Re: Drive Image--OT

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from J R FOX  on Sun, 8 Jan 2006
13:17:45 -0800 (PST)


> Same problem as with Partition Magic: unless you have
> one of the most recent versions of DI (and I can't say
> for sure what the cutoff was, except that it was
> defintely after v. 4.0),

Get the latest version, then.

> it won't be conversant with
> the last rev. of NTFS -- not even for W2K. In that
> case, the boot partition image it creates will fail
> big time when you try to restore and / or boot it.

Why? If it truly makes a bit-for-bit copy, it should be fine. Doesn't DI
format the drive first, then restore the image? No matter what incremental
changes have been made to the NTFS file system spec, for sure the latest
version of XP is going to be able to read and write to every version of NTFS.
Otherwise you could never take a second drive which was NTFS formatted, say,
eight years ago, attach it, and expect it to work. And you _can_ do that --
I've done it.

>> why can't you use Windows' native
>> Backup/Restore util to "restore"
>> everything from the Firewire drive, with your
>> current system up and running?
>> Replace all files on the same drive?

> In the case of key system files, that ain't gonna fly.

How do you know? Even if you back up the "System State"? And you doubly
insure yourself with ERUNT? Which "key system files" won't be copied?

Beyond that, my question is, why do this? Why try to restore an old system?
If it ain't broke? At the same time, because it is the simplest situation,
it's hard to believe that this isn't the very first question that DriveImage
and other imagefile programs attempted to address. You'd think that their
documentation would address this situation very clearly.

My method is different. I use native Backup + ERUNT, then I do a barebones
install on the reformatted disk, just enough to get functionality from the
Restore util, then I bring my whole old system back. It's super fast, and I
can testify that it works.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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