TIP: How I make a bootable HDD image copy

[WinGuy]

I thought I'd share some information and the method I've learned (the hard
way) concerning how to make a bootable copy (image or clone) of a hard disk
drive (HDD) onto a new and bigger HDD. Understand that the image copy will
only work in the same computer, or one having the exact same hardware.



This is important. Before making an image, make sure that the source drive
has been thoroughly checked for bad sectors and that XP is allowed to
automatically repair any other errors it finds. Sorry, but I advise later on
in this article to do that once again after you've made the image to a new
drive. Maxtor and WD both recommend trying that, as well as a defrag, if the
image fails. I recommend doing it before even trying to make an image.



First of all, it's important to note that XP natively only recognizes the
1st 120 Gigs. If you have a larger drive then you need to partition it into
sections no larger than 120 Gigs each. But Maxtor and Western Digital do
have the ability to modify the XP Registry so that drives larger than 120
Gigs can be used, so long as the drive is not SCSI. If it is a SCSI drive
then the SCSI controller card must be of the type that can recognize drives
greater than 120 Gigs in size. The printed instructions that come with
Maxtor and WD drives both warn that trying to format and use drives larger
than 120 Gigs can result in data loss if the XP Registry is not first
modified to support such big drives before. The WD utility will
automatically install the Registry fix if it is needed, but you must obtain
the fix for "big drives" if you are using a Maxtor, and you can get it from
here:

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software Downloads

under the ATA Hard Drives Select Utility drop-down box.



When you install the Windows version of the WD utility it will modify the
Registry, if it needs it, before it begins the image process (it will ask
for permission to do so) if it detects a WD "big drive" over 120 Gigs. If
the HDD that will receive the image is a Maxtor, use their utilities (and
vice versa if it's a WD).



Also be aware that at least 6 times it has happened to me that any version
of Microsoft Office 10 will require reinstallation of its components after
an image has been made of a HDD. I don't know why, but I suspect MS is
looking at record of the serial number of the original HDD that Office was
installed onto. So have all the Office CD's and the activation key available
before you do an image of a HDD that has Office 10 or greater.



Install and use the Windows version of the software that the HDD manufacture
(Maxtor or WD) provides, per their written instructions. You should use
MSConfig to turn off everything, and physically disconnect from the
internet, before you use the HDD image utility (you can turn them back on
after doing the image). If imaging to a Maxtor, run that mentioned "big
drive" Registry modifying utility before doing the image. Your Maxtor drive
probably will have to be connected (as a slave drive) before the big drive
utility will work, or at least the C: drive must already be a Maxtor. I
think but I am not sure that once the Maxtor big drive Registry modifying
utility is run then XP will recognize any brand of HDD that is greater than
120 Gigs in size. WD will install the big drive mod when you install its
Windows based software if it detects a WD drive when you run that utility.



That's it, go ahead and make the image to your new Maxtor or WD drive. But
Maxtor and WD don't tell you this tip that I'll tell you now. Many times I've
done an image and ended up with BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) upon or shortly
after 1st boot of the new imaged drive. The way to avoid this is,
immediately after the image is performed, leave the new drive connected as a
slave, reboot, tell XP to check that new drive fully for bad sectors and to
automatically fix any errors it finds (yes, do it again). I suspect that
this operation actually modifies volume information to be consistent with
the new drive instead of what information about a volume had been imaged,
but I don't know for sure. All I know is that it should be done before the
1st boot of the new drive or weird errors may later crop up even if a BSOD
doesn't occur right away. Do things differently if you wish, but if you BSOD
at some later point then don't say I didn't warn you! After that, configure
the new imaged drive as a boot drive, and boot it. Check to see if Office is
working ok, if not then reinstall it. Everything else should be working ok,
I've seen no other problems with imaging except with Office 10 so far.



Thoroughly check that everything is working ok, do updates, etc. Only when
you are fully convinced that everything is working correct would it be ok to
stop depending upon the original C: drive that got imaged.



Winguy

 

[Timothy Daniels]

First of all, it's important to note that XP natively only recognizes the
1st 120 Gigs...

SP1 for WinXP took care of the 137GB size limitation by implementing
48-bit Logical Block Addressing for ATAPI disk drives. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
If your Windows XP has SP1 or SP2, you needn't worry about the
137GB size limit for hard drives.

