Is there some software to save drivers to disk?

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In message <[email protected]>, "Ken Blake,

See my longer reply to Paul - really just intellectual curiosity, to see
if it _can_ be made into a usable machine.

OK. I wouldn't bother with something like that, but we're all
different.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Did Amazon have customer reviews for the items ?
I'm curious what the customers think of them.

I went back to the site to check, because I was also curious. But you
could have done it yourself.

The $11.11 40 GB

2 gave it 5 stars
2 gave it 4 stars
0 gave it 3
0 gave it 2
0 gave it 1

The $19 80GB

30 gave it 5 stars
15 gave it 4
5 gave it 3
7 gave it 2
18 gave it 0

There were also written reviews. Three liked it, 5 said it was
obviously used, despite the way it was advertised.

 

[Paul]

Paul has suggested some possible ways of finding bigger ones that
might work. Certainly go for as much as will - 512M _might_ be OK
for SP2. (I've also heard of people using USB RAM, though I've also
heard it said that the way Windows uses RAM means that some kinds of
USB RAM when used in this way have a life measured in hours.)

Actually, you could put a pagefile on a gigabyte RAMDisk,
if the computer would not hold more memory. But this []
Those are all silly ideas, because the price of the solution
is probably more than the entire PC is worth. The solutions
are noteworthy, in that the storage media (Dynamic RAM,
DDR2 on the second one), doesn't wear out. You can get

[]
You've got it! I'm really doing this as an intellectual/curiosity
exercise only, not really a practical approach - I intend to spend no
more money on it beyond the little I spent on some more RAM for it!

In my view, 512MB is barely adequate. I built and ran
a PC like that for a short time, but I could only keep
about 3 programs open at a time. If you only kept the
one program open, then your options for what you run,
might be a little more ambitious. But if you run three
large programs, don't expect 512MB to go very far.

(It actually has 640 now.) One of the things that does puzzle me is how
the previous owner managed to use it to do serious accountancy work:
granted, she only did it for a friend's small company, but using
heavyweight stuff like Sage accounting, and she had the CDs from HMRC
(UK equivalent of IRS) loaded. And that was with only 256M. I guess she
must have been very disciplined about doing only one thing at a time.
(She also had AOL's broadband software - the old one that took over
_everything_. But then her broadband line operated at about 128k - yes
really, she's rural and unlucky [her neighbour over the road got 1.5M] -
so I think she only really used it for email, no web.)

Maybe some older version of Opera would use less RAM ?
The latest Opera made a platform switch, so maybe
some older version would be better.

I thought Opera was payware? I admit I haven't looked at it for many years.

Paul

128K could be ISDN. That data rate you mention,
just happens to be a "magic value", and matches
ISDN BRI.

128K would be a weird choice for ADSL. The one in red color here
is a 1.5Mbit/sec service (suitably hobbled by it's operational cap).
The reach curve just doesn't go far enough, to make a crappy rate
like that worthwhile - it doesn't add much to the distance. Maybe
the telco made an arbitrary decision, that people on one side of the
road were "within reach", and people on the other side of the road
were not. In some cases, it's an artificial distinction, about which
service area is handled by which telco CO building.

http://www.internode.on.net/residential/adsl_broadband/easy_broadband/performance/

*******

The last time I downloaded Opera, it was free.

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Paul <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

thing at a time. (She also had AOL's broadband software - the old one
that took over _everything_. But then her broadband line operated at
about 128k - yes really, she's rural and unlucky [her neighbour over
the road got 1.5M] - so I think she only really used it for email, no

[]
128K could be ISDN. That data rate you mention,
just happens to be a "magic value", and matches
ISDN BRI.

No, it _was_ nominally ADSL - just a poor line. Or rather limited: I
can't remember the details now, but I remember trying faster speeds (I
don't remember why, but it wasn't adaptive), and it worked erratically;
at the 128K, it was rock solid (just painfully slow!).
[]

The last time I downloaded Opera, it was free.

[]
Ah, useful to know, thanks.

Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly! But
the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger one: I
quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk about
"cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than just copy
all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you start from the PC
on which the source OS is _running_, but if done from a different PC, is
there more than just a copy going on?

 

[Paul]

thing at a time. (She also had AOL's broadband software - the old
one that took over _everything_. But then her broadband line
operated at about 128k - yes really, she's rural and unlucky [her
neighbour over the road got 1.5M] - so I think she only really used
it for email, no

[]
128K could be ISDN. That data rate you mention,
just happens to be a "magic value", and matches
ISDN BRI.

No, it _was_ nominally ADSL - just a poor line. Or rather limited: I
can't remember the details now, but I remember trying faster speeds (I
don't remember why, but it wasn't adaptive), and it worked erratically;
at the 128K, it was rock solid (just painfully slow!).
[]

The last time I downloaded Opera, it was free.

[]
Ah, useful to know, thanks.

Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly! But
the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger one: I
quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk about
"cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than just copy
all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you start from the PC
on which the source OS is _running_, but if done from a different PC, is
there more than just a copy going on?[/QUOTE]

With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.

In addition to that method, there is also a "dumb" sector copy method,
which just copies ever sector. The advantage of such a method, is your
cloning utility won't get confused, if the partitions are XFS or FreeBSD
or HFS+ or something. You can handle any kind of partition, with a dumb
method. The "dd" utility ported to Windows, can do that for you. You
use a dual boot system (so the OS to be copied is not running), to
do such a copy. The "dd" program doesn't call VSS to make the open
files quiescent. So the user has to arrange the OS partition, to not
be in use for that kind of copy to work.

