HD upgrade and data transfersb,& What do you use?

[John Collier]

I have recently invested in a new HD for my machine at home. Of course, this one is larger and more powerful than the existing one (why else upgrade, right??) which is a wonderful thing, but it is leaving me with a bit of a dilemma that I thought this community may be able to help with.

Not to start a brand war (at the risk of offending someone, I couldn???t really care less about what you think about the manufacturer of the drive) but my recent purchase has been a Western Digital 120 Gig drive. My desire is to use this one to replace the existing primary HD without having to reload the OS or programs.

The manufacturer provides a floppy disk with something called Data Lifeguard on it that is apparently designed to transfer all of the information from the old drive to the new with no loss of data. I think this is a great concept. It will even allow you to copy it partition-for-partition, manually designate the size of the new partitions and then copy the info from the old partition to the new, or simply let the software compute the sizes of the new partitions for the new drive. All of this seems designed to allow you to replace your primary drive with the new bigger drive with all of your existing information in tact.

The problem is that it doesn???t seem to handle the NTFS file system for Win2k as it should. It will get through the entire first partition and then it thinks that there is a problem (on the new drive) with the pointer for the NTFS partition and exit in error.

I tried letting the Windows OS partition the drive and then to simply do a partition-to partition copy using the software provided (so that the partitions would be completely NTFS clean (per M$ standards) but the same problem still exists.

Does anybody out there have another software suggestion to accomplish the same task? It would most likely have to be in a bootable format to keep the OS from failing the copy procedure due to ???file in use??? errors one would encounter by simply trying to do it through the existing OS.

What do you use to accomplish this?


Points for all, bunny to the first person that provides me with the answer to my current situation!


Thanks,
John

[Eugeny Brychkov]

John,
I do not think you'll find any software doing this certified by Microsoft. Of course you can use 3rd party ones, but at your own risk.
I have faced this problem some time ago and decided (after some lost hours trying to migrate data) to format new drive from the scratch and reinstall everything, copying only user data and some non-OS config files from old drive.
I think this way will be faster and more safe/reliable
Eugeny

[John Collier]

Eugeny,

While I appreciate your input, I must admit to you and al of the others out there right now that I???m not a darned bit concerned by what M$ certifies or doesn???t in this respect. To be quite frank, I have found that even the things that they DO certify are not always reliable (look at all of the ???critical??? OS patches they send out for their ???certified??? OS packages for proof of this statement). Sorry if that offends anybody :-(

I am just fine with a 3rd party product if it will accomplish what I am looking for. I would gladly go with a Linux product if it would be capable of transferring the boot records and the file systems without error.

My ultimate goal is to do this without having to reload the OS or the installed programs.

The software included with the drive makes the claim that it will. Surely there must be another product that will make this claim and actually hold up to their promise???

[Jay Bollyn · Accepted solution]

John,

We use Norton Ghost 2003 to create an image of the source HDD, and use TCP/IP to copy the image to another HDD on the network. I do this both on my network at work, and on my home Ethernet LAN.

This is also a good way to backup. Takes ~ 10 minutes for a 2GB image.

One can also copy the image to another HDD on the local PC, if you have multiple HDDs on the PC.

Ghost creates DOS boot diskettes, so everything is done from the DOS prompt, so it does not matter what OS is installed on the HDD.

:-) Jay

[Roger Faucher]

John:

I had the same problem with my Western Digital 250GB drive using Data LifeGuard. It failed repeatedly at 99% complete. I finally used an old copy of Powerquest's Partition Magic and saved having to re-install millions (well, maybe only thousands) of applications.
WD tried to blame it on the old HDD having some third-party partitioning software used on it, but I doubt if they're right. I studiously avoid using such products.

HTH

Roger

[Jerome Henry]

Hi John,

Same as Jay we use ghost, from diskette, to make image of a partition and get it back to the new drive. We use ghost corporate, which handles win2k server edition. Installing only the stand alone tools and use boot diskette doesn't seem to require licence apparently (we still have it of course :] )

J

[Eugeny Brychkov]

I've just read MOC 2152 course and found so called 'disk duplication'... hope it can help:

"To properly manage a large disk duplication effort, it is important to understand the sequence of steps involved in disk duplication or disk imaging. The disk duplication process consists of the following tasks:

- Install and configure Windows 2000 on a test computer.
- Install and configure applications on the test computer.
- Run Sysprep.exe on the test computer.
Optionally, run the Setup Manager wizard to create another type of answer file called Sysprep.inf. Sysprep.inf provides answers to a minimal Setup program that runs on the destination computers. You can also use this file to specify customized drivers. The Setup Manager wizard creates a Sysprep folder at the root of the drive image and places Sysprep.inf in this folder. This is where the Mini-Setup program checks for Sysprep.inf when Windows 2000 is being installed.

