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Hard drive copy 3
- Thread starter ben64
- Start date
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Norton Ghost, PQ Drive Image, and some of the utilities you get with a new hard drive.
My personal preference is Ghost. Cheers,
Jim
My personal preference is Ghost. Cheers,
Jim
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BuckeyeComputers
Technical User
Ghost is a great utility but if your wanting to make an exact copy and are running windows98 or ME you can boot with the new drive as a slave then go to a dos prompt and at the c: prompt type
xcopy c:\*.* d:\*.* /s/c/h/e/r/k
assuming that there is only 1 partition per drive and drive letters are c: and D:
after copy is done put new drive as master and reboot.
if you get the message insert boot disk just boot with floppy and run fdisk and set active partition and escape out of fdisk and restart.
xcopy c:\*.* d:\*.* /s/c/h/e/r/k
assuming that there is only 1 partition per drive and drive letters are c: and D:
after copy is done put new drive as master and reboot.
if you get the message insert boot disk just boot with floppy and run fdisk and set active partition and escape out of fdisk and restart.
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xxcopy ( freeware ) from ,
Forum
Info
Start > Programs > MS-DOS Prompt .
Copy a command from the selection below & click paste in MS-DOS , then click Enter .
No need to close any programs down .
1st command , you get a copy of everything .
2nd command excludes Windows .
3rd command copies Windows only .
4th command excludes Windows Temporary Internet Files .
Adjust drive letters to suit .
1 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /CLONE
2 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /CLONE /Xwindows
3 . XXCOPY C:\Windows D:\Windows
4 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /Clone /x\windows\temp*
If you don't want to confirm all the overwrites ( you get 3 choices Y,N,A, Y ( yes )
overwrites that file , N ( No ) , A ( All ) overwrites everthing ) use the /yy switch after Clone .
Eg. XXCOPY /CLONE /YY C:\ X:\
Below applies if you want to make the new hard drive your main drive ( usually C )
Use the startup disk to boot the computer and when you are at the A:\
prompt type sys c: and press Enter. The required boot information will
be copied to the new disk and you have a working copy of the old hard
disk .
If the partition is not active , use fdisk , option 2 .
If the drive you copied was partitioned , ( ex. C has the Operating system , D has Programs E has
other files & so on ) the new drive is best partitioned the same way .
You can always change things around on the new drive later .
Xxcopy will not clone a Windows 2000 operating system volume , probably will not clone an XP OS .
The best tool for this now , is from Acronis , called TrueImage .
Forum
Info
Start > Programs > MS-DOS Prompt .
Copy a command from the selection below & click paste in MS-DOS , then click Enter .
No need to close any programs down .
1st command , you get a copy of everything .
2nd command excludes Windows .
3rd command copies Windows only .
4th command excludes Windows Temporary Internet Files .
Adjust drive letters to suit .
1 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /CLONE
2 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /CLONE /Xwindows
3 . XXCOPY C:\Windows D:\Windows
4 . XXCOPY C:\ D:\ /Clone /x\windows\temp*
If you don't want to confirm all the overwrites ( you get 3 choices Y,N,A, Y ( yes )
overwrites that file , N ( No ) , A ( All ) overwrites everthing ) use the /yy switch after Clone .
Eg. XXCOPY /CLONE /YY C:\ X:\
Below applies if you want to make the new hard drive your main drive ( usually C )
Use the startup disk to boot the computer and when you are at the A:\
prompt type sys c: and press Enter. The required boot information will
be copied to the new disk and you have a working copy of the old hard
disk .
If the partition is not active , use fdisk , option 2 .
If the drive you copied was partitioned , ( ex. C has the Operating system , D has Programs E has
other files & so on ) the new drive is best partitioned the same way .
You can always change things around on the new drive later .
Xxcopy will not clone a Windows 2000 operating system volume , probably will not clone an XP OS .
The best tool for this now , is from Acronis , called TrueImage .
jmatt, sorry, but xxcopy won't work. The drive won't be bootable, because xxcopy cannot write the MBR. I understand the bit at the end of your post, to fdisk and make active the drive, but you also need to fdisk /mbr and sys the drive to make it bootable.
BuckeyeComputers, same answer.
You need Norton Ghost, PQ Drive Image, Trueimage, or one of the utilities you get with a new hard drive, unless you want to try xxcopy and the added steps later. I guess it depends on your competence working in DOS with fdisk, and sys.com Cheers,
Jim
BuckeyeComputers, same answer.
