this advantage
generally disappears (or at least is substantially lessened) after a number
of incremental backup disk image files are created following the initial
(original) backup file ("archive"). And given today's relatively inexpensive
large-capacity hard drives we do not feel this advantage is of major import
for most users. Additionally, disk imaging obviously lends itself better to
using DVDs as the backup media, however given the rather large amount of
data usually being backed up by most users in today's systems most users
prefer to use hard drives (internal or external) as the recipient of the
disk image backup when employing that approach rather than disk cloning. In
any event if one's primary or exclusive interest is in disk imaging rather
than disk cloning then one need not consider the Casper 4.0 program.

The significant advantage of the Casper 4.0 disk cloning program over other
disk cloning programs that we're familiar with, e.g., Acronis True Image,
Symantec's Norton Ghost, is its ability to create *incremental* disk clones
following the creation of the original (first) disk clone. Employing what
Casper calls its "SmartClone" technology the program can create subsequent
disk clones of the source HDD usually at a fraction of the time it takes to
create a "full" disk clone. This results in a decided incentive for users to
undertake frequent complete backups of their systems knowing that they can
create "incremental" disk clones in a relatively short period of time.

The Casper 4.0 program's capability in creating these *incremental* disk
clones results in an enormous savings of time as compared to the usual time
it takes to create a cloned disk using other disk-cloning programs. Knowing
that this incremental disk cloning process will take only a relatively short
period of time provides the user with increased motivation to back up their
systems on a much more frequent & systematic basis than they might otherwise
do - a most desirable result as I think we would all agree.

Another positive feature we've discovered with the Casper 4.0 program - at
least based on our experience to date - is that unlike other disk cloning
programs such as the Acronis & Ghost programs, when the recipient of the
clone - the destination HDD - is an *internal* HDD, the user need not
disconnect the source HDD from the system and make an *initial* boot
following the disk cloning operation with only the destination HDD
connected. Again, we're referring here to a disk cloning operation where the
recipient of the clone (the "destination" drive) has been an *internal* HDD.

As many of us know, there has been a problem with disk cloning programs in
general with this situation in that if immediately following the disk
cloning operation both the (internal) source & destination HDDs are
connected and an *initial* boot is made to the source drive, there can be a
subsequent problem with the destination drive in that it will fail to boot
if at a later time when it is the only HDD connected. Because of this
anomaly our advice - as well as from others including the developers of
these disk cloning programs - has heretofore always been to disconnect the
source HDD from the system immediately following the disk cloning operation
and make that initial boot with *only* the destination (internal) HDD
present. (And, of course, to determine that the clone has "took" - the
cloned HDD is bootable & functional).

While this problem does not always happen along the lines described above,
it does occur with sufficient frequency that we feel this cautionary note is
required. Note that where the recipient of the cloned contents of the source
HDD is an *external* HDD, such as a USB external HDD, this problem does not
exist since the USB external HDD is not ordinarily a bootable device.
Again - based on our experience with the Casper 4.0 program to date using a
fairly wide variety of systems together with both PATA & SATA HDDs in a
variety of combinations, e.g., SATA-to-SATA, PATA-to-PATA, SATA-to-PATA,
etc., we haven't experienced a single problem (as described above) in this
area.

Using the Casper program is simplicity itself. There's virtually no learning
curve in undertaking the disk cloning process as one navigates through the
few easy-to-understand screens with a final mouse-click on the button which
will trigger the disk-cloning process. After undertaking one or two
disk-cloning operations it should take the user no more than 20 seconds or
so to get to that point.

The program is not particularly inexpensive as disk cloning programs go.
Cost for a single-license is $49.95. AFAIK, the program is available for
download only from the developer at http://www.fssdev.com and this does not
include the "Casper Startup Disk" which sells for an additional $9.95. That
"Startup Disk" is a really essential piece of the program since in many
cases it would be the only way to effect a recovery of the system when the
installed Casper program could not be accessed from the Windows environment
because the program resides on a HDD that has failed or has become
unbootable. The usual scenario for using the Startup Disk is when the
recipient of the clone has been an external HDD - most likely a USB external
HDD - and the original source disk has become defective or dysfunctional
(unbootable) so that there is no opportunity to access the installed Casper
program. Since the USB external HDD containing the cloned contents of the
source drive is not bootable, one must use the Startup Disk in that
situation in order to clone the contents of the external HDD back to a
non-defective internal HDD in order to recover the system.

The developer does have a 30-day trial version available - see
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/. The trial version is somewhat
crippled but should give one some reasonable insight as to how the program
works. However note that the trial version does not include the program to
create the "Startup Disk" noted above.

