Re: OT--Win7 and disk partitions

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Coincidentally, I was just about to write to Flash about this
off-list, but since it came up here . . . .

--- On Mon, 3/15/10, Robert Holmgren  wrote:

> If you are restoring a whole partition, then TrueImage 10
> worked pretty well.  I successfully used it to restore an
> entire machine several times.  You can, indeed, put in a
> brand new drive as long as it has identical disk geometry
> to the old one -- which basically means, same manufacturer
> and model.  If you use a different (e.g. larger) drive, it
> can still be done, but it will not work out of the box. 

I've used Acronis DD-10 and TI-10 since they came out. One
of the unique (?) calling cards of TI is that it includes
a "disk migration" module (which was once a separate product),
expressly touted as allowing you to move everything to a
different, larger drive. It claims to transfer everything
(OS, apps) in a workable condition, apparently finessing the
NT Disk Signature -- or whatever it is that an installed
Windows might normally balk at, after waking up in its new
home. (I've never had to reactivate, or anything like that.)
I've done this several times, but that's still *far* from
making me well-versed on this subject. In my limited
experience, this procedure sort of mostly works, but with
some caveats.

One is that I got in the least amount of trouble when I let
the TI migration algorithm do its (DEFAULT) thing, not making
any adjustments before or in the course of the migration.
It automatically resizes the Fat-32 or NTFS partitions by
some percentage, according to how much larger the new drive
happens to be. After that, I always had to do a certain
amount of tinkering with DFSEE and / or DD-10, in order to
get everything working again the way it did before.
It leaves the HPFS (OS/2) partitions exactly as they were,
except that the LVM info for them gets tossed, and has to be
recreated. I don't know what might become of EXT partitions
in this process, not being a 'Nix user.

> You need to understand how boot sectors and disk geometry
> works.  This is very very technical stuff, and not for the
> faint of heart.  I've done this several times also, and a
> disk repair utility like DiskPatch can be a huge help
> (DIY Data Recovery in the Netherlands -- Google
> it). 

At least a couple of times -- including just recently -- I
also got bit doing this. It's rather odd, and I'm now thinking
the answer may be some subtle disk geometry thing. On the
drive in question, there are two eCS boot partitions that
came through unscathed -- after applying the usual remedies --
and two W2K boot partitions. Of the latter, the one that is
located much farther away on the drive is working just fine
in its new 50 % larger incarnation, but the one much lower
down on the drive has real problems. It boots up but runs
so slowly -- and with so much *unnecessary* disk access --
as to be unusable. For example, it might take Xy 5 minutes
to come up, after it is invoked. When that happens with
things that are really light weight, like FreeCell or
Notepad, it's clearly a major problem. However, if I leave
this W2K running for an hour or so and then return to the
computer, it will mostly run O.K. until I power down.
That seems very strange to me !

I'm confident this is not a case of malware, or anything
like that.

The really annoying thing is that I know I've encountered this
very situation before, and managed to overcome it, but
unfortunately never wrote up any reminder notes on *how.*
I've tried to apply whatever adjustments occurred to me with
DFSEE, but so far No Dice. Yeah, I know: a little knowledge
is a dangerous thing. Not gonna stop me though . . . .

I would welcome any detailed suggestions, here or off-list.

As to what Kari said about Acronis Selector, I've never used
it (I've gotten by with just the IBM Boot Mgr., instead), but
a friend of mine has had pretty good luck with it, so it may be
one of those YMMV type things.


 Jordan