Also be aware that at least 6 times it has happened to me that
any version of Microsoft Office 10 will require reinstallation of
its components after an image has been made of a HDD.
I don't know why, but I suspect MS is looking at record of the
serial number of the original HDD that Office was installed onto.

I have Office XP Pro, which I believe is Office 10, and it
seems to work in a cloned WinXP Pro system. At least
Access seems to work. Does anything other than the BIOS
know what a hard drive's serial no. is?

That's it, go ahead and make the image to your new Maxtor or
WD drive. But Maxtor and WD don't tell you this tip that I'll tell
you now. Many times I've done an image and ended up with
BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) upon or shortly after 1st boot
of the new imaged drive. The way to avoid this is, immediately
after the image is performed, leave the new drive connected as
a slave, reboot, tell XP to check that new drive fully for bad sectors
and to automatically fix any errors it finds (yes, do it again). I
suspect that this operation actually modifies volume information
to be consistent with the new drive instead of what information
about a volume had been imaged, but I don't know for sure. All I
know is that it should be done before the 1st boot of the new drive
or weird errors may later crop up even if a BSOD doesn't occur
right away. Do things differently if you wish, but if you BSOD at
some later point then don't say I didn't warn you!

Another way to get around the "joining" of the new clone to its
"parent" at the clone's 1st startup is to make the "parent"
invisible by disconnecting the "parent's" power cable or data
cable before starting up the clone for the 1st time. Thereafter,
the clone can start up with its "parent" visible to it with no
problem.

After that, configure the new imaged drive as a boot drive,
and boot it.

If you mean to physically replace the original drive with the
new clone drive, that works, but it's not necessary. You can
use WinXP's (or NT's or 2K's) multi-booting boot manager
to boot up any number of OSes in many partitions on many
hard drives in the system, but it takes some knowledge of
the boot.ini file and/or adjusting the BIOS's boot sequence,
and for some cases, setting the "active" partition flag.

*TimDaniels*

 

[WinGuy]

SP1 for WinXP took care of the 137GB size limitation by implementing
48-bit Logical Block Addressing for ATAPI disk drives. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
If your Windows XP has SP1 or SP2, you needn't worry about the
137GB size limit for hard drives.

Ok. I just thought it prudent to apply the registry mod if the WD utility
indicates its need, was my intended communication. Applying the Maxtor big
drive registry patch might be redundant, but does meet manufactures
recommendations and could only be of help as applying it should not cause
any harm.

I have Office XP Pro, which I believe is Office 10, and it
seems to work in a cloned WinXP Pro system.

I've found strange degradations that accumulated with cloning, actually.
For example, I had one drive with 2 partitions, nearly full and a weekend
job that needed to finished by the next Monday but no way to notify the
customer in time that drive space was at a premium. I cloned the partition
that was drive D: to another physical hard drive, then cloned C: to another,
then repartitioned C: into just one drive and restored its content by
cloning its clone. The original drive had no problems with Office 10. The
first clone had some minor problems. The 2nd clone of C: insisted on a
reinstall of each module tried (Works, Excel, Money, etc.) but every thing
else on the 2nd clone of C: worked fine (except that ZoneAlarm developed
correctable amnesia), and only Office 10 was found to have been affected by
the cloning process to the extent that reinstall was necessary (it asked for
the CD's). It is only by deduction that I suspect, rightly or wrongly, that
the only 2 things different between the original C: and its 2nd clone was
the serial number of the drive it was installed onto, and the tracks and
sectors they originally resided at. It seemed that feature availability
decreased more with each cloning. But I don't know the actual reason or a
different solution other than reinstall of Office 10 modules for the
problem, and so mine is but hypothesis.

At least
Access seems to work. Does anything other than the BIOS
know what a hard drive's serial no. is?

There is an API that can be called to discover that information. Or a
program could simply redirect a dos style directory command to a text file,
and parse it.

Another way to get around the "joining" of the new clone to its
"parent" at the clone's 1st startup is to make the "parent"
invisible by disconnecting the "parent's" power cable or data
cable before starting up the clone for the 1st time. Thereafter,
the clone can start up with its "parent" visible to it with no
problem.

