Using Drive Image to adjust space?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
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Terry Pinnell

Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as
follows:

HD1
---
C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data

HD2
---
F 8GB: Empty
G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C

That's obviously more secure than before, but I'd like to go further.
I want to use Drive Image 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an
emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow
that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB,
it says there is insufficient space. Presumably it's the *partition*
size that matters, not the actual size used.

It's been a long time since I last used DI, and I'm nervous about how
best to proceed at minimum risk. Can I achieve my aim by using the
facilities under Disk Operations to 'Redistribute free space among
partitions'? Relatively risk free? Hate to think of the marital
consequences of wiping WinXP! <g>

Any advice would be much appreciated please.

Terry, UK
 
Terry said:
Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB
Click to expand...

This would have been quite a feat with a 40GB drive.
 
Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as
follows:

HD1
---
C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data

HD2
---
F 8GB: Empty
G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C

That's obviously more secure than before, but I'd like to go further.
I want to use Drive Image 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an
emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow
that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB,
it says there is insufficient space. Presumably it's the *partition*
size that matters, not the actual size used.

It's been a long time since I last used DI, and I'm nervous about how
best to proceed at minimum risk. Can I achieve my aim by using the
facilities under Disk Operations to 'Redistribute free space among
partitions'? Relatively risk free? Hate to think of the marital
consequences of wiping WinXP! <g>

Any advice would be much appreciated please.

Terry, UK
Click to expand...

if i got you right : you have to delete f: and di will restore an image
to the free space . but be aware of consequences by changing drive
letters and partition-numbers for your os . you'll have to do some
changes in the boot.ini etc. .

excuse my poor english .
 
Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as
follows:

HD1
---
C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data

HD2
---
F 8GB: Empty
G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C

That's obviously more secure than before, but I'd like to go further.
I want to use Drive Image 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an
emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow
that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB,
it says there is insufficient space. Presumably it's the *partition*
size that matters, not the actual size used.

It's been a long time since I last used DI, and I'm nervous about how
best to proceed at minimum risk. Can I achieve my aim by using the
facilities under Disk Operations to 'Redistribute free space among
partitions'? Relatively risk free? Hate to think of the marital
consequences of wiping WinXP! <g>

Any advice would be much appreciated please.

Terry, UK
Click to expand...

In order to make a partition bootable it needs to be a primary
partition, not an extended partition.

I have in the past used drive image and partition magic to create two
bootable partitions. The first, the basic one I set as active. The
second, the back up, I set as hidden. If the first one gets corrupted
I can simply hide it, unhide the backup and set it as active. This
has saved me a couple of times. The key is to have recent backups.

Now I simply use drive image to make backups to an external hard
drive. If the "C" drive gets corrupted I restore from the external
drive.
 
JC said:
In order to make a partition bootable it needs to be a primary
partition, not an extended partition.
Click to expand...


That is only partially true. The boot files, i.e. ntldr (the loader),
boot.ini (the boot menu), ntdetect.com (the environment
detector), have to be on a primary partition that has a
boot sector and is marked "active", and that partition has to
be on a HD that is at the head of the BIOS's HD boot order,
and that HD must have an MBR. This partition is called
the "system" partition by Microsoft.

Then the boot.ini file must point to the partition somewhere in
the system from which to load the OS. The choice of partitions
may be by default, by timeout, or by the operator's choice via
keyboard input. The OS may reside on either a primary
partition or on a logical partition within an extended partition.
This partition from which the OS is loaded is called the "boot"
partition by Microsoft. (I did not get that reversed - that's just
Microsoft's perversity.) Both the "boot" partition and the
"system" partition are specified by the Disk Management
utility's GUI.

To sum up, the boot files and the OS don't have to reside
in the same partition, and the OS doesn't have to reside in a
primary partition. You can even put the boot files (the necessary
contents of the "system" partition) on a floppy disk and use that
to load the OS from a HD partition.

*TimDaniels*
 
JC said:
I have in the past used drive image and partition magic
to create two bootable partitions. The first, the basic one
I set as active. The second, the back up, I set as hidden.
If the first one gets corrupted I can simply hide it, unhide
the backup and set it as active. This has saved me a
couple of times. The key is to have recent backups.
Click to expand...


