Cloning drive; is it better to install system on separate partition?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Xu
  • Start date Start date
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Xu

I am trying to learn how to clone my drive. I have dabbled with it and I see
that the actual image would be 32gig in size. I am wondering what I can do
to make this process smaller? I wonder if I reformatted and put XP on a
separate partition if that would help because right now two clone programs I
have tried both want to copy the hole HDD. I assume that is because I have
everything on one partition.

I have no floppy, so trying to use the disks for boot up is not much of an
option for me unless I can use one of my sd disks in the card reader.

What I want is a full copy of my system, and all the files that install in
the Programs folder. That is all I want. I don't care about anything else,
so it does not seem necessary that I copy the whole drive, which is actually
a 75gig drive.
 
I am trying to learn how to clone my drive. I have dabbled with it and I see
that the actual image would be 32gig in size. I am wondering what I can do
to make this process smaller? I wonder if I reformatted and put XP on a
separate partition if that would help because right now two clone programs I
have tried both want to copy the hole HDD. I assume that is because I have
everything on one partition.

I have no floppy, so trying to use the disks for boot up is not much of an
option for me unless I can use one of my sd disks in the card reader.

What I want is a full copy of my system, and all the files that install in
the Programs folder. That is all I want. I don't care about anything else,
so it does not seem necessary that I copy the whole drive, which is actually
a 75gig drive.
Click to expand...

Simply put the things you don't want in the partition image
"clone" onto another partition first. When such things
require identification of their location (applications) you
may need to reinstall them. There is no need for even 1/4th
of a 32GB partition for windows alone, and you probably do
not need continual backups of the program files folder
because most of those will not be subject to failure. You
might consider making one backup of all of this, THEN with
further backups only the things most subject to problems.
 
Xu said:
I am trying to learn how to clone my drive. I have dabbled with it and I
see that the actual image would be 32gig in size. I am wondering what I
can do to make this process smaller? I wonder if I reformatted and put XP
on a separate partition if that would help because right now two clone
programs I have tried both want to copy the hole HDD. I assume that is
because I have everything on one partition.

I have no floppy, so trying to use the disks for boot up is not much of an
option for me unless I can use one of my sd disks in the card reader.

What I want is a full copy of my system, and all the files that install in
the Programs folder. That is all I want. I don't care about anything else,
so it does not seem necessary that I copy the whole drive, which is
actually a 75gig drive.
Click to expand...

Try Norton Ghost. It will copy all the data in a partition, nothing more.
Therefore the destination partition will only need to be large enough to
accommodate your 32 gigs of data, plus provision for needed expansion.

Most emergency restore programs I'm familiar with require a floppy drive. I
certainly wouldn't be without one.

I keep my Windows XP system, programs, mail and data in separate partitions.
It sure simplifies restoring partitions without losing data.

Andy
 
Thank you. I would rather be able to go to cd or even a SD card. As far as I
backing up, I have always just dragged and dropped all my documents and
programs to an external 200gig usb 2 drive. XP sure makes that quick and
easy. My problem is all these activations I am getting now. I would like to
stop that and I was thinking imaging my programs, and especially XP, would
be a work around.

The programs I own now are Nero's BackItUp and a little program I got from
Download.com called R-drive image.
 
Hi,

Back to your original question.

.......Will cloned HDD avoid activation?

The answer is no. If you're trying to fool programs into thinking they
were just installed instead of when you really did, your computers date
will also have to be kept in the past too.

There are registry entries made when you install software that keep
track of when the software was installed, these entries are usually
referred to as turds.

Cloning, imaging, or even reimporting a registry hive will rollback
things to the way there were at the time you backed things up, but they
are still keeping the dates intact of when you originally installed the
software. When your computer date hits the magic termination date of
your trial software it'll still do its process even though you're
running a clone/image etc. Your trial period will end as designed.

Sure, you could keep your computers date running in the past, but then
you're probably going to be finding newer files-n-things being over
written with older versions every now and then too. You're certainly not
the first, or only person here, to want to keep an unregistered program
running forever without paying the freight.