This Casper 4.0 program is advertised as being compatible with Vista,
however, except for some cursory experience we've had using Casper with that
operating system, we feel we haven't had sufficient experience with that OS
to form any absolute judgment as to its effectiveness (or lack of) in that
environment. I will say the relatively few times we've used Casper in the
Vista OS with a number of different systems it has performed flawlessly.


Using the Startup Disk...
The Startup Disk will ordinarily be employed in those recovery-type
situations where the user cannot gain access to the installed Casper program
because the HDD to be restored (on which the Casper program resides) is
unbootable due to a corrupted operating system or has become
mechanically/electronically defective, and the drive that contains the disk
clone is a USB or Firewire external HDD which is ordinarily unbootable thus
preventing access to the installed Casper program from that device.

When using the Startup Disk remember to connect only the two HDDs that will
be involved in the disk-cloning (recovery) process; disconnect any other
storage device(s) from the system. And in booting up with the Startup Disk -
please be patient. It's a lengthy bootup process which can take up to as
much as 10 minutes (and perhaps even a trifle more!) before the initial
Casper screen appears. Thereafter the disk-cloning operation (recovery)
should go smoothly.
Anna

 

[Jud McCranie]

Ok, I suggest drive imaging, not cloning. I use Acronis True Image Home,
version 10. One approach is to full image the system once a week to an
external hard drive, then a nightly incremental image (which is just what
has been changed since the last incremental image). To restore to a bare
drive, for example if the hard driver crashes, install the drive, boot from
the ATI CD with the external hard drive connected and do the restore.

OK, I've ordered True Image 10. I was thinking that I would need to
install a second HD, but I do have an external HD that is big enough.
If I made the image to the external, and the HD crashed, would I be
able to install any replacement HD that was big enough, or would it
have to be identical?

Alternate between two different external drives. Keep one off site, the
other is used that week. Then switch. How many weeks worth of full and
incremental images will fit on the drive obviously depends on how much is to
be imaged, and how big is the external drive.

I have one external HD. I also back up new and changed data file
frequently over the network and back up to disc as needed (on site and
off site).

 

[Timothy Daniels]

We've been working with the Casper 4.0 disk cloning program
for about three months now and by & large we've been quite
impressed with this program. First of all, potential users should
note that this is a *disk cloning* program - not a disk imaging
program -

Has Casper changed? Casper XP could do either. - imaging
and cloning. I happily recently found out, though, that the
clone can be incrementally updated, as you have found with
Casper 4.0 ..

Another positive feature we've discovered with the Casper 4.0
program - at least based on our experience to date - is that unlike
other disk cloning programs such as the Acronis & Ghost programs,
when the recipient of the clone - the destination HDD - is an
*internal* HDD, the user need not disconnect the source HDD
from the system and make an *initial* boot following the disk cloning
operation with only the destination HDD connected. Again, we're
referring here to a disk cloning operation where the recipient of the
clone (the "destination" drive) has been an *internal* HDD.

I think you're equating "internal" with IDE PATA/SATA, and
"external" with USB. Remember that SATA HDs can be put
into an external enclosure and run as if it were "internal" in every
way. And since very few BIOSes can boot from a USB HD,
can you really call a USB-resident copy of an OS a "clone"?

As many of us know, there has been a problem with disk cloning
programs in general with this situation in that if immediately following
the disk cloning operation both the (internal) source & destination
HDDs are connected and an *initial* boot is made to the source drive,
there can be a subsequent problem with the destination drive in that
it will fail to boot if at a later time when it is the only HDD connected.

The problem is with an initial boot to the *destination* drive - the
one containing the clone. It seems to randomly set some of its
file table entries to point to files in the "parent's" file structure if it
can "see" its "parent". Editing the clone's files then end up as edits
to the "parent's" files. And when the "parent" partition is removed,
suddenly the clone can't find the files. But you can boot the "parent"
as much as you want with the clone visible to it, and no such
confusion of pointers occurs. That means that immediately after
the cloning operation, you can use the "parent" OS to edit files in
the clone - such as the clone's boot.ini file - with no problem. But
when it comes time to test the clone for the 1st time, hide the
"parent" OS in some way.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rock]

OK, I've ordered True Image 10. I was thinking that I would need to
install a second HD, but I do have an external HD that is big enough.
If I made the image to the external, and the HD crashed, would I be
able to install any replacement HD that was big enough, or would it
have to be identical?