So on what partition and on what HD is the uncorrupted
partition with its resident boot files and OS and its
installed Partition Magic - which are all needed to
"unhide" the uncorrupted partition?

Why must you "hide" the reserve partition in the first
place? Why not just dual boot one or the other
(assuming you have WinNT or Win2K or WinXP)?
If they are on separate HDs, you don't even have to
understand dual-booting - you can just select the
drive to boot by selecting which HD is at the BIOS's
HD boot order by keyboard input at boot time. In both
of these scenarios, there is no "hiding" and thus no
Partition Magic needed.

*TimDaniels*
 
JC said:
Now I simply use drive image to make backups to an external hard
drive. If the "C" drive gets corrupted I restore from the external
drive.
Click to expand...


Since HDs have gotten so cheap, why not use the convenience
of a 2nd internal HD to keep the clone? Then no "restore"
process would be necessary. You could dual-boot between the
two or you could use keyboard input to the BIOS at boot time to
switch between the two. You could even keep your 2nd HD
off-site if you want. And if you don't want the labor of removing
and replacing a HD, you could use a "mobile rack" or
"removable tray" for the 2nd HD such as those sold by Kingwin:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_Cat.asp?CateID=25 . I use the
KF-101-IPF model with the ventilation fan in the bottom of the
removable tray, and it has worked fine for me for so far for
about 2 years:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.asp?LineID=&CateID=25&ID=136 .
These sell on the Web for around $25, and I've seen extra trays
selling for less than $15. The only drawback is that it takes up
a spare 5 1/2" bay.

*TimDaniels*
 
Terry Pinnell said:
Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now
as follows:

HD1
---
C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data

HD2
---
F 8GB: Empty
G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C

That's obviously more secure than before, but I'd like to go further.
I want to use Drive Image 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an
emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow
that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is
8GB, it says there is insufficient space. Presumably it's the
*partition* size that matters, not the actual size used.

It's been a long time since I last used DI, and I'm nervous about
how best to proceed at minimum risk. Can I achieve my aim by
using the facilities under Disk Operations to 'Redistribute free
space among partitions'? Relatively risk free? Hate to think of the
marital consequences of wiping WinXP! <g>

Any advice would be much appreciated please.
Click to expand...


I'm not too familiar with DI 2002, but Partition Magic
(which came with DI 7.0) will shrink that oversize 40GB
partition very simply.

*TimDaniels*
 
I'm not too familiar with DI 2002, but Partition Magic
(which came with DI 7.0) will shrink that oversize 40GB
partition very simply.
Click to expand...

Obviously you should attempt using PM only after you have made a reliable
backup of your data.
 
Timothy Daniels said:
I'm not too familiar with DI 2002, but Partition Magic
(which came with DI 7.0) will shrink that oversize 40GB
partition very simply.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Thanks. I have PM 7 too, but have not yet installed it on Janet's PC.
And it appears that DI 2002 can resize too. Never done it before, but
apparently just a matter of dragging its rh edge leftwards. I'll
probably still need to increase size of F, as not much leeway. If so,
that means first decreasing size of G. And I really ought to make a
new partition on HD1 first, as in the long term I don't want OS and
data all together. That of course, as Wolfgang said, has implicatiuons
for drive letters. All makes me a tad apprehensive! Particularly as
confidence is low after DI crashed on my *own* PC today, while using
Copy Drive. (Will post separately.)

Terry, UK
 
wolfgang schneider said:
if i got you right : you have to delete f: and di will restore an image
to the free space . but be aware of consequences by changing drive
letters and partition-numbers for your os . you'll have to do some
changes in the boot.ini etc. .

excuse my poor english .
Click to expand...

Thanks Wolfgang. No problems understanding! See also my reply to
Timothy.

Terry, UK
 
So on what partition and on what HD is the uncorrupted
partition with its resident boot files and OS and its
installed Partition Magic - which are all needed to
"unhide" the uncorrupted partition?
Click to expand...