That's what the manufactures directions say on screen at the end of the
cloning process -- disconnect the source and configure jumpers and then boot
the clone. Many times for me the result was BSOD and there were times BSOD
did not occur, too. Following the procedure I gave eliminated the BSOD the
next go around with the same drives, in all cases. I felt that observation
to be significant, especially when repeated several times more with
different computers. Following the procedure I gave, I've never again
experienced BSOD upon or very shortly following the initial boot of a clone.
I don't explain it and I admit that I don't explain it, although I
hypothenized as to why BSOD might occur when it should not. Perhaps it was
all statistical chance and the procedure really is not necessary. In which
case it should not have impacted the 2nd and successful clone attempts. In
any case it surely can not hurt, and it can only do no harm or it can help.

If you mean to physically replace the original drive with the
new clone drive, that works, but it's not necessary. You can
use WinXP's (or NT's or 2K's) multi-booting boot manager
to boot up any number of OSes in many partitions on many
hard drives in the system, but it takes some knowledge of
the boot.ini file and/or adjusting the BIOS's boot sequence,
and for some cases, setting the "active" partition flag.

*TimDaniels*

That is correct in entirety, Tim. You know your stuff. My article was about
cloning a bootable drive, but not about how to add another a parallel
bootable operating system. Someone who would be adjusting content of the
boot.ini file was beyond the level of expertise I was targeting in
readership. I had more in mind the average joe who just felt better having a
bootable backup spare tire available, and knowing how to make it so, and
having some confidence going into a time consuming operation that the
resultant clone would not be likely to BSOD or otherwise malfunction (and
also to warn of a possible seemingly unavoidable problem, such as I've
experienced several times with Office 10).

Manufactures do recommend doing a full chkdsk and defrag upon the source
drive if the clone fails. I always do a full check, including for bad
sectors, on the source drive before I clone it but I've yet to find defrag
of the source boot drive necessary to avoid a BSOD upon the 1st boot of a
clone and so I don't bother taking the labor time and I didn't recommend
doing so. The BSOD problem was not impacted by checking for errors and bad
sectors upon the source drive, though, and so it still had to be performed
on the cloned drive (and so I recommend it) as I stipulated in the
procedure. The clone is unavoidably defragged as it is created, anyway (a
good reason to do a disk cleanup of the source drive before creating the
clone).

Your point about boot of multiple XP operating systems might be of interest
to someone, too. Most people never see boot.ini in action, unless they
install the Recovery Console and thus see the boot options (or they do a
parallel install of XP for some reason). That was a bit beyond the intent of
the article, though.<g>

Winguy

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"WinGuy":

A couple comments -

1) If applications such as Office were upset by cloning,
wouldn't hard drive manufacturers recommend
re-installation of entire systems rather than cloning
when upgrading with their product?

2) The cloning process copies sector-for-sector from
one hard drive to another, beneath the level of the file
structure - which is carried along on top of it. If there
there is any file fragmentation, it is carried along as
well because the cloning process doesn't look at the
data (the file structure in this case) that it is transferring.
The file structure does come into play, though, when
doing a "backup" function, in which the image file is
stored (perhaps with compression) as just another
file in the file structure.

Your effort to share your practical experience with others
is admirable, Winguy, and please keep it up. One has to
be careful, though, that one is sure of the need for a
particular procedure and that the good that follows is not
actually the result of some other coincident process or
condition.

*TimDaniels*

 

[WinGuy]

"WinGuy":

A couple comments -

1) If applications such as Office were upset by cloning,
wouldn't hard drive manufacturers recommend
re-installation of entire systems rather than cloning
when upgrading with their product?

I didn't claim to understand the cause, and I'm not going to argue the
matter. It should be demonstrable, particularily with the Office 10 version
of Works. Instead of drilling me, get a few differing systems on it and
give it a try yourself. Clone the clone and boot that 2nd clone and try all
the components, see if it ends up asking for the CD or not. Regardless of
the outcome of your experiments, my advice related to the issue at hand can
do no harm, can it?

2) The cloning process copies sector-for-sector from
one hard drive to another, beneath the level of the file
structure - which is carried along on top of it. If there
there is any file fragmentation, it is carried along as
well because the cloning process doesn't look at the
data (the file structure in this case) that it is transferring.
The file structure does come into play, though, when
doing a "backup" function, in which the image file is
stored (perhaps with compression) as just another
file in the file structure.

