Acronis for copying Windows partition?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Doe
  • Start date Start date
philo said:
Though you can create a backup image on any partition other than
the one you are cloning... considering the low price of HD's I'd
still consider cloning your drive to a completely seperate drive.
Click to expand...

If it were worth the trouble.
 
Here goes an attempt at using Partition Commander for
copying/restoring the Windows partition to/from the same hard drive.

First experience. Left most program settings on default. No trouble
at all copying and hiding the active Windows partition from within
Windows. Partition Manager probably requires a reboot. Next trick,
delete the current partition and restore the copy. From within
Windows, the virtual operations (the planned operations) for
deleting the active Windows partition and copying the hidden
partition back into its place are set. The copy is visible but
doesn't show a drive letter. Trying to change the drive letter to C
doesn't work probably because the program still thinks the drive
letter is C (it is, but it won't be after the operation was
complete). So I guess the program will be smart enough to assign a
drive letter, make it active, or whatever is required. Apply the
operations and it requires a restart. Upon restart, the operations
are completed in pre-Windows mode and the computer reboots
automatically. Crunch time. The first error "DISK BOOT FAILURE
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". So I pull out the 7tools boot
disk. Unfortunately 7tools produces the second error "No HDD
installed. Program will be terminated." First question pops up "How
recently did I make a copy of important files from the hard drive to
removable media." So I pull out the Partition Magic boot disk. At
least it sees the hard drive and both partitions and produces
another error "Partition improperly dismounted." However, after
simply making the first partition active, a restart gets me back
into Windows XP (where I promptly make a fresh copy of data files to
removable media).

Next up. Probably make a Partition Commander boot CD. Then another
attempt at replacing the Windows partition with the hidden copy. And
if all else fails, I'll read the manual. Then I'll post further
experience. Replacing the active Windows partition with a hidden
copy shouldn't require using a boot CD.
 
There is a menu switch for making the partition active after
replacing it with the hidden copy of Windows. There might be some
potential difficulties/oddities like BOOT.INI appears to change
somewhere between the copy and the copy back.

Looks like some of the same code as Partition Manager.
 
After a little USENET research, I noticed "Acronis Disk Director".

Preliminarily speaking.
I like the interface. More importantly, apparently it does not
change BOOT.INI when making/restoring a primary hidden copy of
Windows. That is a good sign IMO. The next trick will be seeing
whether it in fact properly hides two of the maximum three copies of
Windows on the primary partition and whether it allows booting to
any one of those three, without intermixing files. There is some
risk when doing that, just like editing backup data, but it's a nice
option. Currently I must use only the copy of Windows that is in the
first physical location in the primary area. If everything goes
perfectly, I won't comment further until maybe later. If the program
doesn't work exactly right, I will note its shortcomings. At the
moment, looks like it is my next disk manager.

Have fun.
 
Apparently the first Windows partition (the one on the left) must be
the usable/Active partition. Trying to use the second or third copy
of Windows produces errors that have something to do with crossing a
boundary.

When doing a copy of the active Windows partition, the copy should
be primary (changed from the default logical) and then hidden. When
deleting and replacing the active partition, again when queuing the
copy procedure the default type (logical) must be changed to
primary, then the partition must be unhidden and set active, and
then apparently it must be manually assigned drive letter C before
applying all of the changes and restarting.

Use the program to make a boot/recovery disk before doing anything.
The more recovery disks the better, sometimes one won't work when
another one will.
 
After making a fresh copy of data files to removable media, and with
the Disk Director boot CD in hand.

Just added a 150 GB 10,000 rpm hard drive. Used Disk Director to
copy the active Windows OS partition to the new drive, then
activated the copy. Hid the other Windows partitions on the old
drive and changed them to logical FWIW. After the processes
completed, wouldn't boot, but just had to change the SATA drive data
cable connectors to SATA 1 & 2. Now I'm using both drives with the
old OS copied to the new drive. The Disk Director program appears to
do some cleanup in the background. Would be nice to know what it's
doing, but getting it right is the bottom line.

Nice work IMO.
 
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