The OS is on a bootable CD. I run drive image and partition magic
from floppies. That way if the OS is totally screwed up it does not
matter, I can still restore from my most recent backup.
Why must you "hide" the reserve partition in the first
place? Why not just dual boot one or the other
(assuming you have WinNT or Win2K or WinXP)?
Click to expand...

Because it is simpler to not use dual booting. No extra software to
be installed and possibly corrupt the first few sectors of the drive
that are needed for booting (yes I have seen it happen.)
 
Since HDs have gotten so cheap, why not use the convenience
of a 2nd internal HD to keep the clone? Then no "restore"
process would be necessary. You could dual-boot between the
two or you could use keyboard input to the BIOS at boot time to
switch between the two. You could even keep your 2nd HD
off-site if you want.
Click to expand...

Because I am the co-chairman of the department of redundancy
department. I also do this. I have a cloned hard drive in a desk
drawer. I also have Drive Image backups on DVD's stored off site.
Call me paranoid but it is simpler than starting all over. Ask me how
I know.
And if you don't want the labor of removing
and replacing a HD, you could use a "mobile rack" or
"removable tray" for the 2nd HD such as those sold by Kingwin:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_Cat.asp?CateID=25 .
Click to expand...

I have used removable trays in the past but I have gotten away from
them. Before computer cases were really easy to open I used them.
But it usually meant installing an IDE controller card. The
controller card did not always play nice. I find it easier to open
the case and make the changes, but it a removable tray is certainly a
good option.
 
JC said:
Because it is simpler to not use dual booting. No extra software to
be installed and possibly corrupt the first few sectors of the drive
that are needed for booting (yes I have seen it happen.)
Click to expand...


If you are using WinNT/2K/XP, the (multi)boot manager
is built-in as ntldr/boot.ini . There is no software to install
as it is there all the time, and it's already used each time
you boot the system. If they're corrupted, the system won't
boot, anyway (without some external copies of the
ntldr/boot.ini/ntdetect.com trio to perform the function).

Consider the paragraph below as a minimalist operation.
It involves no fiddling with boot.ini to enable a dual-boot
scenario, just readjusting the HD boot order in the BIOS:

 
Terry Pinnell said:
Thanks. I have PM 7 too, but have not yet installed it on Janet's PC.
And it appears that DI 2002 can resize too. Never done it before, but
apparently just a matter of dragging its rh edge leftwards. I'll
probably still need to increase size of F, as not much leeway. If so,
that means first decreasing size of G. And I really ought to make a
new partition on HD1 first, as in the long term I don't want OS and
data all together. That of course, as Wolfgang said, has implicatiuons
for drive letters. All makes me a tad apprehensive! Particularly as
confidence is low after DI crashed on my *own* PC today, while using
Copy Drive. (Will post separately.)

Terry, UK
Click to expand...


DI quite probably shrinks partitions the same way that
Partition Magic does. It's a pretty simple operation as
no internal data has to be moved as with partition-shifing.
I've used PM to shrink partitions, and it did it quickly and
correctly. I'd be more leary of partition-shifting. It might
help to defrag the partition (known to Disk Management
as a "Local Disk") before doing the shrinking so as to
consolidate as much data at the start of the partition as
possible. But then, you have to trust that the defrag goes
well, too... :-)

By the way, if you want a dedicated copy/clone utility for
HDs only (not for external media), try Casper XP (for WinXP
systems). You can download a free trial copy from the
Future Systems Solutions' webpade at
www.FSSdev/products/casperxp/ . I tried it and like it
enough to buy a copy. The paid version comes with a
copy of Drive2Drive, which is for pre-XP/NT/2K Windows
OSes.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
DI quite probably shrinks partitions the same way that
Partition Magic does. It's a pretty simple operation as
no internal data has to be moved as with partition-shifing.
I've used PM to shrink partitions, and it did it quickly and
correctly. I'd be more leary of partition-shifting. It might
help to defrag the partition (known to Disk Management
as a "Local Disk") before doing the shrinking so as to
consolidate as much data at the start of the partition as
possible. But then, you have to trust that the defrag goes
well, too... :-)

By the way, if you want a dedicated copy/clone utility for
HDs only (not for external media), try Casper XP (for WinXP
systems). You can download a free trial copy from the
Future Systems Solutions' webpade at
www.FSSdev/products/casperxp/ . I tried it and like it
enough to buy a copy. The paid version comes with a
copy of Drive2Drive, which is for pre-XP/NT/2K Windows
OSes.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Many thanks, very helpful. Will get back on the case tomorrow. At
present side-tracked by other problems concerning Windows Update!

