Disk Copy

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Mike
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:51 pm

Disk Copy

Post by Mike »

Normally I use IFL to backup an image of a drive and then restore the image to a new drive. If necessary, I resize the partitions on the destination drive with BIBM. (By the way, I use BIBM only in the Partitions Work mode.)

I'm having a problem cloning a hard drive. The source drive has a SYSTEM_DRV, a Windows7_OS, and a Lenovo_Recovery partition. After I used BIBM to copy and paste one partition at a time, the destination drive would not boot. It simply goes to a textual "Loading Windows Files" prompt and reboots. The SYSTEM_DRV partition is active on both drives.

Is there a way with BIBM to copy a full drive with one action? If not, is there a Terabyte tool that allows me to do so? The various partitions that Windows 7 and OEMs are creating are confusing me.

By the way, and maybe this is helpful in answering my questions, I made an image with IFL to an external USB drive, and then I restored that image to the new hard drive. It did not boot, either. It gave the same error. The old drive is a 320GB WD Blue. The new drive is a 1TB WD Blue.
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Disk Copy

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

In BIBM the easiest way to copy a drive is to use IFD GUI. When you create the BIBM boot media you have the option to include it.

What options are you using for the restore?

Is the global "Automatic Boot Partition Update" option enabled?

Does it boot if you don't resize/move any partitions?

When you try to boot it, is the new drive connected to the same SATA port as the original drive?

Have you tried booting it without any other drives connected?

How old is the system? Does it properly support the new 1TB drive?

Faulty RAM also seems to cause that issue. You could run Memtest86+ and see if anything shows up.
Mike
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Disk Copy

Post by Mike »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> In BIBM the easiest way to copy a drive is to use IFD GUI. When you create
> the BIBM boot media you have the option to include it.

I didn't know that. I'll investigate.

> What options are you using for the restore?

Whatever the defaults are. Most of the options are totally meaningless to me with my lack of knowledge of hard drive architecture.

> Is the global "Automatic Boot Partition Update" option enabled?

No. Should it be?

> Does it boot if you don't resize/move any partitions?

No.

> When you try to boot it, is the new drive connected to the same SATA port
> as the original drive?

I tried it both ways.

> Have you tried booting it without any other drives connected?

Yes.

> How old is the system? Does it properly support the new 1TB drive?

2011 Lenovo ThinkCenter M90p

> Faulty RAM also seems to cause that issue. You could run Memtest86+ and see
> if anything shows up.

memtest has been running all morning. When I get home this evening, I'll look for errors.

Thanks.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Disk Copy

Post by TeraByte Support »

If you do it one-by-one, you'll most likely need to use bcdedit to edit the
system_drv bcd entires to point to the OS partition. (the two entries
osdevice and device).

Also, install a standard MBR since Lenovo can come with a special one for
recovery.

"Mike" wrote in message news:6431@public.bootitbm...

Normally I use IFL to backup an image of a drive and then restore the image
to a new drive. If necessary, I resize the partitions on the destination
drive with BIBM. (By the way, I use BIBM only in the Partitions Work mode.)

I'm having a problem cloning a hard drive. The source drive has a
SYSTEM_DRV, a Windows7_OS, and a Lenovo_Recovery partition. After I used
BIBM to copy and paste one partition at a time, the destination drive would
not boot. It simply goes to a textual "Loading Windows Files" prompt and
reboots. The SYSTEM_DRV partition is active on both drives.

Is there a way with BIBM to copy a full drive with one action? If not, is
there a Terabyte tool that allows me to do so? The various partitions that
Windows 7 and OEMs are creating are confusing me.

By the way, and maybe this is helpful in answering my questions, I made an
image with IFL to an external USB drive, and then I restored that image to
the new hard drive. It did not boot, either. It gave the same error. The old
drive is a 320GB WD Blue. The new drive is a 1TB WD Blue.

Mike
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Disk Copy

Post by Mike »

I was able to burn a disk for IFD with the GUI, and the copy worked fine. That problem is solved. However....

TeraByte Support wrote:
> If you do it one-by-one, you'll most likely need to use bcdedit to edit the system_drv bcd entires to point to the OS partition. (the two entries
> osdevice and device).

I understand NONE of that, but I'm going to try to read up on it.

> Also, install a standard MBR since Lenovo can come with a special one for recovery.

What if I want to be able to get to the recovery partition?

Can someone suggest a primer on these topics? You guys know this stuff well, but I want to learn more about it.
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Disk Copy

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Mike wrote:
> I was able to burn a disk for IFD with the GUI, and the copy worked fine. That
> problem is solved. However....

That's good. I assume the RAM tests passed okay.

> I understand NONE of that, but I'm going to try to read up on it.

See this KB article for details on using BCD Edit in BIBM to update the system partition:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=492

> What if I want to be able to get to the recovery partition?

Does it work now to get into it? If so then you should be fine with the MBR the way it is. If you do need to change to standard code you can generally still get into the recovery partition. Most times you can just set that partition active (possibly unhide also) before booting or you may need to put the original code back. Some systems will also get into the recovery program via WinRE.

Many people end up just keeping a backup image of the drive when it's new in case they want to restore back to factory later. Then the recovery partition is removed along with a cleanup and a new "base" image is created.
a1pcfixer
Posts: 183
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:13 am

Re: Disk Copy

Post by a1pcfixer »

Pp,

> Many people end up just keeping a backup image of the drive when it's new in case they want to restore back to factory later. Then the recovery partition is removed along with a cleanup and a new "base" image is created.

So, my Lenova G780/Win 8 that has 6 partitions....If I make an image of the entire drive,
replace that drive with an SSD drive.....when I restore the image, I'd end up with all
6 partitions like it was new???

The 6 partitions are;

1000MB (Recovery)
260MB (EFI System)
1000MB (OEM)
631,30GB NTFS (Boot, pagefile, Primary{Win 8}, drive C:\)
250GB (Primary {Drive D:\} programs, driver files, etc)
20GB (Recovery)

--

Jim L.
Using - Virtual Access(OLR)
http://www.virtual-access.org
6.3.0.5 and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 build 7601

TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Disk Copy

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Yes, assuming there's room on the SSD. On GPT systems I'm more likely to leave things alone. On MBR systems I generally remove everything except the Windows partition -- especially if I plan on multi-booting.

If you don't care about being able to reset then it matters less. If you left the drive as original you could boot to recovery and reset before giving the computer away, for example. If you cleaned it off you could restore your original drive backup image (that includes recovery) and do the recovery or just go with the "clean" restore image. Either way, the new user can then configure it how they want. Some users image their new computers before even booting into Windows and use that for their "reset" image.
Mike
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Disk Copy

Post by Mike »

After I built a new Windows installation from the ground up, the problems described above went away. It was a helpful suggestion to use the IFD GUI for copying an entire drive, but now I have a problem there. This morning, I was able to make an image of the new partition with IFD using an external USB drive. Everything went well. After I did some cleanup on the new installation, I tried to make a final image, but IFD will not see the same external USB drive on the same computer. Changing USB ports made no difference.

When the computer boots into Windows, it can see the USB drive just fine. I used IFL to make an image, and it worked fine. At this point, I'm wondering what's up with IFD. For the record, I did read and follow the Knowledge Base article regarding the USB drive not being found.
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