TeraByte Unlimited

Hello everybody,

Edit2: the topic is maybe to broad to narrow it down: talking here about win7, ntfs, MBR hd

What EXACTLY does the option Restore first track do? I have been searching this forum a little and there has been some info, in the help there stands also something, but i don't feel comfortable enough to really use it.


Out of this forum here i take that restore first track overwrites EVERYTHING except the Partition table from LBA 0 till LBA 62. Is that true are there some exceptions/scenarions where not everything (besides partition table) will be erased. I want to know how sure i can be that all "licensing information" and other stuff that is written to the hidden track is reall gone when i use this option - and that the system then is really cleaned up?


Ah one wish could someone please set BBcode on active for me? It feels a bit uncomfortable...

ah wonderful how sun is shining

Edit: Titel was wrong

If you want to "clear" the first track you'd be better off wiping that part of the drive. Restoring the first track will restore the backed up sectors (as determined necessary, per "AUTO") or a specified number of the sectors (per number in "First Track Sectors" box).

On a standard Windows 7 MBR install the first track is unused. Often it's only used if a boot manager/loader is installed (e.g. BING, BIBM, GRUB, TrueCrypt).

With a GPT disk, if you select Restore First Track and enter 0 (for all sectors), how many sectors are restored? I know it's 63 sectors for a MBR disk but is it the same for a GPT disk?

Hi,

your wording was a bit hard to understand/unclear for me. could you just check if i got this right:

1. by "as determined necessary, per "AUTO"" you mean that IFW will overwrite the first 63 sectors, but only the ones that have changed since image creation?
2. If i type in for example 25 then IFW would only overwrite the FIRST 25 sectors?
3. Brian k wrote: " if you select Restore First Track and enter 0 (for all sectors), how many sectors are restored? " So 0 means all sectors??!
Anything else i need to know?

thx so far!

1. AUTO lets IFW determine what sectors need to be restored depending on what was in those sectors. For example, if the EMBR needs to be restored.

2. You can specify a number if you need to override AUTO. 0 (zero) will restore the entire first track. Otherwise, the number specifies the number of sectors to restore (e.g. 3 will restore three sectors: 0-2).

The "first track" is based on the BIOS geometry. It would be the first
track, which is from Cylinder 0, Head 0, Sector 1 through Cylinder 0, Head
0, Sector n where n is what the BIOS says the sectors per track (SPT) is.
So it's basically Cylinder 0 Head 0. When you have unaligned partitions
and the BIOS is using auto geometry instead of NORMAL, LBA or LARGE modes
you can get values for SPT that make no since like 1 or 2 (sidenote: and
some BIOSes even crash internally when the ending geometry in the MBR is
using values such as 0 or 1 in Cylinders/Heads/SPT when you attempt to use
certain BIOS functions). So the first track can very greatly today due to
the non-cylinder alignments being used. If you backup a drive with SPT at
17 and then restore and ask for 63, only 17 would be restored because that's
all that existed at the time, etc..



"TDC999" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Hello everybody,

Edit2: the topic is maybe to broad to narrow it down: talking here about
win7, ntfs, MBR hd

What EXACTLY does the option Restore first track do? I have been searching
this forum a little and there has been some info, in the help there stands
also something, but i don't feel comfortable enough to really use it.


Out of this forum here i take that restore first track overwrites EVERYTHING
except the Partition table from LBA 0 till LBA 62. Is that true are there
some exceptions/scenarions where not everything (besides partition table)
will be erased. I want to know how sure i can be that all "licensing
information" and other stuff that is written to the hidden track is reall
gone when i use this option - and that the system then is really cleaned up?


Ah one wish could someone please set BBcode on active for me? It feels a bit
uncomfortable...

ah wonderful how sun is shining


Edit: Titel was wrong

Hi,
thx for your answers. The stuff with the CHS Values has become really a secret science, really hope that uefi/Gpt ends this drama one day.

So for now 2 more things in want to be sure about:

1. If i type in 0, will it then delete the partition table or will that still be left out. Annotation: You don't have to worry about EMBR for this answer, i didn't even install BIBM (but the package was such a good offer of course i took that) its just typical win7 with MBR harddisk.

2. Will the 0 then, if the SPT was e.g. 17, then overwrite all 63 Sectors or only till 17.? Basically i'm asking if the Limitation with SPT will apply for the option "0" as it would for "63".

3. When it comes to computer i'm more a beginner with some basic knowledge of Imaging and hardrives. Would you say it is save for somebody like me to type in 0. Or would you more say: "Dude you are a non-professional with Hd's - stay with the "AUTO-Option" everything else will do you no good, just for erasing some leftovers that might be stored to your Hidden Track. Just your opinion here - there won't be any charges

Really thanks for your help so far!!

1. The partition table will only be adjusted as necessary for the restore.

2. Regardless of the number specified it can't restore data it doesn't have. If there were only 17 sectors saved then that's all it can restore.

3. Generally, unless you have a specific requirement, using AUTO is recommended.

Thank you both for your detailed answers! This shed some light on it - and your answers where not ashamed to point to how complex this issue with Bios incompatibilities with CHS has become. And that there is no "Click here and be 100% ashured everything will be fine". Some companies really try to hide that from the customers. But i like this openess. And of course this is not your fault, but Harddiskindustry/Bios/Operating Systems should have thought about this 5 Years ago how to fix this crap. Well Win8 is going in the right direction i guess...