pretty drastic problem - please advise on data transfer

[matt_richards]

Hi guys,

I have a pretty drastic problem. Sorry if this is a bit sprawling, but it is a big problem. Any input on any of my questions would be welcomed…

When I switched on my Sony laptop this morning, I got a SMART failure hard drive message warning me to backup all data as a HDD failure was imminent. I did this immediately.

Whilst the immediate problem of data loss has been avoided, I am now working out the least disruptive method of making the transition from the old hard drive to the new one – as I rely completely on my laptop and have spent ages getting the setup just right (3 OS’s etc). Because it is a notepad, the warranty is back to base which means that I will be without my machine for 5-10 days. I will need to zap the drive before I send it back as there is a lot of confidential info on there. I will therefore need to transfer all the data somewhere while it is away then back again when it returns – all in the shortest possible time.

The most obvious solution seemed to be to clone the hard drive but this is complicated by a couple of factors.

* First it is a laptop HDD which means it will not fit into my desktop machine’s drive caddy without a converter lead – which I have found a bit unreliable in the past.

* Second, I have my hard drive divided into three partitions. I understand that it can cause complications if you restore a hard drive from an image when the partition sizes are different on the source and target machine.

* Third, there is no floppy drive to boot from and I have not managed to create a bootable Norton Ghost CD. I use drive image 2002 as this creates a virtual floppy, but don’t know if this will restrict my options.

What is the best way for me to clone the entire hard drive including all partitions and then restore it when I get the new one back? Or are there any other options? Any advice on how to proceed to would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Iman74]

I see two options:
-If you are knowledgeable and have a LAN, you can boot to a floppy drive to get on the network, run ghost, and ghost an image of the drive to another network drive. This is simple as long as you have a working bootable network disk and a floppy drive.

or

-purchase an adapter that will let you plug a 3.5 HDD into a dekstop as a secondary drive. From there boot to a disk and then run ghost. From there you do an image of your HDD and store it on the primary HDD.

[HAL9000]

Take note, not all versions of GHOST will allow you to make an image over a LAN. If you have access to one that will work over a LAN, you can make the image from within Windows, you don't need to do it from DOS or a boot disk.

Spend the money on the adapter, it's your best option. If you have found them unreliable in the past, I would suspect that it had a defect of some sort. I use one from Startech and have never had an issue with it.

[matt_richards]

Cheers guys,

My Sony does not have a floppy annoyingly - this does restrict my options a bit as I haven't had a great deal luck with bootable CDs.

My Laptop adapter cable was erratic in what files where accessible - with only some appearing, and others spontaneously disappearing and reappearing. Does this sound like it was defective?

What I am doing right now is booting into each partition and imaging the others to a network drive (d and e from c, and c from e). If I do each partition like this, will I be able to restore it the same way?

What is the situation with partitioning. Will I have to partition the replacement drive identically before restoration. Also if I did a full image of the disk including all partitions, would the destination HDD need to be exactly the same model?

Hope that all makes sense...

[Iman74]

You don't need to do that. Assuming you are using one HDD partitioned four ways, just image the whole drive with Ghost.

[matt_richards]

Gotcha? Does the replacement hard drive need to be an identical model or does it not make any difference?

[Iman74]

as long as the physical size is the same it doesn't matter, but for the compacity of the drive you want to be either the same exact size or larger. One byte smaller and the image will not transfer over.

[David_Jones]

Do you have a CD-RW in your laptop?

If so, you could do that Iman74 suggested, and image the entire disk to CDs (might be a lot, but for the hassle saving later it might be worth it), and you can compress using Ghost.

This doesn't require a version of ghost that works across a LAN, but personally, I always run ghost from a boot disk to be as safe as possible (don't like getting Windows involved if it is not necessary). You should be able to us a Windows CD to boot from, and copy ghost.exe (thats all you need) to the ramdrive from the HDD before imaging.

To restore, as he says, you need a disk the same size or bigger.

If it is bigger, some of the disk will be unused, and available for another partition when you want.

Just some options anyway!

HTH,

David.

[matt_richards]

Cheers David,

That's another option I never considered. A bit laborious like you say, but could work out most straightforward if I can't get a laptop converter HDD lead that works in time.

[David_Jones]

I set up a friend to do just that.

He bought a box of 50 CDs for NZ$50 (~ £17) and just sat there feeding them in, labelling etc.

Boring, but definately very very simple and reliable. I have used ghost hundreds of times, and it has never ever failed when run from a boot diskette or CD.

If you want to be totally sure, you can also verify the image but that would require feeding all those CDs back in again! Depends on how valuable the data is I guess.

David.

[matt_richards]

One last problem,

I thought I would leave it running last night. I set it all up, got the CD's ready went to execute Drive Image 2002 and got the following message:

"cannot prepare machine for reboot. Exit code 2"

This happens from both my XP installations. The problem is I can't use the rescue diskettes as I don't have any floppy drive.

I have ghost 2002 - I haven't been able to make the bootable CD. BUt I will try copying the .exe over the RAM drive - how exactly do I do this?