What happens if you've resized partitions since the last clone? Wont
that confuse the software, as it sees that the stream of bytes that it
saved now now longer matches the size it was expecting?
I do not know DrvImagerXP specifically, but I know many of the other
partition clone programs.
As long as the partition is big enough there is no problem how big it is.
The software copies only the used sectors and restores them on the
currently available space.
You can buy a new hard disk, set up suitably sized partitions, and
restore earlier made partition images on it, for example.
The freeware Save Partition is included on the ultimate boot CD, by the
way.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
or you can get it from the authors site
http://www.partition-saving.com/
To make it easier for others to use Partition Saving without reading long
text files I can give some easy directions:
Get the program:
http://www.partition-saving.com
Make a bootable floppy disk, either from some dos system or windows.
savepart.exe is very small, just 215kB, but you may have to remove some
file to make place for it on a windows rescue disk.
Or you can put it alone on a floppy and load it after loading a bootable
floppy disk. I put the two other small files on the floppy too, drvpart.sys
and Allocxms.com, just in case savepart has some use for them.
Reboot into the floppy disk and start savepart.exe.
In all these screens, use tab, arrow keys, and enter to navigate. You may
need to use the US-american keyboard layout to write file names, if your
boot floppy does not set your country keyboard correctly.
First screen: Choose save an element. It means save a partition, a disk, or
another part of a disk.
Second screen: Choose disk number, usually zero for the first hard disk in
your system, where your C: drive is.
Third screen: Choose partition to save. In the third column it gives you
the real names, choose C:
Fourth screen: What do you want to save?
Choose "occupied sectors". No use in saving unused parts of the partition.
Fifth screen: Choose a filename to save to. Use D:\saved.par for example.
Use a partition you know has enough space for the file.
Sixth screen: Choose maximum size of the saved file. This is probably a
safety measure in case something would go wrong. Default is 2GB and you can
use that unless you think the file will be bigger than that.
Maybe it is better to choose a lower value based on your own estimates.
The size of the saved file will be approximately half of the used part of
your C: drive. In my case 800MB resulted in a 390MB file with compression
level 1.
Seventh screen: Choose level to deflate, choose level 1
Now the copying starts, and you see a screen showing the progress and a
time estimate of how long it will take, BUT this screen is very misleading
in its estimates, both the time and the progress bar show what would happen
if the partition was absolutely full, and if the whole maximum size of the
saved file was to be used.
So the process will stop a lot faster than one is lead to believe, and it
looks like only a part of the process has been completed.
Don't worry though, it has done what you told it to do when it says the
copying is ended.
Look at the center of the screen close to the top, where it say "running"
as long as the copying is going on, and it says "ended" when it has ended
the copying process.
Choose to not let it create a bat file if you like, and reboot into your
normal windows operatingsystem.
Check out the created file, it should have half around the size of the
content of your C: drive.
Restoring is even simpler, just start savepart from the boot floppy again
and choose to restore an element.
In the next screen choose the file you saved, either by writing its name
including path, or looking for it and use enter to choose it.
Push the OK button.
Next screen, choose what partition to restore it to.
This is, of course, the critical choice. Make a mistake here and you will
wipe out all the content of another partition, so be careful here.
But the display is easy to read and you should have no problem choosing the
C: drive.
Also this time the predicted times and the progress bar are giving the
impression that it will take a long time, but it took only a few minutes
for my 800MB C: drive to be restored.
