David, These are helpful observations. As with you, being able to restore without bothering my wife or waiting for her to get home from work etc sold me on this program. When you say you've restored to a partition you've made bigger? Did you increase the size of that partition with partition magic or did you delete it and then recreate with diskpart or through the G U I under disk management? If you had an old hard drive around I would be interested if you wiped it clean, created a partition of any size larger than the image on the DVD, and then tried to restore it. I've tried this on two different Acer machines it wont' lay it down. So the usefulness of this program at present for me is great as long as my hard drives hold up. I wish I could get the DVD option to work with a new/different hard drive. I've tried all combinations of no partitions, partitions not formatted, partitions formatted but not active, and partitions formatted and active. Does get frustrating.
thanks Al -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of David Ferrin Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:34 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary Here's what I know for what it's worth on the subject. I have restored an image in the past on to the same drive after resizing it's partition without any trouble at all. So far as the boot disk deal goes it is not at all accessible and you would need complete sited assistance and no at least according to my information using that method to restore a system is mainly for recovering a backup off an external hard drive and not from optical media. Yes the advantage of using an external hard drive for backup and restore is less expensive than using DVD disks I look at it as the cost of doing business so to speak. Also it is much faster all around do to the fact that there is no burning of images to removable media and as we all know hard drives are far faster I truly enjoy the fact that I can recover from a system melt down without bothering my wife or waiting until she returns home from work. There was another program available at the same time I was deciding to obtain image for windows but the only thing it could do was recover data to a non system disk. In other words it couldn't recover your system drive at all which in my opinion rendered it useless. David Ferrin www.jaws-users.com VIP Conduit Tech Support www.vipconduit.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan & Terrie Robbins" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:17 AM Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary Good morning folks, Well I'm finally getting around to posting on my progress regarding this issue. I promise to make it short. What I have found to date through research, and much trial & error is I have no trouble restoring an image as long as it goes back on the same hard drive, in the same machine, and with the same partitions in tact as when the image was created. I have only used the optical drive so I cannot speak to experiences using the DOS boot disk and then restoring the image from another hard drive etc. In my case, I was able to restore my system from the factory disks and then burn a new image and successfully reuse that as often as needed. However, as soon as I try using another hard drive, deleted and then create a new partition, or make a partition larger than what was present when creating the image it fails. Here are my questions to those who use the program differently. Is the DOS boot disk the program will create a generic Win XP bootable disk or only applicable to the machine it was created on? How much sighted assistance is needed with the DOS restore option and what exactly is involved? With the DOS option, can I restore from the DVD's I've already created and would that possibly go onto the hard drive whereas booting from the image DVD's will not? Let me know. thanks Al -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of Donald Marang Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 4:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary I have not replaced a drive like you are attempting to do. I do know that Image for Windows is designed to do just that operation. In fact, it should also make replacing the drive with a larger drive a breeze. I have also heard Leo LePorte walk people through the process on his "The Tech Guy" radio show / podcast. He uses Image for Windows as well (now a sponsor). Perhaps your problem is that some manufacturers place a fingerprint on the drive. I do not know if they place this in the master Boot Record, a small, hidden partition or just within the main partition. Perhaps a Google search for replacing a drive for that manufacturer would provide instructions. I know I have run across similar instructions in the past. Don Marang ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan & Terrie Robbins" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 9:44 AM Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary > David, > > After doing some research yesterday, I believe the source of > the conflict is in having multiple physical disk drives in > the machine I set the new image up in and then burned it. As > you know, the BIOS assigns drive #'s and in my case the are > 0 & 1. My suspicion is that when I go to restore the image > it is looking for a device numbered the same as on the > image. That may or may not be so. I consistently get the > same message "target device not found, press enter to > reboot." I'm wondering if the sightless restore of this > program is limited to only restoring the image on the same > physical drive it was created from? This has good utility in > the event one's system gets screwed up and one wants to > simply lay down the unadulterated image again. However, I'm > not sure of the program's utility in terms of laying down > the image on a different or newly purchased hard drive? Have > you had success with this? Regarding your suggestions below, > the format of the drive I don't think that would matter as > all info is erased and the image then is put down. The > format will be that of what the image is. The hard drive is > the same brand but different size. I've played with many > options, even installing the image from the DVD onto the > extra drive while system is up and running. It installs the > image ok, but when the hard drive is removed and put into > the other computer, the system won't boot. Keep the ideas > coming and I'll keep researching > thanks, > Al > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of > David Ferrin > Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 12:10 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary > > > Is the new drive formatted the same way as the old drive > was? Also is it the > same type of drive? > David Ferrin > www.jaws-users.com > VIP Conduit Tech Support > www.vipconduit.