* *** BIBMPROCS TXT - 19 Nov 2012 12:22:17 - JKNAUTH Back Up, Restore, and Copy of Hard Drive Partitions ==== === ======== === ==== == ==== ===== ========== I use programs from TeraByte Unlimited to back up, restore, and copy partitions on PC hard drives. Nowadays I do backups to external hard drives and the following descriptions reflect this. However the TeraByte programs also support DVDs and CDs as backup media. The BootIt Bare Metal program (= BootIt BM = BIBM) is the successor to BootIt Next Generation (= BootIt BM = BING), which I have described in other documents. Details about BIBM can be found on the TeraByte Unlimited website, www.terabyteunlimited.com. From there you can also download two manuals: "BootIt Bare Metal User Manual", http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/bootitbm_en_manual.pdf, and "Image for DOS User Manual", http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/ifd_en_manual.pdf. Image for DOS (= IFD) is used by BIBM to do the actual back up and restore operations. IFD is included when you buy BIBM and is installed when you install BIBM; it appears to the user as if it were part of BIBM. The following describes the settings and procedures that I use. You may require or desire something different. PROGRAM SETTINGS ======= ======== Here is how I configure BIBM in the main settings dialog invoked from the BIBM desktop screen. Timeout: 7 Sound: Background: - Direct Boot Menu - Display DB Button ======================================================================================== GENERAL DEVICE GLOBAL GEOMETRY AND ALIGNMENT ---------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------------ - Limit Primaries (CAUTION!) x PATA Support - Disable X Use Volume Label - PATA IRQC - Align on 2048 Sectors - Fix Swap x SATA-AHCI (1.2) - Align on Cylinder - ISO8601 Date/Time - Disable SATA Bias - Assume Same Target System x Completion Alarm x IEEE1394 Support x Validate Geometry Before Use x BootNow Support x USB 2.0 Support x Align MBR for BIOS Auto Mode - Full Partition List - Enable USB 1.1 (UHCI) - Use Source Host Geometry - IT Mode - USB Controller Hang Fix x Use New Windows MBR - Virus Check - USB Device Hang Fix x Keep HD Active - Volume Sequence as ID - Assume Original HD x Use HD0 in FAT BPB x Make HD0 Active - Disable Fixups If the Limit Primaries option is not checked, BIBM allows more than four primary partitions for each hard drive. This can be very useful, but requires you to use *ONLY* BootIt BM for partition mangement, e.g., do not add/delete/resize partitions with the Windows installation program or Windows Disk Management. Non-BIBM tools do not understand more than four primary paritions; using such tools with more than four primary partitions could easily corrupt the hard drive. PROCEDURES ========== For the following procedures it is assumed that BIBM has been installed in its own primary partition on a hard drive. If instead you are booting BIBM from a CD (or DVD or diskette), select Maintenance in the initial prompt. A subset of the "BootIT BM" desktop screen is then displayed and you can invoke the desired facilities from there. In the following text, "WIN7" and "TEST" are names used for two primary partitions: a production and a test Windows partition. "DATA" is the name for another primary partition (an extended partition), which contains data to be available to whichever of WIN7 or TEST is currently booted. The actual partition names assigned are not important. It is assumed that two BIBM menu items have been set up as shown below. (A menu item is just a specific configuration of partitions to be used when a selected one of those partitions is booted; you give the menu item an identity, which is displayed in the BIBM boot menu, allowing you to select which menu item (partition configuration) you choose to boot.) The identities given to the menu items are also not important. I usually make the boot item identity the same as the associated boot partition name for that boot menu item, but that isn't necessary. MBR ordering for WIN7 menu item, 0: WIN7, 1: DATA (the default MBR) MBR ordering for TEST menu item, 0: TEST, 1: DATA Note there would be some other considerations if this were Windows XP instead of Windows 7; those XP details will not be listed here. Fortunately, the Windows 7 boot system does not require those extra steps. Unfortunately, the way some manufacturers install Windows 7 (Dell puts the Windows boot files in their Dell Recovery partition) means there may be some other considerations if you are dealing with such a system. See jgkhome.name/PC_Info/BING_WIN7_Dell.htm, which describes how to correct this using BING; presumably the same correction steps can be taken when using BIBM. (I haven't had the opportunity to test this yet with BIBM on a new PC, but have often done it with BING.) The first two sections below describe how to back up a partition to an external hard drive and then restore it from there back to the internal drive. You can restore the image to the original partition or to some other partition or free space, assuming there is enough room (and no primary partition limit is exceeded if Limit Primaries is in force). The third section below shows how to copy a partition to another space on the same or on a different hard drive. For example, this shows how to copy the WIN7 partition to the TEST partition's space (TEST gets deleted in the process). In all the following, select "Next" to proceed to the next screen. +---------------------------------+ | BACK UP PARTITION TO HARD DRIVE | +---------------------------------+ Boot the BootIt Bare Metal program from the hard drive or CD/DVD or diskette. On the BootIt Bare Metal desktop screen, select the Disk Imaging icon Welcome to Image for DOS > Select Operation Backup Select the type of backup > Backup Full Backup ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Select Drive Interface > Backup From BIOS Select Source Drive > Backup From Hard Drive 0 Select Item to Backup from ... > Backup From WIN7 (for example) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Select File Access Method > Backup To File (Direct) Select Drive Interface > Backup To BIOS Select File Drive > Backup To Hard Drive 1 Select File Location on HD... > Backup To Doubleclick the partition Doubleclick the desired directory Enter a filename for the backup > Name Enter the desired file name, e.g., Cyymmdd ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Options Validate Byte-for-Byte Compression: Standard Omit Page File Data File Size: Max Omit Hibernation Data Log Results to File Summary Start +-----------------------------------+ | RESTORE PARTITION FROM HARD DRIVE | +-----------------------------------+ Boot the BootIt Bare Metal program from the hard drive or CD/DVD or diskette. On the BootIt Bare Metal desktop screen, select the Disk Imaging icon Welcome to Image for DOS > Select Operation Restore Select > Restore Normal --------------------------------------------- Select File Access Method > Restore From File (Direct) Select Drive Interface > Restore From BIOS Select File Drive > Restore From Hard Drive 1 Select File Location on HD... > Restore From Doubleclick the desired partition Select the backup file to restore > Name Doubleclick the desired directory Doubleclick the desired file Select Item to Process > Restore From Put check in desired partition image ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Select Drive Interface > Restore To BIOS Select Target Drive > Restore To Hard Drive 0 Select Restore Location on HD... > Restore To Doubleclick target Warning: All data in the following partitions ... will be lost Select "Yes" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Options Validate Byte-for-Byte First Track Sectors: Auto Log Results to File Summary Start +------------------------------+ | COPY PARTITION TO HARD DRIVE | +------------------------------+ Boot the BootIt Bare Metal program from the hard drive or CD/DVD or diskette. On the BootIt Bare Metal desktop screen, select the Partition Work icon to display the "Work with Partitions" window. Copy requires that the target destination be free space. If the place you want to copy to is already occupied by a partition, you must first delete that partition; of course be sure you don't want it before deleting it. Then copy to the free space that has been made available. Here is how to delete a partition to free up space to copy to: In Drives dropdown, select drive to be copied to. In partition list, select the partition to be deleted. In the Actions list, select Delete. In the Confirm Delete dialog, select Yes. Now you can do the copy to the freed space. In Drives dropdown, select drive with partition to be copied. In partition list, select partition to be copied. In Actions list, select Copy. ("Paste Pending for Copy" should appear at the bottom of the screen.) In Drives dropdown, select drive to be copied to. In partition list, select free space area to be copied to. In Actions list, select Paste. In Copy dialog window, enter the name to assign to the copied partition. Select OK. There are some Copy dialog options you might specify before selecting OK (see the manuals), but probably the defaults are good enough. You can also use IFD instead of BIBM to do the copy (select the Disk Imaging icon instead of the Partition Work icon at the beginning, then select Copy in the IFD menu). IFD offers more options for copy than BIBM does, but more than likely you do not need those options for a normal system. POSSIBLE ERROR SITUATION ======== ===== ========= Sometimes after a BIBM restore or copy, when you next try to boot the restored or copied partition, you get an error message from BIBM saying it cannot find the partition. Usually this is just because the Boot field of the boot menu item has been reset to blanks and needs to be reentered. This is very easy to correct. In the following example I will assume WIN7 is the partition you just restored and it is also identified as "WIN7" in the boot menu. The corresponding boot item should be fixed as follows: * In "BootIt BM" (the BIBM desktop screen), select Boot Edit. * In "Boot Menu", select the boot item identified by "WIN7". * In "Boot Menu", select Edit. * In "Edit Menu Item", select WIN7 in the dropdown for the Boot field. * Select OK twice to get back to the "BootIt NG" screen. * In "BootIt NG", select Resume. * In "Boot Menu", select the configuration to boot; select Boot. SOME TEST RESULTS AND RENAMING CONDIDERATIONS ==== ==== ======= === ======== ============== I have done most of my testing using a LaCie d2 quadra eSATA external hard drive. Some testing was on a Dell XPS 16 laptop and some was on a Dell XPS 8500 desktop. On the XPS 8500, all went well just using the default BIBM Program Settings, i.e., with the SATA setting turned on (together with PATA and USB). However on the laptop when I tried to use the SATA setting, a hang occurred, even when I tried using BIOS (Direct). It worked OK when I turned off SATA and left PATA on. Your system may work differently and the options best for your system may not be what I list for my system. See the TeraByte manuals and website for details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In my tests I backed up the WIN7 partition to the external drive and then restored the backup image to a TEST partition on the internal drive. After completion of the restore I found that the TEST partition name had been changed from "TEST" to "WIN7". I now had two partitions named WIN7 on my hard drive. To get back to the naming I wanted, I used Working with Partitions > selected the partition I had restored to ("TEST", now called "WIN7") > Properties > changed Name field back to "TEST". The boot menu item I had originally set up to boot TEST tracked all these changes, as did the Windows BCD. After my rename of the partition back to "TEST", the boot menu item ended up with the boot field being "TEST" again, as it had been before I did the restore of the WIN7 image. The BCD Device fields also returned to "TEST" after their temporary journey to "WIN7". If I had not done the rename from "WIN7" back to "TEST", the second "WIN7" (in TEST's partition) would have booted OK. However it is a lot less confusing if each partition has its own unique name, so the extra step to change the restored partition's name from "WIN7" back to "TEST" seemed wise to take. I don't believe BING worked this way. I think BING maintains the partition name thru a restore, not requiring the additional name correction step. So BING's restoring the image of the WIN7 partition to the TEST partition would maintain the target partition's name as "TEST" -- no rename required, in contrast to BIBM. Of course the volume label displayed by Windows 7 Explorer stays the same as it had been in that partition's original location, "WIN7" in this case. If you want a new label for the new partition volume, you must use Windows 7 to specify that new label. At first I thought this BIBM idiosyncrasy might have been related to the "Use Volume Label" option (VolumeLabels in Options section of bootitbm.ini file), but I had set that to 0 via Program Settings before starting the test and really did not expect the partition name to change. Since then I have turned "Use Volume Label" back on again (the default) and rerun the test, but the name change problem still occurred and I still had to rename the restored partition back to TEST.