Both the Maxtor and the WD disk copy (clone) utilites defrag as they create
the bootable clone, as they actually copy file by file (you can see on the
status bar, with WD anyhow, which file is currently being copied during the
process). The sectors are recalculated, it is not a true sector image copy
per se and the fragmentation is definitely not carried along by those 2
utilities. This is why those 2 utilites will create a bootable image drive
onto a 20gig HDD when the source is an 80gig HDD but contains only 15gigs of
content (and the utilities don't tell you that you can do that, either, but
you can). You can see that defrag occured by just running the analyze part
of defrag on both the source and the cloned drives, too.

Your effort to share your practical experience with others
is admirable, Winguy, and please keep it up. One has to
be careful, though, that one is sure of the need for a
particular procedure and that the good that follows is not
actually the result of some other coincident process or
condition.

*TimDaniels*

I'm starting to feel a little challenged by your ongoing critique. If you
find nothing that will do harm in what I've said about how I make a clone
HDD, then why is that not being careful enough for you and why are you being
so critical and bringing up technical details that are not germane to the
intent of my topic? Why must I (or anyone else who posts in this newsgroup)
be sure of anything at all beyond the question of if a procedure will or
will not or might cause harm? My article was about my method, my
observations, and my suspicions about why I reparably found a procedure to
be necessary. People can take it or leave it, or refer to it if some other
method does not work as expected. It was not intended as a technical or in
detail explanation of the low level goings on that occur during usage of a
disk copy utility. I doubt that most people would care. If something I've
said in that article was flat out wrong then point it out and back up the
claim with references and I'll then thank you for pointing it out. Happy
Holidays to you and yours, Tim.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I'm starting to feel a little challenged by your ongoing critique.

If you feel challenged now, try posting your material in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage.

*TimDaniels*

 

[WinGuy]

If you feel challenged now, try posting your material in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage.

*TimDaniels*

Regarding the part about big drive support in our discussion, Tim. Today, in
a different thread in this newsgroup, I think I identified why we have one
disagreement and it's because of a conflict between what Microsoft says and
what Maxtor says regarding big drives being used with SP1 or earlier. See
this link, where Maxtor very specifically says that a big drive support
utility must be used for drives greater in size than 137gb when using SP1 or
earlier. They don't mention SP2, but the article has no date associated with
it that I saw, and so it might have been written before SP2 came out and for
all I know Maxtor might now say it's also needed with SP2.

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...tware Downloads/ATA Hard Drives&downloadID=11

But if you follow the link to Microsoft, at the bottom of that article by
Maxtor, Microsoft specifically says such a fix is not needed for SP1. This
is a conflict between what a device manufacture and Microsoft say about big
drive support. Perhaps this is why we have disagreed on this particular
issue. When I spoke of this yesterday in this thread, all I really had to
support my position that the registry mod is indeed needed with SP1 was my
own experience when trying to clone to a 160gb HD. Unfortunately, that
system was at SP2 level! So go figure!!! I don't have the answer of why the
big drive mode was needed for a system at SP2 level, I just have the past
experience to go on. I never clone without a source drive first being fully
updated, free of virus, etc. And I don't clone until a drive is pristine in
its content, unless the drive is in danger of imminent failure. And the
computer that does the cloning better be able to support big drives at all
times if one is in the computer and connected. So by inference that *might*
make installing, or doing a repair install of, XP from CD very problematic
if XP on the CD doesn't support big drives and for some reason it tries to
access a sector beyond the 137gb limit.

Thus my position remains unchanged. If it can not hurt a malfunctioning
computer and it might help, then do it. Going one step further, I said
previously that applying the mod can not hurt and it might help and I gave
my reasons for it. That was empirical evidence based upon personal technical
experience, Tim. I'm not here to argue or to purposefully tell an untruth,
to make anyone look bad, or to tell people things that might mess up their
sometimes very precious data. I really have better things to do than any of
those things! When someone is adamant about a procedure or about specific
information it is better to show why it is wrong than to say things that
cast negative inference upon creditability. I'm really knowledgeable and
very highly experienced in this expertise. But not even I can keep up with
the millions of man hours that have been put into the various Windows
operating systems, and I occasionally I am wrong or I just don't know
sometimes. I try to make it known if I'm unsure of the reason for something.
In this topic I've seen no proof to the contrary and so I don't think I've
been wrong at all.