You need Norton Ghost, PQ Drive Image, Trueimage, or one of the utilities you get with a new hard drive, unless you want to try xxcopy and the added steps later. I guess it depends on your competence working in DOS with fdisk, and sys.com Cheers,
Jim
BuckeyeComputers
Technical User
I have successfully copy more than 20 drives that way Comtech and have never had it fail except for a drive that was dying so badly that it was no longer acessable
If you want to copy an existing drive, and make it bootable, then xxcopy, fdisk, and whatever will usually work...PROVIDING the drive is FAT32.
If it's NTFS, then you need a 3rd party utility.
Fdisking to make the partition active doesn't matter if you have XP, but writing a proper MBR does, or it won't boot.
So, to summarize, the easy way is with Ghost or other utility.
The difficult way is with xxcopy or xcopy (beware truncated filenames and folder names).
Again, it depends on what OS, and what filesystem is on the original drive.
Buckeye, I didn't say it wouldn't work, I did say that it's much easier with a utility, depending on the users ability to work in DOS with some comfort level. Have you made an XP boot disk, and used the sys command from it? have you tried to use a 98 boot disk to sys an XP drive?
Too many pitfalls, and without knowing the filesystem and OS, you can't generalize.
Most of what you typed may as well be Sanskrit to someone who's never seen it. ;-) Cheers,
Jim
If it's NTFS, then you need a 3rd party utility.
Fdisking to make the partition active doesn't matter if you have XP, but writing a proper MBR does, or it won't boot.
So, to summarize, the easy way is with Ghost or other utility.
The difficult way is with xxcopy or xcopy (beware truncated filenames and folder names).
Again, it depends on what OS, and what filesystem is on the original drive.
Buckeye, I didn't say it wouldn't work, I did say that it's much easier with a utility, depending on the users ability to work in DOS with some comfort level. Have you made an XP boot disk, and used the sys command from it? have you tried to use a 98 boot disk to sys an XP drive?
Too many pitfalls, and without knowing the filesystem and OS, you can't generalize.
Most of what you typed may as well be Sanskrit to someone who's never seen it. ;-) Cheers,
Jim
Thanks comtech.
( I did finally find my ghost so i have the easy way out next time i have to do that.)
does the beware truncated ... mean that you have the potential to overwrite something because different long names could go to duplicate truncations?
( I did finally find my ghost so i have the easy way out next time i have to do that.)
does the beware truncated ... mean that you have the potential to overwrite something because different long names could go to duplicate truncations?
Xcopy will only use the 8.3 filename scheme if used through DOS.
If you're using a DOS window through 98 or XP, then you can use xcopy32, and retain file/foldernames up to 127 characters.
Even using the tools that come on a diskette with a new hard drive sometimes have troubles. Sure, they'll clone a drive, but still truncated to 8.3 so you end up with "Program Files", and "Progra~1" to sort out.
XXcopy doesn't have problems with longfilenames, and AFAIK, it won't do Win2k/XP, and for sure neither will do NTFS.
Ghost (2001 and up) will do just about any file system, even over a LAN. Cheers,
Jim
If you're using a DOS window through 98 or XP, then you can use xcopy32, and retain file/foldernames up to 127 characters.
Even using the tools that come on a diskette with a new hard drive sometimes have troubles. Sure, they'll clone a drive, but still truncated to 8.3 so you end up with "Program Files", and "Progra~1" to sort out.
XXcopy doesn't have problems with longfilenames, and AFAIK, it won't do Win2k/XP, and for sure neither will do NTFS.
Ghost (2001 and up) will do just about any file system, even over a LAN. Cheers,
Jim
btw comtech and anyone else - you do NOT have to fdisk /mbr a disk to make it bootable (just creating a partition will do fine). You DO have to create a relevant boot sector if you're not using a cloning technique (and sometimes if you are). Generally for win9x/ME this means running sys or format /S from dos. For NT/2k?XP just copying the files ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini to root of partition will geberally do it - but you may need to run fixboot from recovery console (for 2k/XP) or repair the boot sector for NT.
"Ghost (2001 and up) will do just about any file system, even over a LAN."
I'm not sure I can or want to convince my boss to let me reinstall win98 on a co-workers computer-but for my education-following scenario:
A small network-NT server.
My workstation win98se with a cd writer.
(I also have a copy of ghost 2001.)