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alan & Terrie Robbins" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 5:29 PM > Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary > > > David, > > Thanks, I'll spare you the long version (ha, ha). A simple > way to sum all this up would be say I have a good image on a > DVD and my current hard drive bites the dust. I go to the > store and buy a new one. I partition it an put it in the > machine and attempt to lay down the image on it and get what > I described to you at the end of the message. Suggestions? > > Al > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of > David Ferrin > Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 5:10 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary > > > Al all I can say is if this is a brief description please > don't give me the > long version because I will have to read it very carefully > before even > having a chance of grasping a handle on what you ultimately > ended up with. > Confused in Pennsylvania. I'll review it further. > David Ferrin > www.jaws-users.com > VIP Conduit Tech Support > www.vipconduit.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alan & Terrie Robbins" <[email protected]> > To: "Blind-Computing" <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 4:30 PM > Subject: [Blind-Computing] Image restore quandary > > > Well the subject says it all. I will try to be as brief > below as possible to explain my dilemma and hopefully find a > simple answer that I am obviously overlooking. > About a month ago I purchased Image For Windows and am > thrilled with the program. I have successfully created and > restored two different images with no problem. Here is my > current dilemma. > I have two Acer computers. I'll call them Intel and A M D so > as to not confuse them in the below dialogue I'm describing. > My primary in home networked computer was the Intel. The A M > D computer as well as my wife's worked off this Intel unit. > The computer had not been re formatted for about a year and > a half and I also wanted to swap it out for the A M D > machine which has a faster processor and twice the memory. I > know the hours it can take to set a computer up from > scratch so I figured I would simply take the hard drive out > of the A M D computer and use it to set up the Intel > computer as time permitted. The first thing I did was to use > the Image for Windows program to create an image of the A M > D computer. I then restored that image to confirm it worked > prior to taking the hard drive out and using it in the Intel > machine. I also created an image of the Intel machine before > doing anything just in case something went amuck. I then > unplugged the Intel hard drive and plugged the A M D one > into that unit. I got the factory restore disks out for the > Intel computer and installed them on the A M D hard drive > which was now temporarily in the Intel unit. This erased all > data on the A M D hard drive and created the factory image > of the Intel computer. Everything worked well and I > installed JAWS, a few other key programs I wanted and then > burned a new image with image for windows to use a starting > point from now on with the Intel computer so I did not need > to take hours setting it up from scratch again. I then > removed the A M D hard drive from the Intel computer and > plugged the Intel one back in. The Intel computer booted up > fine and picked up from where it left off prior to switching > hard drives. I then took the A M D hard drive and put it > back in the A M D machine and put the original A M D image I > had created prior to starting this project back on it. The A > M d computer booted up fine (Just like David said it would) > and it was if nothing had ever changed. Now, for the > dilemma. I wanted to put the new image I created on the > Intel machine on the Intel hard drive to in essence have a > new, freshly formatted computer. The image will not go on > that hard drive. What happens is I put the initial disk in > the it boots just like it is supposed to. The tray comes out > and asks for the last disk of the set. I put that in, the > DVD whirs for a minute and then the tray comes out and asks > for the first disk again. When I put this back in I do not > get the dialogue asking for the Y or N to proceed and put > that image on the hard drive. It goes back to a basic > screen saying boot device cannot be found, press enter to > continue. When I do this the same process repeats but I > never can get anywhere. I thought there may be something > wrong with the Intel machine so I took the hard drive out > and put it in the A M D machine (unplugging the A M D hard > drives) to try on that machine which I know works and same > thing happened. I have even deleted all partitions on the > Intel hard drive and created and formatted new ones to > emulate a new hard drive and same out come as above. Anyone > have a solution as to how I can get the image I made with > image for windows on that Intel hard drive? > > thanks > Al > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list > visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list > visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list > visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list > visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