---==X={}=X==---

Jim Self
AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)
Technical Counselor
 
Timothy Daniels said:
If you want to copy a single partition, not the whole drive,
Casper XP by Future Systems Solutions can do that. It can
even put that single partition among other partitions on the
destination drive. But it works hard drive to hard drive, not
hard drive to CD. It does not need Microsoft .NET Framework
installed like Ghost, and it stays in Windows while copying.
If you're interested, you can get a free 30-day trial copy at
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp .
Click to expand...

I don't know about the latest version(s) of Ghost, but the one I use that is
part of Norton System Works Prof. 2004, does not need Microsoft .NET
Framework installed.
The clone will be bootable, not an "image file" that has to
be "restored", i.e. copied back , in order to boot. As with all
clones, start it up for its 1st time with the original HD
disconnected. Thereafter, the clone can be booted with the
original OS visible without harm to the clone's files.

For shrinking an existing partition without disturbing the
data that is within it, use Partition Magic.
Click to expand...

I second the motion regarding Partition Magic.
 
Andy/Bandi said:
I don't know about the latest version(s) of Ghost,
but the one I use that is part of Norton System Works
Prof. 2004, does not need Microsoft .NET
Framework installed.
Click to expand...


Starting with version 9, Ghost has been the rebadged
Powerquest Drive Image 7, which needs .NET Framework
to run. From what I hear, Microsoft's new Vista operating
system will include .NET Framework, and the need for it
by an application would not be an issue.

*TimDaniels*
 
If you want to copy a single partition, not the whole drive,
Casper XP by Future Systems Solutions can do that. It can
even put that single partition among other partitions on the
destination drive. But it works hard drive to hard drive, not
hard drive to CD. It does not need Microsoft .NET Framework
installed like Ghost, and it stays in Windows while copying.
If you're interested, you can get a free 30-day trial copy at
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp .

The clone will be bootable, not an "image file" that has to
be "restored", i.e. copied back , in order to boot. As with all
clones, start it up for its 1st time with the original HD
disconnected. Thereafter, the clone can be booted with the
original OS visible without harm to the clone's files.
Click to expand...


There is another issue with the scenario you present, that
if one had the 2nd drive connected and running windows (2k,
Xp), then windows has already enumerated this clone drive
and may consider it a different drive letter than natively
assigned by bios/dos. For example if your original drive
were C: paritition and the newly added drive were E:, and
you clone the C: drive to E:, then boot the cloned drive, it
may boot but then windows considers it E: still. Result
might be that it needs reset in the registry, possibly even
that one cannot logon, that it just goes into an endless
loop until one rectifies the situation of finding the
userinit.exe file.
 
kony said:
There is another issue with the scenario you present, that
if one had the 2nd drive connected and running windows (2k,
Xp), then windows has already enumerated this clone drive
and may consider it a different drive letter than natively
assigned by bios/dos. For example if your original drive
were C: paritition and the newly added drive were E:, and
you clone the C: drive to E:, then boot the cloned drive, it
may boot but then windows considers it E: still. Result
might be that it needs reset in the registry, possibly even
that one cannot logon, that it just goes into an endless
loop until one rectifies the situation of finding the
userinit.exe file.
Click to expand...


The way to handle that is to put the clone AMONG the
other partitions on the destination drive, i.e. into what is
called "unallocated" areas of the hard drive, not INTO an
existing partition on the destination drive. When the clone
boots up, it thinks it's the original OS, and it will call its
partition the "C: Local Disk". If the clone is booted with
the partition of the original OS visible, it will assign a
drive letter that is not "C:" to that partition. If you have
other partitions in the mix, perhaps one with text data, one
with photos, etc., you can avoid screwing up the shortcuts
which have hard-coded drive letters by not including the
partition with the original OS. That is easiest to do by
having the OSes on separate and dedicated hard drives
and just disconnecting the hard drive with the OS that
isn't needed. Of course, if the entire system is in one
hard drive and you clone the entire hard drive, this is not
a problem. And if the entire system is on one partition,
there again is no problem with screwing up partition
letter name assignments.

*TimDaniels*
 
The way to handle that is to put the clone AMONG the
other partitions on the destination drive, i.e. into what is
called "unallocated" areas of the hard drive, not INTO an
existing partition on the destination drive.
Click to expand...

I would have to expect that to be a very unusual situation,
as most people don't have drives sitting around with
unallocated space on them. Rather, it is far more likely
they either A) Don't have the drive hooked up yet at all or
B) Do, and the space is visible.