Terry, UK
 
I'm not too familiar with DI 2002, but Partition Magic
(which came with DI 7.0) will shrink that oversize 40GB
partition very simply.
Click to expand...

But that process isnt risk free.

It would be MUCH safer to use True Image
to make a copy of his C drive to the F drive.
 
Terry Pinnell said:
Thanks. I have PM 7 too, but have not yet installed it on Janet's PC.
And it appears that DI 2002 can resize too. Never done it before, but
apparently just a matter of dragging its rh edge leftwards. I'll
probably still need to increase size of F, as not much leeway. If so,
that means first decreasing size of G. And I really ought to make a
new partition on HD1 first, as in the long term I don't want OS and
data all together. That of course, as Wolfgang said, has implicatiuons
for drive letters. All makes me a tad apprehensive! Particularly as
confidence is low after DI crashed on my *own* PC today, while using
Copy Drive. (Will post separately.)
Click to expand...

Yes, its very risky indeed to use PM to resize partitions without a full backup.

You'd have to be mad to risk that.
 
DI quite probably shrinks partitions the same way that
Partition Magic does. It's a pretty simple operation as
no internal data has to be moved as with partition-shifing.
I've used PM to shrink partitions, and it did it quickly and
correctly.
Click to expand...

And plenty have had the shit hit the fan when doing that.
I'd be more leary of partition-shifting. It might
help to defrag the partition (known to Disk Management
as a "Local Disk") before doing the shrinking so as to
consolidate as much data at the start of the partition as
possible. But then, you have to trust that the defrag goes
well, too... :-)
Click to expand...
By the way, if you want a dedicated copy/clone utility for
HDs only (not for external media), try Casper XP (for WinXP
systems). You can download a free trial copy from the
Future Systems Solutions' webpade at
www.FSSdev/products/casperxp/ . I tried it and like it
enough to buy a copy. The paid version comes with a
copy of Drive2Drive, which is for pre-XP/NT/2K Windows
OSes.
Click to expand...

Mad to be using that without a full backup too.
 
Terry Pinnell said:
Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD
installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of
making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB
and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as
follows:

HD1
---
C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data

HD2
---
F 8GB: Empty
G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C

That's obviously more secure than before, but I'd like to go further.
I want to use Drive Image 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an
emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow
that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB,
it says there is insufficient space. Presumably it's the *partition*
size that matters, not the actual size used.
Click to expand...
It's been a long time since I last used DI, and I'm nervous
about how best to proceed at minimum risk. Can I achieve
my aim by using the facilities under Disk Operations to
'Redistribute free space among partitions'? Relatively risk free?
Click to expand...

No, its very high risk. Shouldnt be done without a full backup.
Hate to think of the marital consequences of wiping WinXP! <g>
Click to expand...

You could apply handcuffs before doing it |-)
Any advice would be much appreciated please.
Click to expand...

I'd make a full image of the C drive, then restore that to the F
drive. It should be happy to do that, because as you say, it will fit.

I wouldnt personally break up the C drive into OS and data partitions,
basically because there isnt really any point in having them separate
unless you want to do safety images of just the OS before installing
an update etc so you can just restore it if it all goes pear shaped.

Just be careful to unplug the new 40G drive before booting the
copy for the first time after the copy has been made. If you dont
do that, XP gets seriously confused and will boot using some of
the files from the 40G drive, and you wont be able to do that if
the 40G drive dies. XP will claim to have found new hardware
and will ask to reboot. Allow that, and let it boot right up on the
copy. Then you can shut down and plug the 40G drive in again
and boot from whichever copy of XP you want to boot from
using the bios to specify which one you want to boot from.

The F drive needs to be a primary partition for simplicity.
 
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