[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on Wednesday, 28 June 2006 12:45 p.m.:
> I am thinking, perhaps incorrectly, that the drive partition
> INFORMATION needs to be accurate. If a system drive image restore
> restores the wrong partition information, we are not in the right
> place when we are done.   

That's correct, if the size of the drives is different *and* you want to
expand / contract one or more of the partitions then the partition table
needs to be updated, which all drive image utilities should be capable
of. Also, there is one other catch in that if the OS boot drive is
changed (ie, the position of the bootable partition in the partition
table) then the OS usually needs to be reconfigured to handle that. In
Windows this is the hidden file "boot.ini" in the root directory of the
boot drive; in Linux it's /boot/grub/grub.conf etc. In Windows if you
don't update this I think you get a bluescreen on boot. Ghost updates
boot.ini automatically and I would imagine most other partition tools do
as well.
 
> However, if the partition information is always external to an image
> restore process (is it?), there shouldn't be an issue as far as drive
> changes are concerned, provided the target partition is big enough.  

It's external in that almost all drive imaging utilities understand how
to update the partition table, even though they might not always
recognise some of the partition types involved.
 
> It's the same issue that would arise if you took a physical
> boot/system drive out of machine X and put it in different-machine Y
> and expected it to work. It might, to some extent. It usually would
> bomb. And system repair may or may not help.   

Yeah, that's a different issue, and one that could be handled a lot
better than it currently is in Windows IMO. Still, if the imaging
handles it already then it's not a problem.

Cheers,
Paul

---------------------------------------------------------
Paul Eggleton                  Ph:    +64-9-4154790
Software Developer             Fax:   +64-9-4154791
CJN Technologies Ltd.          DDI:   +64-9-4154795
http://www.cjntech.co.nz       Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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