Imaging new computer

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Bill
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:15 am

Imaging new computer

Post by Bill »

I have a new computer that has not been started up yet. It has an SSD and a regular hdd. I have purchased and downloaded the BootIt Collection and the TeraByte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite onto my current computer. If possible, I want to create a CD from which I can boot the computer and create an image of the SSD drive on the hdd without installing anything on the SSD. I have read the BootIt UEFI manual, and I don’t see instructions for doing that, just for installing BootIt UEF and Image for UEFI on a partition and going from there.
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Bob Coleman »

You have a few choices here.

You've installed the TeraByte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite on a different computer?

You can create IFL (Image for Linux) boot media during that install (or download it separately and create its boot media).

If it were me, I would do that then boot IFL on the new computer and use it to image the SSD onto the HDD.

You mention installing BootIt UEFI and Image for UEFI on a partition, but actually you have to create boot media (CD or UFD) for BootIt UEFI and then boot that to install BootIt UEFI on the computer, but you don't have to install it when you boot it. You can instead use the included Image for UEFI (if you included it when creating BootIt UEFI media) to do the imaging.

Finally, you can create Image for UEFI boot media and boot that on the new computer to do the imaging.

IFL will probably do the imaging faster than IFU.
Bill
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:15 am

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Bill »

Thanks, Bob, for responding.

I have only downloaded the files onto my current computer. I wasn't sure if I had to create the install CD on the computer it would be installed to, or I could create it on my current computer. I read this in the manual:

"When Secure Boot is enabled, the system will only boot items that have a digital signature that is included in the system firmware."

I wondered then if the boot disk had to be created on the computer it would be used with to get that digital signature.

When I said create a CD, I was referring to the install CD, created per the manual instructions and including Image for UEFI. The manual only describes a sequence that includes installing BootIt into a partition, not running from the CD.

To create the Image for UEFI boot media, I take it I would just follow the steps for creating an install CD, except I wouldn't put BootIt UEFI on the CD. That will give me a bootable CD?

However, you say IFL will probably be faster. I would think that the image files created by IFL, Image for UEFI, and Image for Windows would all be the same format. What I am gathering is that if I had to restore C, I could use IFL on any of the images Image for Windows creates for my restore and it would be faster?
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Brian K »

Bill wrote:

> I wondered then if the boot disk had to be created on the computer it would
> be used with to get that digital signature.

You can create boot media for BIU, IFL or IFU on any computer and it will work in other computers.


> When I said create a CD, I was referring to the install CD, created per the
> manual instructions and including Image for UEFI. The manual only describes
> a sequence that includes installing BootIt into a partition, not running
> from the CD.

Boot from BIU media and click Maintenance. BIU will not be installed and will run from your media.

> To create the Image for UEFI boot media, I take it I would just follow the
> steps for creating an install CD, except I wouldn't put BootIt UEFI on the
> CD. That will give me a bootable CD?

If you put a dot in BootIt UEFI you will get media that contains both BIU and IFU.

>
> However, you say IFL will probably be faster. I would think that the image
> files created by IFL, Image for UEFI, and Image for Windows would all be
> the same format. What I am gathering is that if I had to restore C, I could
> use IFL on any of the images Image for Windows creates for my restore and
> it would be faster?

Yes.
Bill
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:15 am

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Bill »

Greatly appreciated.

Bill
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Bob Coleman »

Bill wrote:

> However, you say IFL will probably be faster. I would think that the image
> files created by IFL, Image for UEFI, and Image for Windows would all be
> the same format. What I am gathering is that if I had to restore C, I could
> use IFL on any of the images Image for Windows creates for my restore and
> it would be faster?

As Brian said, Yes. What I was actually thinking of there is that using IFL to create the image will be faster. Both are true.
Bill
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:15 am

Re: Imaging new computer

Post by Bill »

As it turned out, IFL couldn't detect my ssd. I ended up rebuilding the flash drive with BootIt UEFI and IF UEFI, and it detected the ssd. I imaged it with no problem. I posted this on another post, and Support replied that they had a couple of laptops with this problem. IF UEFI was pretty quick doing the imaging. I'm not going to complain.
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