That is why I felt a little challenged, to put it mildly, at some of your
responses where you did not provide informational links in support regarding
the issues in this thread that we disagree on. I gave information or
procedures to empirically verify or to disprove what I claim as facts.
That's really the best that I can do.

Winguy

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[.....] a conflict between what Microsoft says and what Maxtor says regarding big drives being used
with SP1 or earlier. See this link, where Maxtor
very specifically says that a big drive support utility must be used for drives greater in size than
137gb when using SP1 or earlier.

Yup, Microsoft and Maxtor don't agree on what is
needed for 48-bit Logical Block Addressing. I've
just called Maxtor technical support on this, and the
rep did read the articles at both the Microsoft and
the Maxtor websites, and his opinion was that
Maxtor offerred the redundant software download
for WinXP with SP1 just to cover itself because some
people *think* they have SP1 installed when, in fact,
they do not. IOW, it doesn't hurt, and it might help.

But Western Digital seems to agree with Maxtor on the
need to make a registry adjustment even with SP1:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...D00NCZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPTE4NCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

It would be interesting to hear from one of the MVPs
on this.

*TimDaniels*

 

[WinGuy]

[.....] a conflict between what Microsoft says and what Maxtor says
regarding big drives being used
with SP1 or earlier. See this link, where Maxtor
very specifically says that a big drive support utility must be used for
drives greater in size than
137gb when using SP1 or earlier.

Yup, Microsoft and Maxtor don't agree on what is
needed for 48-bit Logical Block Addressing. I've
just called Maxtor technical support on this, and the
rep did read the articles at both the Microsoft and
the Maxtor websites, and his opinion was that
Maxtor offerred the redundant software download
for WinXP with SP1 just to cover itself because some
people *think* they have SP1 installed when, in fact,
they do not. IOW, it doesn't hurt, and it might help.

But Western Digital seems to agree with Maxtor on the
need to make a registry adjustment even with SP1:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...D00NCZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPTE4NCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

It would be interesting to hear from one of the MVPs
on this.

*TimDaniels*

Yes, it would be interesting if MVP's will comment on this potential big
drive issue." Maybe they're conducting experiments and conversing amongst
themselves before saying anything, which would be prudent but can take many
hours at minimum. I tried several times to use the link you gave, but each
time it eventually timed out. This is a world-wide newsgroup, so perhaps a
good percentage of readers are trying to use the link. I'll try later. Just
curious, I accept without qualification what you said. That would be kind of
a lame excuse if that opinion turns out to be true (although I'd feel better
if it is true) because I'd expect a tech at Maxtor (or at WD) to know that
the user could simply right-click on My Computer, choose Properties, and
read right there what (if any) SP level the computer is at. And the user
would have to be able to do that else the user would not be able to download
and install the Maxtor supplied registry patch. So I don't really know if MS
has a problem with big drives in SP1 and/or maybe SP2, or not. But I do have
personal experience that points to Maxtor being correct and that it *is*
needed with SP1 - at least in some cases. I want very much to be wrong about
the need for the registry patch even with SP1. I'm now wondering if an
"upgrade" might fail to apply support for big drives in some installation
cases if the registry patch didn't already exist, but that a "clean" install
might not require a patch ... and if so if that criteria might hold with SP2
too. I don't know the answer to that, either.

But if it is needed in some cases with SP1 and maybe SP2, then some people
getting nice shiny "big drives" under the tree might get a "big surprise."


Winguy

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Yes, it would be interesting if MVP's will comment on this potential big drive issue." Maybe they're conducting experiments and
conversing amongst themselves before saying anything, which would be prudent but can take many hours at minimum. I tried several
times to use the link you gave, but each time it eventually timed out...

It works on *my* PC by just clicking on it. Perhaps your news reader
is truncating the URL. I have my line wrap set at maximum length for
just that putpose, and I put in my own carriage returns as I type. You
can also navigate there by going to www.WesternDigital.com and going
to Support/KnowledgeBase/(click "Size Limitation" under Search
Knowledge Base)/"Why is the full capacity of EIDE drives larger than
137GB (128GB binary) not recognized in Windows 2000/XP".

