Inline...
Christopher Fisk wrote:
Hey Folks,
I've been using my old version of Ghost for years, with no problem.
Booting from a floppy and migrating my windows install from smaller to
larger and larger drives. I've finally got to the point where that
version no longer supports my hardware,
I still supports your hardware, you're only experiencing the usual BS from not
using a brand new HDD.
I get some archaic error from
DOS saying it can't read my drives for some reason. Rather than mess
around with it trying to fix it, I've considered just getting a new
program to handle the job.
In your case, the "right way" to do it could be imaging only the O/S partition,
and nothing else.
But doing so leaves the hidden partition made by the O/S (e.g. XP) behind, and hence before doing a migrate, you'll have to wipe your new drive, including the MBR, and
then do a repartitioning. Check that the new boot partition is at least the same size as the imaged partition.
Disconnecting the IDE/SATA cables from every other drive in the system may also
help. The O/S wil find these drives again, don't worry.
Also, when entering Ghost, it'll ask you if you want to mark the drive(s) as
usable with Ghost. Deselect this option.
Is Acronis True Image what I'm looking for? I want to boot from
(prefereably) USB thumbdrive and be able to make an image to an external
USB drive. Booting from CD or floppy is a close second choice.
Maybe, maybe not.
The boot game is like the game of "scissors, paper, stone", if you know what I
mean.
The priority levels are hard coded, and the old floppy has the main advantage.
Next comes floppy emulation on CD, next the HDD, and finally the USB drive.
Right now I run XP from a 4GB 133x CF card on a CF to IDE bridge card (goes right into the IDE connector on the MB), with swap file on a separate HDD partition, and it
boots from BIOS beep to login prompt in less than ten seconds. That is seriously fast, so why use a USB pen for boot?
For my internet system, I'll soon install a SD to IDE bridge card, making a
boot from a write protected .iso image possible w/30MB/sec.
Those adapter cards are only about ten bucks, about the same as for a 4GB SD card that does 20MB/sec. Beats any USB pen any time, plus the system sees the drive as a
genuine HDD with all the benefits preserved.
About the back up to USB HDD, you'll need either back up from within Win, which is OK using non-O/S partitions, or you'll need a DOS floppy supporting USB 2.0, which is
very hard to come by.
Splitting the b/u assignments therefore seems like a reasonable suggestion.
Making a reliable b/u of an O/S partition, You'll need something that operates at a low level, like the floppy disk, or at least floppy emulation (Nero). Or making a
super-floppy image on a bootable USB pen, meaning FAT12 formating, which XP does not support, but NT4 and 2K does, as far as I remember.
While I haven't looked into DOS floppies with USB 2.0 support recently, I know that IBM used to support this with PC-DOS. Forget about the MS-DOS USB support, as it only
reaches as far as USB 1.0.
Maybe bootdisk.com has something, I dunno.
I then want to take that USB drive and put it internal into the system
and take the smaller drive out of service.
What do you expect to gain from this?
Running Vista Home Premium and have a few EXT3 drives on my main HDD.
Ghost 2003 works fine with Vista, done that about 35-40 times now.
I've not been impressed with Ghost 2003 or Ghost 10, but if Ghost14 is
any better than those I can go with that as well.
With Ghost 2003 most people overlook the fact, that back up of NTFS/*nix
partitions/drives only is supported when writing directly to CD or DVD, as
stated in the manual.
Used as intended, it seriously rokcz. My XP system fits on a single CD
(installation/configuration only, using hard compression), and the same goes
for my three *nix systems.
Following the link I found on the list a few weeks ago I can get Acronis
True Image for $30.
Knock yourself out :)
Though, you might want to consider that Acronis still has an unsolved history of data corruption, which is well documented on the internet. The reason could be that they
are trying to pull off low level operations from a higher level, which in theory could be done by using the right sys calls and the right drivers. However, to my humble
experience, this is not possible without making shortcuts and thereby glitches.
What do you think?
I don't think anything, besides what's your needs?
Do you want data reliability?, Do you want a back up that you for a fact know
works?
Does it have to be through a mouse operated GUI, or can you accept that your
back up may not work when you need it the most?
IMHO, everything has its place, and for back ups, this place is the CLI.
HTH
./s
Thanks!
Christopher Fisk