- Restart the test computer, and then run a third party disk image copying tool to create a master disk image.
- Save the new disk image on a shared folder or compact disc.
- Copy this image to the multiple destination computers.
- Start the destination computers and complete the installation process
When users start the destination computers, the Mini-Setup program prompts the user for computer-specific variables, such as the administrator password for the computer and the computer name. If you provided a Sysprep.inf file, the Mini-Setup program is bypassed and the computer loads Windows 2000 without user intervention.

Anyway, it tlaks about '3rd party software' to create master disk image.
Eugeny

[John Collier]

Thanks for the input guys. Now let me see if I have this straight???

Jay:

You state that Norton Ghost 2003 can create an image of the source HDD and copy it over to another HDD on the local PC as long as there are two or more disks on the local machine. This sounds pretty much like what I am interested in, but then you state that it creates DOS boot disks in an effort to do this. Unless this is a different flavor of DOS than what I am accustomed to, I am unaware of any DOS that is capable of understanding what an NTFS is or how to handle it. That is the entire focal point of my current dilemma.

The boot disk that comes with the HDD is using (if memory serves me correctly) something called Caldera DOS and it fails the task of being able to duplicate the MS-NTFS partitions as it is stated.

Lets say (for a moment) that it can do this. I have no desire to purchase a full copy of Norton Ghost 2003 to copy only one HDD and then let it sit. Do they have a full feature trial version (expire-ware perhaps??) that is available so that I can make sure it will serve my needs prior to actually purchasing it? I find no mention of it on the Symantec site, but then again my searching abilities are sometimes lacking and I have been known to miss the obvious???


Roger:

Your situation and mine sound almost identical. I know for a fact that there is no third-party partitioning software on this disk. I created it myself using the Win2k OS that is currently running on the machine. If I were to contact them and have one of them try to tell me that, it would only aggravate me and this would be the end of the useful assistance that they might even possibly be able to provide.

You mention that you were able to use an ???old??? copy of Partition Magic to save re-installing millions (well, maybe only thousands) of applications. A couple of questions come to mind---

How old is ???old????
Did it do the entire task that the Data Lifeguard disk was supposed to do (entire disk copy and allow partition resize at the same time including boot information)?
After using it, were you then able to remove the old primary drive and plug in the newly created primary drive and keep on computing as if nothing had happened?

If so, then this sounds interesting to me as well. I???m almost sure that Partition Magic has a fully functional demo version available of an expiring nature. At least they did the last time I checked (several years ago, that is)???


Jerome:

Second vote for Norton duly noted???


Eugeny:

Thanks for the research. I have to admit that I probably never would have found that tidbit on my own. A couple of issues with that:

I don???t have a second machine to do the tests on.
I have no idea what third party disk image tool to use (that???s why I started this thread ;-)
I don???t have 35 Gig of free space to store the resulting disk image on even if I knew the things above and the idea of creating a CD image that size terrifies me ;-P

I will file that info for future reference, but at this time I don???t see how that would work in my house.


Thanks again to all. I will be awaiting the additional information in hopes of finding my ???bunny answer???!

[Jon Finley]

Hi John,

Clarification on the Ghost boot disk. My experience is that you can create a Ghost boot disk for several purposes:

1. copy one disk to another disk

2. Create an image of the current system

3. Burn an image on the current system.

The boot disk (think of it as a mouseable Symantec OS disk) simply starts an engine that can create a bit-by-bit image of either a partition, or a whole disk and either send it to a waiting GhostCast Server, or to another hard disk.

Combine the image ability with SysPrep, and you've got main stream mass production for new system deployment. :-)

http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/products/products.cfm?ProductID=3

Jon

[Jay Bollyn]

John,

Norton Ghost 2003 does support NTFS volumes. I believe earlier versions of Ghost did not support NTFS.

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/sys_req.html

The full list price is $70. Pricegrabber.com has it for $32. Not sure if that is after the $20 rebate. This is one of my most useful utilities.

I don't think there is a trial version, but at this price, it sells without Symantec needing to offer a trial version.

:-) Jay