New hard disk

[Dave]

You did not answer my questions.

1. Should I have ran Drive Image prior to the Windows restore CD?

Doesn't matter. DI 7.0, installation/recovery boot CD, will recover the
image (if a good image file(s)) to make the original XP partition saved
previously.

2. If I run Drive Image on a just formatted hard disk, and try to restore
the system from the image on the external hard disk, how can the computer
see the external disk if Windows was not
installed?

You don't partition OR format a hard drive when using a recovery software to
restore an image of a partition.


Whenever you decide to divulge the original hd capacity and the new hard
drive capacity, would be great.

 

[Sanford Aranoff]

Don't understand. More details involved in the recovery. Did you
click/check any options prior to the recovery to start? For instance boot
signature and/or mbr. Did you verify the the image file(s) during the
imaging process?
Are you recovering to the same computer, including same identical hardware
and so forth?
--

Recovering to the same computer. The hard disk was replaced.

My system is now working. I am concerned how to protect myself in the future.
Is DI good enough, or shall I get something else, like True Image?
I am not sure if I verified the image during the imaging. I'll do it again and
check. I did verify during the recovery.

During recovery, I did say the new drive should be bootable. There was another
option about disk signature. I do not understand this, and did not check it,
because it was physically a different disk.

Again, this should be a routine process, for hard disks fail.

Thanks for your help. I'll try my best to answer any of your questions.

BTW, do you press CR at the end of each line when you type a message? How come
your lines do not scroll?

 

[Ghostrider]

Dave wrote:




Recovering to the same computer. The hard disk was replaced.

My system is now working. I am concerned how to protect myself in the future.
Is DI good enough, or shall I get something else, like True Image?
I am not sure if I verified the image during the imaging. I'll do it again and
check. I did verify during the recovery.

During recovery, I did say the new drive should be bootable. There was another
option about disk signature. I do not understand this, and did not check it,
because it was physically a different disk.

Again, this should be a routine process, for hard disks fail.

Thanks for your help. I'll try my best to answer any of your questions.

BTW, do you press CR at the end of each line when you type a message? How come
your lines do not scroll?

Based on the contents of this thread, find and use the best disk imaging
application that YOU are comfortable with. That is, it will be based on
your ability to understand the "computerese" of the instruction manual.
Or, alternately, find a friend or pay a tech to teach you how to use any
particular one and follow the instructions by rote.

 

[Dave]

Recovering to the same computer. The hard disk was replaced.

My system is now working. I am concerned how to protect myself in the
future.

Why/how is it now working?

Is DI good enough, or shall I get something else, like True Image?
I am not sure if I verified the image during the imaging. I'll do it again
and
check. I did verify during the recovery.

During the imaging process after imaging itself, verification of internal of
image file would be conducted if selected.

After the fact, during recovery, its too late. It will only let you know if
there's a problem.

During recovery, I did say the new drive should be bootable. There was
another
option about disk signature. I do not understand this, and did not check
it,

The XP installation makes a signature for each hard drive it sees. It
should be identical on a drive that recovered with an image file, and that
hard drive is a replacement for one removed. XP has no idea at that point
its a different installation location.

because it was physically a different disk.

Again, this should be a routine process, for hard disks fail.

Thanks for your help. I'll try my best to answer any of your questions.

BTW, do you press CR at the end of each line when you type a message? How
come
your lines do not scroll?

Am using Outlook Express for news. Version 6 that comes with SP2. It
automatically goes to the next line when I type. I do not use full screen
for replies.

 

[Dave]

Replied in-line:

Just as I thought...someone did not read the DriveImage manual.
It had to be copied from the DriveImage cdrom or from the website
if it had been downloaded. And it would have helped had these 2
questions been directly asked right from the outset.


Yes. The Windows restore CD is not necessary if the DriveImage image
file had superseded it. The Windows restore CD from Dell is just the
disk image of the factory version. The Drive Image image file contains
the version of Windows as the user had configured it, at the time the
image was made.

You could have figured that out by the answer given by Mistoffolees,
when he wrote that the Dell technician was just doing his/her job.


The Windows operating system is not needed to restore from an external
source. The Windows operating system, in fact, may hinder just such a
recovery, in order to protect itself from having working system files
over-written. Mistoffolees, again, gave the answer. Most self-booting
disk cloning or recovery programs have all the commands built-in for
partitioning, sizing, formatting and the sector-by-sector extraction
of the image file and copying to the hard drive, just as they do for
building the sector-by-sector imaging of the hard drive to a file.

DriveImage is somewhat dated. It boots into a runtime version of DR DOS
and, more recently, into its descendent version (? Culebra). If the
computer cannot natively identify the external drive (because it or its
bios is too ancient), then one must also re-write the autoexec.bat and
config.sys file, and add the system drivers to the boot disc. Nor, IIRC,
can DriveImage 7.0 restore from USB. (External SCSI, yes; internal HD,
yes.) Current versions of Ghost and True Image, among others, are OK
(and this is cominh from a Drive Image user when it was programmed by
PowerQuest.)

Dated, a perspective. Continues to work well here.
DI 7.0 restore/ installation CD runs on windows PE. DI 6.0/2002 runs on the
DR DOS. DI 7.0 can restore from both USB and Firewire connected hard
drives. There is no autoexec or config.sys to re-write (DI 6.0/2002, yes).
All is hard written (read-only) to the DI 7.0 bootable CD. It has an F6
option, like a windows installation, to inject a hardware driver if needed
during booting.

Long time user of DI 7.0

 

[Dave]

Okay, I got it. I'll get Acronis. This will allow me to create an image of
the hard disk on the external drive (USB). In case of a crash, I replace
the hard disk, format it, put in the Acronis
bootable disk, and restore from the external.

Is this correct? If so, I'll get the Acronis product right away.

Thanks a lot.

You have been terribly, terribly been misinformed by the previous reply. I
have no qualms if Acronis or DI 7.0 will do the job you seek. Both have
hard disk copy capability if all else fails. Just be sure the target is all
free space, no partitions.

 

[Dave]

Dated, a perspective. Continues to work well here.
DI 7.0 restore/ installation CD runs on windows PE. DI 6.0/2002 runs on
the DR DOS. DI 7.0 can restore from both USB and Firewire connected hard
drives. There is no autoexec or config.sys to re-write (DI 6.0/2002,
yes). All is hard written (read-only) to the DI 7.0 bootable CD. It has
an F6 option, like a windows installation, to inject a hardware driver if
needed during booting.

Long time user of DI 7.0

Addendum. DI 6.0 restore only works in IBM DR DOS, IF, you attempt to image
the boot drive. That won't happen here as can only be invoked from the Win
95/98/98SE/ME environment while in DI 6.0. It writes a temporary boot
floppy image where the PC subsequently boots from.

DI 6.0 creates two physical boot diskettes in windows for booting otherwise.
The operating system is the base msdos for the version of windows used in
that environment.