Re: Strategy for Disk Cloning / Upgrade

There lots of advice available, there are papers from
Microsoft, Techtv's Leo LaPorte, MVPs, books on subjects
such as the A+ certification to those written by the hard
drive mfg'r.

These boxes sitting on our desks are called Personal
Computers (PCs) for the simple reason that you can configure
them many different ways to suite your personal wishes.

I will tell you my personal answers, not the only possible
answers.

I would prefer to have two large and fast hard drives, each
with several partitions. I would do a clean install of my
operating system on one drive partition. I would not dual
boot because for my use, one OS (XP Pro) will do what I need
to do. I would have the recovery console install and this
is a dual boot of sorts.

I would install my application software in the same
partitions as the OS because I believe that if the OS
crashes and must be reinstall clean that the applications
would also need to be reinstalled so keeping them isolated
from the OS doesn't provide any particular security or
convenience.

I would have my working data on a second partition, I would
have a partition for downloaded files including program
files and updates. I would have a partition for multimedia
files.

The second hard drive would be used for multimedia and to
mirror or back-up only the data files, etc. I would not
bother to back-up any files that were on commercial CDs.

I would do this after planning the install and the tree
structure of the drives and partitions before I began
installing applications and back-up files. My feeling is
that attempts to carry forward a operating system of
multiple disks with partitions that just grew, is foolish.




"Fred Marshall" <fmarshallx@remove_the_x.acm.org> wrote in
message news:[email protected]..
| I hope there's someone who understands this topic. I've
had no responses.
| I'm tempted to write a book (eventually) if I can't find
one!
|
| Is there no guidance that is available?
|
| Thanks,
|
| Fred
|
| "Fred Marshall" <fmarshallx@remove_the_x.acm.org> wrote in
message
| news:[email protected]..
| > I'm working to upgrade a system to a larger HD - with
the objective of
| > keeping the XP system intact. The HD now has:
| > Two CD drives
| > One HD with:
| > C: active bootable primary partition with DOS on it.
This partition has
| > boot.ini and ntldr
| > D: was one a CDROM drive
| > E: a logical bootable drive with the primary XP system
on it
| > F: a writable DVD/CD drive
| > G: a primary bootable drive with a small XP install (I
had to add this
| > because DiskImage7 was damaged and unfixable otherwise
on the primary XP
| > system).
| > etc. This was added recently.
| >
| > With the earlier attempts of doing the copy, the CDs now
show up as F:
| > (writable) and J: (CDROM) and there is no D:. Probably
not important.
| >
| > Here is my plan which seems to have flaws:
| >
| > A) The existing drive is master on an IDE controller.
Add the new drive
| as
| > slave.
| > 1) Copy C: onto the new drive as primary, active,
bootable and copy the
| MBR.
| > 2) Copy E: onto the new drive as logical, bootable,
don't copy the MBR.
| > 3) Copy G: onto the new drive as primary bootable, don't
copy the MBR.
| > [the selection of primary and logical only because
that's what's on the
| old
| > HD]
| > B) Remove the old hard drive and connect the new one as
master on the same
| > controller.
| >
| > Some tries I could get one of the XPs to boot but not
both - and, I think
| > never the main XP on E:
| >
| > Of course I want the the partition drive letters to be
the same as in the
| > beginning. I can use Disk Manager in XP assuming things
get that far.
| >
| > A curious thing: in boot.ini, the os partitions show up
as E: being the
| 3rd
| > and G: being the 2nd. Is this because the primary
partitions are
| enumerated
| > first, followed by the logical partitions? That's all I
can think of.
| >
| > Thanks,
| >
| > Fred
| >
| >
|
|

Jim,

I agree. Yet, some things just have to be dealt with as they are.
Sometimes starting over is a really good idea - when you can afford it.
I know this is the preferred approach by glass house IT folks and I
understand why.

My problem is that I have to deal with lots of computers in small settings
that I didn't set up to begin with. Preserving data and getting back to a
working OS is a very typical task. So, having the guidance is important.

Having a bootable DOS partition used to be a pretty good idea if one needed
to do certain things. I believe this is more and more a thing of the past
is it not? Otherwise I'd not ever dual boot (again) because of the
headaches it causes when doing system upgrades, etc.