It has to be large enough to accomodate the size of the partitions you are
going to restore. It doesn't have to be identical.

<snip>

 

[Anna]

Has Casper changed? Casper XP could do either. - imaging
and cloning. I happily recently found out, though, that the
clone can be incrementally updated, as you have found with
Casper 4.0 ..

Anna's response...
As I've indicated, the Casper 4.0 program is a disk cloning program. Our
experience with Casper XP had been less than salutory since we ran into a
number of issues with that program in an XP environment and we stopped using
it some time ago, preferring to continue to use the Norton Ghost 2003
program and subsequently the Acronis True Image program.

I think you're equating "internal" with IDE PATA/SATA, and
"external" with USB. Remember that SATA HDs can be put
into an external enclosure and run as if it were "internal" in every
way. And since very few BIOSes can boot from a USB HD,
can you really call a USB-resident copy of an OS a "clone"?

Anna responds...
I fully understand that a SATA HDD installed in a SATA-designed external
enclosure and using SATA-to-SATA connectivity between the enclosure & the
computer's motherboard's SATA (or eSATA) connector is considered an
*internal* HDD in that it retains all the capability of a "true" internal
HDD. It is, of course, one of the great advantages of using a SATA HDD in
that kind of hardware environment.

When a disk-cloning program, be it Casper, or Acronis, or Ghost, "clones"
the contents of the source disk to a destination disk such as a USB external
HDD, we consider the contents of the data now residing on the USBEHD a
"clone", albeit in an unbootable device to be sure. Whether the semantics
are right in this situation I don't know. We do know that cloning those
aforementioned contents residing on the USBEHD to an internal HDD will
create a bootable, functional internal HDD. As I believe you know, we prefer
(and encourage others as well) to equip our desktop PCs with removable HDDs
so that we get (in our opinion) the best of all worlds.

The problem is with an initial boot to the *destination* drive - the
one containing the clone. It seems to randomly set some of its
file table entries to point to files in the "parent's" file structure
if it
can "see" its "parent". Editing the clone's files then end up as edits
to the "parent's" files. And when the "parent" partition is removed,
suddenly the clone can't find the files. But you can boot the "parent"
as much as you want with the clone visible to it, and no such
confusion of pointers occurs. That means that immediately after
the cloning operation, you can use the "parent" OS to edit files in
the clone - such as the clone's boot.ini file - with no problem. But
when it comes time to test the clone for the 1st time, hide the
"parent" OS in some way.

Anna responds...
Tim, as I thought I explained in my "treatise" - based on our experience to
date with the Casper 4.0 program (about three months now), we have yet to
run into that problem as we did with every disk cloning program we've used
in the past. We've probably performed more than one hundred disk cloning
operations over this time in a variety of systems using a variety of PATA -
SATA HDDs in various configurations. In every case immediately following the
disk-cloning operation, we booted the system with *both* drives (source &
destination) connected - something we ordinarily would not do with the other
disk cloning programs because of the (potential) problem I detailed and with
which you're familiar. In every case where we later booted to the
newly-cloned drive we did not encounter a boot problem as we sometimes
experienced with other disk cloning programs when both the source &
destination drives were still connected immediately following the
disk-cloning operation and a boot was made to the source HDD. I'm hopeful
that this unbroken string of successes will continue since this is a real
advantage to this program as compared with other disk-cloning programs.
Anna

 

[Timothy Daniels]

...
Anna responds...
Tim, as I thought I explained in my "treatise" - based on our experience to
date with the Casper 4.0 program (about three months now), we have yet to
run into that problem as we did with every disk cloning program we've used
in the past. We've probably performed more than one hundred disk cloning
operations over this time in a variety of systems using a variety of PATA -
SATA HDDs in various configurations. In every case immediately following the
disk-cloning operation, we booted the system with *both* drives (source &
destination) connected - something we ordinarily would not do with the other
disk cloning programs because of the (potential) problem I detailed and with
which you're familiar. In every case where we later booted to the
newly-cloned drive we did not encounter a boot problem as we sometimes
experienced with other disk cloning programs when both the source &
destination drives were still connected immediately following the
disk-cloning operation and a boot was made to the source HDD. I'm hopeful
that this unbroken string of successes will continue since this is a real
advantage to this program as compared with other disk-cloning programs.
Anna

You miss my point, Anna. You wrote: "...and an *initial* boot
is made to the source drive,..." I then pointed out that the problem
does NOT affect the source drive - ever! It affects the *destination*
drive if the *destination* drive (containing the clone) is booted for
its first time with its "parent" OS visible to it. You merely wrote
"source" when you meant to write "destination". I was pointing out
a typo.