Another "problem" workstation win98.
The "problem" workstation is experiencing intermittent spool32 errors. If I was to convince my boss to let me re-install win98 and apps on this system to deal with spool errors--
I could then ghost it over the network to my cd writer?
(So I'd have a clean reload for this system for future problem fixing.)
What would be different in this process than a drive to drive ghost in one machine?
I'm not sure I can or want to convince my boss to let me reinstall win98 on a co-workers computer-but for my education-following scenario:
A small network-NT server.
My workstation win98se with a cd writer.
(I also have a copy of ghost 2001.)
Another "problem" workstation win98.
The "problem" workstation is experiencing intermittent spool32 errors. If I was to convince my boss to let me re-install win98 and apps on this system to deal with spool errors--
I could then ghost it over the network to my cd writer?
(So I'd have a clean reload for this system for future problem fixing.)
What would be different in this process than a drive to drive ghost in one machine?
BuckeyeComputers
Technical User
Comtech is right when he talked about trunicating files, my suggestion was meant to run in pure dos just a dos windows for easy drive copy. pure dos will not reconize all the switches for copying loang file names. My bad when i didnt see the dos version as pure DOS
Ghosting over a LAN works, but you can't ghost to a burner.
Ghost an image, then burn it, then TEST IT, and if it works, you can format, and restore the image.
The idea with Ghost, is to get the system complete, all software and drivers loaded, working perfect. THEN ghost it somewhere, to a network drive, or an image, then burn it (or not). If you have the storage, just save the image somewhere.
If the system becomes unusable, just restore the image.
Of course any data saved on that system could be gone, so the data should be backed up somewhere as well.
The idea that not every machine has 2 drives in it, but is on a LAN, simplifies the process.
eg. I have one system with 150gb of storage, and 4 other systems, with drives between 10 and 30 gig each.
I image all the other systems to storage on the first, which can then be restored over the LAN without shuffling CD's. Of course, if the main machine craps out, I can put the storage drive into any of the other machines and restore their image, or restore it's own image from it's second or 3rd drive.
Clear as mud? Cheers,
Jim
Ghost an image, then burn it, then TEST IT, and if it works, you can format, and restore the image.
The idea with Ghost, is to get the system complete, all software and drivers loaded, working perfect. THEN ghost it somewhere, to a network drive, or an image, then burn it (or not). If you have the storage, just save the image somewhere.
If the system becomes unusable, just restore the image.
Of course any data saved on that system could be gone, so the data should be backed up somewhere as well.
The idea that not every machine has 2 drives in it, but is on a LAN, simplifies the process.
eg. I have one system with 150gb of storage, and 4 other systems, with drives between 10 and 30 gig each.
I image all the other systems to storage on the first, which can then be restored over the LAN without shuffling CD's. Of course, if the main machine craps out, I can put the storage drive into any of the other machines and restore their image, or restore it's own image from it's second or 3rd drive.
Clear as mud? Cheers,
Jim
well,
I don't know about ghosting across the lan yet--i think that's going to take me awhile to figure out.
I was able to burn directly to cds.
The system won't boot from the cd, so i'm going to have to learn how to make an ibm boot cd vs a pc dos boot cd.
I don't know how to make ghost explorer go across cd spans so I can't look at everything and I'm not willing to take the risk of a restore at the moment to test it.
But on the surface-if you can get all the setting right-it looks like you can start ghost-create a bootable cd and burn directly to however many cds it takes to store your data.
I don't know about ghosting across the lan yet--i think that's going to take me awhile to figure out.
I was able to burn directly to cds.
The system won't boot from the cd, so i'm going to have to learn how to make an ibm boot cd vs a pc dos boot cd.
I don't know how to make ghost explorer go across cd spans so I can't look at everything and I'm not willing to take the risk of a restore at the moment to test it.
But on the surface-if you can get all the setting right-it looks like you can start ghost-create a bootable cd and burn directly to however many cds it takes to store your data.
BuckeyeComputers
Technical User
Yes you can burn directly to cds using ghost, use a ghost boot disk to load the program then choose local disk >to image then change save location to cdrw drive and depending on the amount of data you have it will automatically span the cds. you dont have to make the cd bootable either but if you dont just keep the ghost boot floppy handy
I just realized that my old version of Ghost didn't burn to CD's, however my updated version does, even USB!
Sorry for the misconception. Cheers,
Jim
Sorry for the misconception. Cheers,
Jim
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