I have plenty of books and more on the way. Aside from your recommendations
from 30,000 feet, of all the sources you mention, can you recommend some
URLs please? I'm good with Google but haven't had lots of luck with it so
far .... and I do have to deal with the nitty gritty methods.

Isn't this newsgroup the place for MVPs?

Thanks,

Fred

"Jim Macklin" <p51mustang[threeX12]@xxxhotmail.calm> wrote in message
news:%[email protected]..

> There lots of advice available, there are papers from
> Microsoft, Techtv's Leo LaPorte, MVPs, books on subjects
> such as the A+ certification to those written by the hard
> drive mfg'r.
>
> These boxes sitting on our desks are called Personal
> Computers (PCs) for the simple reason that you can configure
> them many different ways to suite your personal wishes.
>
> I will tell you my personal answers, not the only possible
> answers.
>
> I would prefer to have two large and fast hard drives, each
> with several partitions. I would do a clean install of my
> operating system on one drive partition. I would not dual
> boot because for my use, one OS (XP Pro) will do what I need
> to do. I would have the recovery console install and this
> is a dual boot of sorts.
>
> I would install my application software in the same
> partitions as the OS because I believe that if the OS
> crashes and must be reinstall clean that the applications
> would also need to be reinstalled so keeping them isolated
> from the OS doesn't provide any particular security or
> convenience.
>
> I would have my working data on a second partition, I would
> have a partition for downloaded files including program
> files and updates. I would have a partition for multimedia
> files.
>
> The second hard drive would be used for multimedia and to
> mirror or back-up only the data files, etc. I would not
> bother to back-up any files that were on commercial CDs.
>
> I would do this after planning the install and the tree
> structure of the drives and partitions before I began
> installing applications and back-up files. My feeling is
> that attempts to carry forward a operating system of
> multiple disks with partitions that just grew, is foolish.
>
>
>
>
> "Fred Marshall" <fmarshallx@remove_the_x.acm.org> wrote in
> message news:[email protected]..
> | I hope there's someone who understands this topic. I've
> had no responses.
> | I'm tempted to write a book (eventually) if I can't find
> one!
> |
> | Is there no guidance that is available?
> |
> | Thanks,
> |
> | Fred
> |
> | "Fred Marshall" <fmarshallx@remove_the_x.acm.org> wrote in
> message
> | news:[email protected]..
> | > I'm working to upgrade a system to a larger HD - with
> the objective of
> | > keeping the XP system intact. The HD now has:
> | > Two CD drives
> | > One HD with:
> | > C: active bootable primary partition with DOS on it.
> This partition has
> | > boot.ini and ntldr
> | > D: was one a CDROM drive
> | > E: a logical bootable drive with the primary XP system
> on it
> | > F: a writable DVD/CD drive
> | > G: a primary bootable drive with a small XP install (I
> had to add this
> | > because DiskImage7 was damaged and unfixable otherwise
> on the primary XP
> | > system).
> | > etc. This was added recently.
> | >
> | > With the earlier attempts of doing the copy, the CDs now
> show up as F:
> | > (writable) and J: (CDROM) and there is no D:. Probably
> not important.
> | >
> | > Here is my plan which seems to have flaws:
> | >
> | > A) The existing drive is master on an IDE controller.
> Add the new drive
> | as
> | > slave.
> | > 1) Copy C: onto the new drive as primary, active,
> bootable and copy the
> | MBR.
> | > 2) Copy E: onto the new drive as logical, bootable,
> don't copy the MBR.
> | > 3) Copy G: onto the new drive as primary bootable, don't
> copy the MBR.
> | > [the selection of primary and logical only because
> that's what's on the
> | old
> | > HD]
> | > B) Remove the old hard drive and connect the new one as
> master on the same
> | > controller.
> | >
> | > Some tries I could get one of the XPs to boot but not
> both - and, I think
> | > never the main XP on E:
> | >
> | > Of course I want the the partition drive letters to be
> the same as in the
> | > beginning. I can use Disk Manager in XP assuming things
> get that far.
> | >
> | > A curious thing: in boot.ini, the os partitions show up
> as E: being the
> | 3rd
> | > and G: being the 2nd. Is this because the primary
> partitions are
> | enumerated
> | > first, followed by the logical partitions? That's all I
> can think of.
> | >
> | > Thanks,
> | >
> | > Fred
> | >
> | >
> |
> |
>
>