When the clone
boots up, it thinks it's the original OS, and it will call its
partition the "C: Local Disk". If the clone is booted with
the partition of the original OS visible, it will assign a
drive letter that is not "C:" to that partition.
Click to expand...

yes that is obvious enough but entirely contingent on the
above scenario you described, that the volume was not
previously visible to windows at all.
 
There's a shareware utility called DFSEE that may do what you want.
www.dfsee.com is the website.


Alan

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kony said:
I would have to expect that to be a very unusual situation,
as most people don't have drives sitting around with
unallocated space on them. Rather, it is far more likely
they either A) Don't have the drive hooked up yet at all or
B) Do, and the space is visible.
Click to expand...


Either you have unallocated space or you don't.
If you do, put the clone there.
If you don't, and you want to put the clone where there
already is a partition, just delete the partition to MAKE
unallocated space. Don't expect to put a clone into
a partition where there are files you want to keep.

I happen to keep several spare drives around for backup
where I keep multiple clones, copied at various time, on
each drive. If the system drive fails, I just put in one of
the archive drives and boot it up. Since I have the
archive drives in mobile trays, I just slide the tray into its
rack, perhaps reset the BIOS hard drive boot order,
and boot up the clone. It's quick, with no "restore"
process to wait for.

yes that is obvious enough but entirely contingent on the
above scenario you described, that the volume was not
previously visible to windows at all.
Click to expand...


Whatever. You have more time to nitpick than I.

*TimDaniels*
 
Either you have unallocated space or you don't.
If you do, put the clone there.
If you don't, and you want to put the clone where there
already is a partition, just delete the partition to MAKE
unallocated space. Don't expect to put a clone into
a partition where there are files you want to keep.
Click to expand...


That does not get around the issue. Once windows has
enumerated a volume, you cannot just delete it and recreate
it, as it will still have the prior drive letter assignment
if it had previously existed. It's not a matter of files
one does or doesn't want to keep at all.

For example, put a new hard drive into a box, partition and
format it. Boot windows. Suppose you had a C and D
partition already, now this new one is assigned E:

You can't just delete the partition and gain anything.
Windows assigns to the device, a unique code. Your
unallocated space is still on the device windows recognizes
and cloning to it gains you the clone, but it does not reset
windows device id. When you boot windows there is a chance
you will have the device still identified as the E: letter
even with the prior parititon gone and a new one created by
the clone. Been there, done that... the easiest way to
rectify it is probalby to connect via remote registry and
manually swap the drive letters around for those device
codes in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices, after you
had pointed the logon to the userinit file or duped it to
the expected location of there were another volume that
could accomodate it.


Whatever. You have more time to nitpick than I.
Click to expand...

It's a very real scenario commonly encountered... hardly
nitpicking, I just came across it again yesterday.
 
kony said:
That does not get around the issue. Once windows has
enumerated a volume, you cannot just delete it and recreate
it, as it will still have the prior drive letter assignment
if it had previously existed. It's not a matter of files
one does or doesn't want to keep at all.

For example, put a new hard drive into a box, partition and
format it. Boot windows. Suppose you had a C and D
partition already, now this new one is assigned E:

You can't just delete the partition and gain anything.
Windows assigns to the device, a unique code. Your
unallocated space is still on the device windows recognizes
and cloning to it gains you the clone, but it does not reset
windows device id. When you boot windows there is a
chance you will have the device still identified as the E:
letter even with the prior parititon gone and a new one
created by the clone. Been there, done that... the easiest
way to rectify it is probalby to connect via remote registry
and manually swap the drive letters around for those device
codes in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
MountedDevices, after you had pointed the logon to the
userinit file or duped it to the expected location of there
were another volume that could accomodate it.
Click to expand...


Total nonsense. If a partition is deleted, a new one is
simply renamed as whatever is available when it is created.
There is no secret identity that remains, just unallocated
space.

Example:

If there is a C: "Local Disk", i.e. partition, that my running
system loads from, and another hard drive has D:, E: and F:
partitions, the new one will be called "G:", as you would
expect. If you delete G:, the next one will be named "G:",
as you'd expect. If you delete G: and F:, the new one will
be named "F:", as you'd expect. If the new F: is twice as
large as the old F:, even though it overlays space that used
to contain "G:". And the next created partition - providing
there is enough unallocated space - will be named "G:" even
though it is never-before-used unallocated space.