*TimDaniels*

 

[Enkidu]

Yes, it would be interesting if MVP's will comment on this potential big
drive issue." Maybe they're conducting experiments and conversing amongst
themselves before saying anything, which would be prudent but can take many
hours at minimum.

I think you are a little confused over what MVPs are. MVPs are
volunteers. There is no lab somewhere full of MVPs madly trying
things. There are MVP private newsgroups, true, but discussions are
similar (but a bit more technical) on the closed groups.

I'm an MVP (Directory Services) and if I want to do tests on a > 137GB
drive, I'd have to go buy one. I'm not saying that a 200GB drive
wouldn't be nice for Christmas, but if I got one, I'd not experiment
with it! Once I'd got it to work I'd share my experience on the
newsgroups though.

What you get with MVPs is *practical experience*. True, some of them
have been around for a while, and know a lot of "stuff" and some of
them do have the luxury of a lab setup (for their REAL work) and are
able to do some testing, but most can only wish for a lab setup.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[WinGuy]

It works on *my* PC by just clicking on it. Perhaps your news reader
is truncating the URL. I have my line wrap set at maximum length for
just that putpose, and I put in my own carriage returns as I type. You
can also navigate there by going to www.WesternDigital.com and going
to Support/KnowledgeBase/(click "Size Limitation" under Search
Knowledge Base)/"Why is the full capacity of EIDE drives larger than
137GB (128GB binary) not recognized in Windows 2000/XP".

*TimDaniels*

Heh. It was my ZoneAlarm Pro, actually. Something to do with doubleclick or
the like. Anyhow, went there and read. As you indicated, WD doesn't totally
clear the confusion either. Something is not being said, and what is being
said seems contradictory and the registry patch should not have to be
applied or enabled for SP1. Yet 2 major HDD manufactures provide it anyway,
one says it is needed with SP1 and the other says it needs to be enabled. Go
figure. So, I dunno. I guess it really doesn't matter, just apply it and all
will be ok. But now I wonder if it's always enabled "by default" when one
does a repair install from CD having SP1 or SP2. Not always? We see posts in
this NG about unfortunates who just did a reinstall and now of a sudden
their big drive seems to be trashed and unreadable ... maybe they're not
(totally) trashed, really, but somehow the registry patch has dropped out?

 

[WinGuy]

I think you are a little confused over what MVPs are. MVPs are
volunteers. There is no lab somewhere full of MVPs madly trying
things. There are MVP private newsgroups, true, but discussions are
similar (but a bit more technical) on the closed groups.

Not at all confused. It's a title given by MS primarily in thanks for having
been helpful (and for the most part accurate) freely and without
compensation. There's no certification involved as a requirement. A MVP
could be anyone at all. Many who want to become a MVP never get the title,
as it's not something one gets for taking some kind of test. Most don't get
anywhere near the thanks that they deserve. Many by virtue of the title take
the brunt of undeserved anger at MS itself.

I'm an MVP (Directory Services) and if I want to do tests on a > 137GB
drive, I'd have to go buy one.

I'm not MVP, don't want the title and that's why I hide behind a pseudonym
(don't want to be nominated). If my real name was googled in the NG's it
would be discovered just how long I've been at this sort of thing. I'm not
telling exactly but I'll go as far as to say that it's been a very long
time. Too long, I sometimes think. But the archives of MS know who I am,
we've had several chats over the decades. My favorite was when 98 would boot
normally, but would not boot in safe mode. That, as some know, is quite
impossible. And we never figured out why. But oh, did we try! Best MS
support I've ever received.

I'm not saying that a 200GB drive
wouldn't be nice for Christmas, but if I got one, I'd not experiment
with it!

I think I can relate to that! But I wouldn't be afraid to do so (while under
warranty!)

Once I'd got it to work I'd share my experience on the
newsgroups though.

That is what I tried to do when I opened this topic, which has morphed quite
a bit in 2 days.

What you get with MVPs is *practical experience*. True, some of them
have been around for a while, and know a lot of "stuff" and some of
them do have the luxury of a lab setup (for their REAL work) and are
able to do some testing, but most can only wish for a lab setup.

Cheers,

Cliff

So true, and IMHO valuable stuff.

Cheers,
Winguy