TeraByte Unlimited

Hi,

I have used IFD(GUI) 100's of times the same way...but on this machine, I create an image as normal, verify it, but it only sometimes appears in the OS file system (Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium).

I am using v2.93 of IFD (GUI) on a Samsung Series 5 (530U) Laptop - (exact model NP530U3C-A06AU)
Bios is "Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Setup" ver P14AAJ (note: this is the latest release and I have UEFI boot support is disabled).
My IFD build is stock standard - no options selected.

I am booting IFD from a flash disk (Disk 0 in IFD).
The laptop has:
- an internal 20G SSD that can be enabled (via a windows util, not bios, says "powered by Diskeeper") to cache the sata disk (OS etc but also using a special hibernation partition) (Disk 1)
- a 500G main sata disk (Disk 2)

This main disk (Disk 2) hosts the following partitions:

System
Windows
Data
Data (logical)
Samsung Recovery

I am trying to perform backups of the Windows partition to the data partition (under \System\Images), which mounts as my D: in windows - this is as per my normal method.

I create the image and verify it, then even run a separate verify, but when I boot windows the image file is not there....When I restart IFD, sometimes the image is there, but reports as an invalid image (13), sometimes the file is gone from there too.

My questions are:

Could the SSD cache be affecting the image - it seems it may work when I disable it, but I've not had 100% success like this either (after I've then re-enabled the cache I had problems). I shouldn't have thought this would affect IFD...but...anybody?

I've been enabling mouse support (so I can use the internal touch pad mouse) but noting that it locks up (consistently) on the screen which allows you to select the folder where the image will be stored. (Note: if I use the mouse in any other IFD screen it's fine, if I use it on this screen it stuff up on the first (move) interrupt and shoots to top right corner...but I digress). It has seemed there may be some correlation to the mouse hang and the image file corrupting, but I'm not sure...?

Right now I'm trying a new build disabling the mouse entirely...but I thought it was time to ask if anybody has seen anything like this before?

Thanks kindly in advance...

You'd start with running memtest86+ on the system. Once you know that is
good, it's safer to run chkdsk/f at that point. That should take care of
it. If not, try a different directory as a test or reformat the drive if
you can.

The cache drives in general shouldn't affect it, since they should only be
used while in the OS and only on the drive they are caching so that you
could take out the drive and use it with no problem, otherwise it could
create a big mess (but someone could implement something like that).


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

Hi,

I have used IFD(GUI) 100's of times the same way...but on this machine, I
create an image as normal, verify it, but it only sometimes appears in the
OS file system (Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium).

I am using v2.93 of IFD (GUI) on a Samsung Series 5 (530U) Laptop - (exact
model NP530U3C-A06AU)
Bios is "Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Setup" ver P14AAJ (note: this is the
latest release and I have UEFI boot support is disabled).
My IFD build is stock standard - no options selected.

I am booting IFD from a flash disk (Disk 0 in IFD).
The laptop has:
- an internal 20G SSD that can be enabled (via a windows util, not bios,
says "powered by Diskeeper") to cache the sata disk (OS etc but also using a
special hibernation partition) (Disk 1)
- a 500G main sata disk (Disk 2)

This main disk (Disk 2) hosts the following partitions:

System
Windows
Data
Data (logical)
Samsung Recovery

I am trying to perform backups of the Windows partition to the data
partition (under \System\Images), which mounts as my D: in windows - this is
as per my normal method.

I create the image and verify it, then even run a separate verify, but when
I boot windows the image file is not there....When I restart IFD, sometimes
the image is there, but reports as an invalid image (13), sometimes the file
is gone from there too.

My questions are:

Could the SSD cache be affecting the image - it seems it may work when I
disable it, but I've not had 100% success like this either (after I've then
re-enabled the cache I had problems). I shouldn't have thought this would
affect IFD...but...anybody?

I've been enabling mouse support (so I can use the internal touch pad mouse)
but noting that it locks up (consistently) on the screen which allows you to
select the folder where the image will be stored. (Note: if I use the mouse
in any other IFD screen it's fine, if I use it on this screen it stuff up on
the first (move) interrupt and shoots to top right corner...but I digress).
It has seemed there may be some correlation to the mouse hang and the image
file corrupting, but I'm not sure...?

Right now I'm trying a new build disabling the mouse entirely...but I
thought it was time to ask if anybody has seen anything like this before?

Thanks kindly in advance...

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I was regularly performing disk-checks, I would sometime get errors and other times it would all appear OK... but then OK, I hadn't run memtest...ummm....yep .

I think I have solved this and it is indeed the disk cache causing issues, although I'm yet to test enough to be 100% sure I am safe.

My belief is that with the disk cache enabled, the OS never reads the disk directly, but instead is redirected to the disk cache driver. This driver is keeping an index on the cache disk, which, if a file was not written via the OS, is inconsistent with the physical disk records. It seems the cache software is not smart enough to refresh its file list on initialisation. I hope that wasn't to technical an explanation .

My belief is that if I want the backup to be picked up properly by the OS, I need to disable the cache, perform the backup then importantly flush the cache before re-enabling. Only then will the IFD file be picked up correctly by the OS.