I do such operations once a week as normal house-
keeping procedure as I back up my system to large archival
hard drives and get rid of old partitions. The space on a
hard drive is analogous to space in random access memory -
just because something was there in the past does not in the
least "bind" that something to whatever is there now. So
space released and made available by deleting a partition
is just that - space, space that can be used by a newly made
partition having its own identity.

~Reggie~
 
Total nonsense. If a partition is deleted, a new one is
simply renamed as whatever is available when it is created.
Click to expand...

You might consider a few more nouns and verbs, the above is
not even close to enough info to know exactly what you mean.
There is no secret identity that remains, just unallocated
space.
Click to expand...

The identity is stored in the registry.
The unallocated space is only that for a moment till it's
allocated space again.
Example:

If there is a C: "Local Disk", i.e. partition, that my running
system loads from, and another hard drive has D:, E: and F:
partitions, the new one will be called "G:", as you would
expect. If you delete G:, the next one will be named "G:",
as you'd expect. If you delete G: and F:, the new one will
be named "F:", as you'd expect. If the new F: is twice as
large as the old F:, even though it overlays space that used
to contain "G:". And the next created partition - providing
there is enough unallocated space - will be named "G:" even
though it is never-before-used unallocated space.
Click to expand...

You're thinking of DOS, windows (wk/xp) does sticky drive
letters.

I do such operations once a week as normal house-
keeping procedure as I back up my system to large archival
hard drives and get rid of old partitions. The space on a
hard drive is analogous to space in random access memory -
just because something was there in the past does not in the
least "bind" that something to whatever is there now. So
space released and made available by deleting a partition
is just that - space, space that can be used by a newly made
partition having its own identity.
Click to expand...

Now let's walk through another scenario.

OS runs off C:
Two more drives, D & E

You clone C to E, which entails deleting C and recreating it
as Ghost or Driveimage does it.

You remove the C drive, set the bios to boot from E.
System does boot windows, you get to the login screen.
Right after trying to login, immediately it proceeds to a
message like "saving settings" and kicks you back out to the
login screen. Reason- userinit.exe is not where the
registry expects it to be, on C:\windows\system32\
It's not there because Windows registry retained the
identity of the device as "E", so one would need to specify
the new path to it, or at least a less specific path so it's
not limited to the C: partition.

So then you can login, but opening My Computer (and
elsewhere) you see the OS drive is designated as E:
Just because C: didn't exist, that does not mean the drive
letter was shifted because windows still continues to
identify it as E:
 
You should delete the E disk from Disk Management before you do the cloning, then you boot with
only the newly cloned drive attached and you will have no problems. I have done this several times
using Drive Image with no problems.
 
You should delete the E disk from Disk Management before you do the cloning, then you boot with
only the newly cloned drive attached and you will have no problems. I have done this several times
using Drive Image with no problems.
Click to expand...


Agreed, that is one way to do it.
 
kony said:
Agreed, that is one way to do it.
Click to expand...


And Korny weasels out again. How the hell else does
one normally (e.g. using Windows XP) delete a partition?
Yeah, I know, you normally use DOS. Criminiy.

*TimDaniels*
 
kony said:
The identity is stored in the registry.
The unallocated space is only that for a moment till it's
allocated space again.
Click to expand...


Sure. The registry of the partition that was deleted.
Quit your weasel-walking. We're talking about a deleted
partition, and you're talking about some registry of an OS
on another partition. Anything to weasel in a situation you
can claim was being discussed.

*TimDaniels*
 
And Korny weasels out again. How the hell else does
one normally (e.g. using Windows XP) delete a partition?
Yeah, I know, you normally use DOS. Criminiy.
Click to expand...

One normally doesn't delete a partition in windows at all to
clone when a cloning program is wholely capable of doing
this itself. You're just being foolish to think I delete
partitions in DOS since I dont' and never wrote that I did.

Instead what I DID write was about a specific scenario in
which there might be a problem, one you disagreed with in
error. Perhaps if you had simply wrote exactly what you
meant, and refrained from cluess remarks under a presumption
that we can read minds...
 
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