As for the random errors after booting the clone for its first run
while its "parent" OS is visible to it, they can be *very* subtle. I
found that there might be just a couple text or .doc files affected,
and that you could very well *never* discover it until you try to
access those particular files perhaps years later after the "parent"
OS's partition had been reformatted. Indeed, the only way to
guarantee that the problem has not occurred would be to do a
byte-for-byte comparison between the entirety of the original
and clone partitions. Think of it: Some obscure .doc file that
you're keeping for legal reasons and which you believe resides
on your clone system, turns out to have been instead the original
file in the "parent's" partition - the one you reformatted yesterday.
And by wiping it off the original partition, you destroyed the file
that you *thought* was on the clone partition. How would you
know that it was gone until you tried to access it with the "parent"
HD disconnected or reformatted? In my case, I was editing what
I thought was a .doc file on my clone partition, but it turned out to
be the original file back on the "parent" partition because when I
disconnected the original HD, the file suddenly became inaccessible
on the clone! I also found that a few archived newsgroup postings
to have disappeared. This random and sparse occurrence is what
makes the cause of the problem so elusive, and even if the clone
boots and runs fine, there may be some obscure file in the clone's
file structure that is represented in its file table as a pointer to the
original file on the original partition.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Anna]

You miss my point, Anna. You wrote: "...and an *initial* boot
is made to the source drive,..." I then pointed out that the problem
does NOT affect the source drive - ever! It affects the *destination*
drive if the *destination* drive (containing the clone) is booted for
its first time with its "parent" OS visible to it. You merely wrote
"source" when you meant to write "destination". I was pointing out
a typo.

Tim:
As far as I can determine there was no "typo" in my comments re this issue.
I am fully aware that that if a problem manifests itself in this type of
situation it will affect the destination HDD, i.e., the recipient of the
cloned contents of the source HDD. But the problem has its genesis when the
user, immediately following the disk-cloning operation, boots the system
with both the source & destination drives connected. The system *will* boot
to the source HDD without any problem in that scenario but *at a later date*
there will be the potential problem of the newly-cloned destination HDD
being unable to boot when *solely* connected to the system. If I didn't make
that clear in my previous post, I'm trying to do so now.

One added thought...
The "problem" referred to is erratic in nature. We've encountered countless
situations where no boot problem subsequently existed re the newly-cloned
HDD regardless of whether that drive had been connected together with the
source HDD immediately following the disk-cloning operation and the initial
boot was made to the source HDD. We've experienced many instances where that
destination drive subsequently functioned just fine.

In any event, as I previously indicated...using the Casper 4.0 disk cloning
program over the past nearly four months with a wide variety of drives and
different systems, we have not encountered single instance of a problem in
this area. Assuming this desirable state of affairs continues indefinitely
it's a real plus for the program.


Tim writes...

As for the random errors after booting the clone for its first run
while its "parent" OS is visible to it, they can be *very* subtle. I
found that there might be just a couple text or .doc files affected,
and that you could very well *never* discover it until you try to
access those particular files perhaps years later after the "parent"
OS's partition had been reformatted. Indeed, the only way to
guarantee that the problem has not occurred would be to do a
byte-for-byte comparison between the entirety of the original
and clone partitions. Think of it: Some obscure .doc file that
you're keeping for legal reasons and which you believe resides
on your clone system, turns out to have been instead the original
file in the "parent's" partition - the one you reformatted yesterday.
And by wiping it off the original partition, you destroyed the file
that you *thought* was on the clone partition. How would you
know that it was gone until you tried to access it with the "parent"
HD disconnected or reformatted? In my case, I was editing what
I thought was a .doc file on my clone partition, but it turned out to
be the original file back on the "parent" partition because when I
disconnected the original HD, the file suddenly became inaccessible
on the clone! I also found that a few archived newsgroup postings
to have disappeared. This random and sparse occurrence is what
makes the cause of the problem so elusive, and even if the clone
boots and runs fine, there may be some obscure file in the clone's
file structure that is represented in its file table as a pointer to
the
original file on the original partition.

*TimDaniels*

I suppose anything is possible. There are so many reasons why files become
corrupted and/or inaccessible in a PC environment that it boggles the mind.
At least to date, we have not experienced any problems along the lines you
mention with respect to the Casper 4.0 disk-cloning program that we could
trace to the issue we've been discussing. At least none that I could
discern. Admittedly we've had only rather limited experience with the
program as I've indicated but so far - so good.
Anna