Macrium Reflect Free can clone the drive with the OS on it, using
the program as installed on that OS. In addition, the Macrium Reflect
Rescue CD can also do cloning, and then you know the OS is not running,
and all files would be copied intact. There are a ton of utilities
like Easeus that could do the job for you. Even Seagate and Western Digital,
provide a version of Acronis TIH for their customers. And if you can
wade through the manual, there's likely a cloning equivalent in there.

When you're finished cloning an OS drive, shut down and disconnect
the clone, until you're ready to use it. The clone should be booted
by itself the first time (should not be able to "see" the source
disk). After the clone drive has booted at least once, it is then
safe to re-connect the source drive and do whatever you like.
I forgot to do this once, and the OS drive letter gets screwed up, as
if the pagefile on the source disk is being used and the original
disk is still C: . Leading to confusion as the clone disk attempts
to boot. I couldn't really debug what was going on, and that's just
a guess. I re-cloned, and tried again, and by remembering to
disconnect the source disk, it managed a proper boot cycle.

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?

With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.

Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

 

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?

With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.

Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone"

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just
takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be
booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Paul

 

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?
With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.
Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone"

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just
takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be
booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Paul

I think I have a simpler suggestion for you Paul, if you happen to have
Acronis True Image or any partition copying program: Just make an image of
C: and restore that. (I think that would be simpler and perhaps quicker,
unless I've missed something, which is indeed possible).

I do this C: system image/restore fair amount of time after testing out some
new software, and want to restore my system to the exact pre-test condition.

Many schemes do not "defrag" for you.

Robocopying the files off, reformatting the partition, then
copying the files back, achieved defragmentation.

If you image with many of these tools, the fragmentation
level is preserved. No "free filtering" results from a
restoration.

Paul

 

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []
Back to that ancient system: I now have it running rather smoothly!
But the HD _is_ rather small. If I _did_ want to give it a bigger
one: I quickly googled this afternoon, and everyone seemed to talk
about "cloning". _Does_ "cloning" (e. g., EaseUS ToDo) do more than
just copy all the files over? I do realise it's necessary if you
start from the PC on which the source OS is _running_, but if done
from a different PC, is there more than just a copy going on?
With things like so-called "Smart Copy", only the sectors containing
data the file system needs, would be copied. The copy operation would
copy the MBR (Sector 0), it would analyse each partition and figure out
what sectors need to be copied. This saves time, when the source disk is
not full.

Wouldn't just copying the files do that anyway?

[rest of _very_ detailed reply snipped]

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files - or,
rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted (let's
say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer) result
in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving active
sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

And setting the partition flag to be Active, amongst maybe some other
things. And maybe that's part (or all?) of what "fixboot" does (see Paul's
response).

If I reformat an active partition, the boot flag stays put.
So I don't have to repair that as part of my "procedure".

The handling of the boot flag is rather sloppy. Linux doesn't
use the boot flag, and uses things like GUID for identifiers.
In Windows land, I think you could set the boot flag on
more than one primary partition. Although tools to do that are
relatively scarce (PTEDIT32 could). It's a good thing,
that not too many things fool around with that MBR
boot flag. Or there'd be more trouble.

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

What I'm asking is: does "cloning" do more than just copy files -
or, rather, assuming a source and destination drive both formatted
(let's say as a single NTFS partition), would just copying all the
files/folders from one HD to another (using a separate computer)
result in a bootable system, or are there arcane magics involving
active sectors, MBRs, and so on involved?

I refuse to be drawn into an attempt to define "copy" and "clone"

I don't blame you (-:!

Clone, as implemented with the suggested tools, copies every sector
which has anything to do with the partition. The file system header,
the metadata files ($MFT etc), the actual files and directories,
any sector which the file system knows has something to do with
that file system, is copied. That's a lot more than just the files
themselves (as you'd get with Robocopy). Now, whether that's important
or not, is debatable.

I can tell you, if I prepare a new partition, and intend to copy
an OS over to it, I will need to do "fixboot" later. That loads
some sectors in the file system header area. If I use cloning software,
that stuff would be copied for free. If I Robocopy over a set of
OS files, I will need to run "fixboot" separately. Cloning just

I think that just about answers my question - more than just all the
files is needed to "move" an OS.

takes care of a bunch of details like that for you.

That's actually how I defragment my WinXP partition. Rather than
wait more than eight hours for the defragmenter to do the job,
I just copy all the files off with Robocopy, format the partition,
copy the files back with Robocopy, boot the installer CD and do
"fixboot" from there. Then, my nice clean OS is ready to be

Sounds good.

booted up. The reason I can do that, is the machine is dual boot,
and I do the stated operations from a second Windows OS. (All
except the "fixboot", which I do with the installer CD. I've never
been able to find a version I could run from any running
Windows. Just the recovery console.)

Does it work regardless of what version (e. g. "SP0") the installation
disc is?

 

[Paul]

Does it work regardless of what version (e. g. "SP0") the installation
disc is?

As far as I know, "fixboot" is a built-in command of the recovery console.
The feature set of the recovery console, should have been set in
stone when SP0 was released. I don't have all the versions here, so
it would be kinda hard to check. The only ISO I have, is of my SP3 disc.

Paul