Would this be an easy way of re-installing OS's on SATA drives?

JohnCleary

Mods please move if this is in the wrong section, seems to be the most apropriate.

We all know it's a bit of a pain re-installing a fresh copy of an OS on SATA computers as you need to install SATA drivers beforehand, which can *sometimes* be a pain

Could you use this product: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226653

So, if you want to re-install a fresh copy of an OS, you take the SATA HDD out and hook it to this docking station, which is connected to a PC with a partition which has, lets say for example a fresh copy of an OS installed, then just copy the entire contents of that partition onto the SATA HDD, and re-install the SATA HDD into the computer it came from.

Obviously you'd have to install the device drivers.

Would this work or am I going ga-ga?

Spear

JohnCleary wrote: »

Mods please move if this is in the wrong section, seems to be the most apropriate.

We all know it's a bit of a pain re-installing a fresh copy of an OS on SATA computers as you need to install SATA drivers beforehand, which can *sometimes* be a pain

Could you use this product: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226653

So, if you want to re-install a fresh copy of an OS, you take the SATA HDD out and hook it to this docking station, which is connected to a PC with a partition which has, lets say for example a fresh copy of an OS installed, then just copy the entire contents of that partition onto the SATA HDD, and re-install the SATA HDD into the computer it came from.

Obviously you'd have to install the device drivers.

Would this work or am I going ga-ga?

Sounds like it would work.

But if you have an image on another machine, why not just use something like Norton Ghost over a network connection to install it? Saves messing about removing hard disks, and any recent machine will have 1gig ethernet ports, which would be faster than a USB 2 based device.

AlmightyCushion

Every windows os has had sata drivers on the disk itself since xp sp2. While I imagine that would probably work, ghosting or slipstreaming an install disk would be a much better solution.

JohnCleary

Thanks guys, good points raised re Ghosting

kaizersoze

This looks to be the same one without the brand for £20 delivered.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/SATA-Hard-Disk-Docking-Station-USB-2-0-Hub-Card-Reader_W0QQitemZ390112055736QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL?hash=item5ad47d91b8

Handy for data recovery/backup.

Spear

There are neater alternate SATA port replicators about.

kaizersoze

Spear wrote: »

There are neater alternate SATA port replicators about.

Yeah they're neater alright but they require 2 free internal SATA ports to connect to.

The_Thing

Do yourself a favour and buy a copy of Acronis True Image. I've been using it for the last few years and I just couldn't do without it at this stage. If you do it properly you'll only have to suffer the pain of an install once, from then on you just re-image the hard drive whenever you need.

On average my images are about 2.5 GB in size and I can have my machines back up and running in less than 15 minutes and this is across a router that is not Gigabit.

Make sure you get all the updates from Microsoft, install all the third-party software you normally use and tweak the settings of each of these applications.

The more tweaking you do to your setup before creating the image, the less you'll have to do afterwards each time you re-image.

Imaging your drive also gives you great freedom to experiment with new software without fear of messing up a carefully configured system. Likewise, with a virus or trojan, no need to spend hours trying to remove every last remnant of them, all you need do is re-image.

monkeypants

I installed XP with SP3 on a PC recently and no drivers were needed.

tman

Sounds like a major amount of pissing about tbh...
Windows Vista and Windows 7 would most likely pick it up during installation, and has been said you could easily slipstream the drivers into an XP install cd.
Far less hassle to just do that with Nlite imo, or go with a recent copy of ghost...

Gadgetman496

The_Thing wrote: »

Do yourself a favour and buy a copy of Acronis True Image. I've been using it for the last few years and I just couldn't do without it at this stage. If you do it properly you'll only have to suffer the pain of an install once, from then on you just re-image the hard drive whenever you need.

On average my images are about 2.5 GB in size and I can have my machines back up and running in less than 15 minutes and this is across a router that is not Gigabit.

Make sure you get all the updates from Microsoft, install all the third-party software you normally use and tweak the settings of each of these applications.

The more tweaking you do to your setup before creating the image, the less you'll have to do afterwards each time you re-image.

Imaging your drive also gives you great freedom to experiment with new software without fear of messing up a carefully configured system. Likewise, with a virus or trojan, no need to spend hours trying to remove every last remnant of them, all you need do is re-image.

I couldn't agree with you more

True Image is an absolute magic piece of software & I have been using for a couple of years now too.

As you said, you can be fully functional in less than 15Mins.

The only point I would mention about using it is this,

True Image restores your image by over writing the existing install (it does not format the disk) & I would much prefer to restore my image to a clean formatted drive.

Here's how I got over that,

1. Install True Image.

2. Install Acronis Disk Director.

3. Use True Image to create a Rescue Media Disc & you will now have the option to include both True Image & Disk Director on it.

4. Make your Image.

From this point on you don't ever need to have either product installed on your system. You just boot from the Recovery Media disc you created, use Disk Director to format your drive/partition & then use the same boot disc to restore your image.

You can also use this disc to create any future images should you ever wish to do so.

All squeaky clean

-

Carne

gadgetman496 wrote: »

I couldn't agree with you more

True Image is an absolute magic piece of software & I have been using for a couple of years now too.

As you said, you can be fully functional in less than 15Mins.

The only point I would mention about using it is this,

True Image restores your image by over writing the existing install (it does not format the disk) & I would much prefer to restore my image to a clean formatted drive.

Here's how I got over that,

1. Install True Image.

2. Install Acronis Disk Director.

3. Use True Image to create a Rescue Media Disc & you will now have the option to include both True Image & Disk Director on it.

4. Make your Image.

From this point on you don't ever need to have either product installed on your system. You just boot from the Recovery Media disc you created, use Disk Director to format your drive/partition & then use the same boot disc to restore your image.

You can also use this disc to create any future images should you ever wish to do so.

All squeaky clean

-

Interesting, I might try this out for myself. Can you have the image stored on a hidden bootable partition on the main hard drive with all that's needed for restoration so when you turn on the pc you just press a key to begin the restoration process?

Gadgetman496

Carne wrote: »

Interesting, I might try this out for myself. Can you have the image stored on a hidden bootable partition on the main hard drive with all that's needed for restoration so when you turn on the pc you just press a key to begin the restoration process?

Yes, absolutely. (same as a recovery partition you get with OEM machines bought in the store)

-

Overheal

Like the Almighty says anything newer than XP SP1 has SATA support native. Why would you be installing anything less?

Carne

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Yes, absolutely. (same as a recovery partition you get with OEM machines bought in the store)

-

Any chance you could provide some details on how to do this procedure, also doesn't Windows 7 come with an back-up imaging tool, is it any good compared to Acronis?

Gadgetman496

Carne wrote: »

Any chance you could provide some details on how to do this procedure, also doesn't Windows 7 come with an back-up imaging tool, is it any good compared to Acronis?

After you have Acronis True Image installed

Click on the "Protection State" option in the left hand pane

In the right hand pane you need to enable the "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager"

It allows you to crate a "Secure Zone" which is a partition that you use to store your image when you create one. It will also invoke The F11 prompt every time you start your machine. As your system is posting it will display "F11 Acronis Recovery Manager" If you hit that at startup it will give you the option to restore your system, if you don't hit it the machine will continue to boot as normal after a couple of seconds.






-

EKRIUQ

What version of Acronis True image is that, is looks nothing like mine I'm on version Acronis®*True*Image*Home® version 11.0, is it worth the upgrade ?

I've used Acronis to save me a couple of times but normally it takes me 3-4 hours to restore everything back to the state before it went down, how can you manage it in 15mins.

Gadgetman496

EKRIUQ wrote: »

What version of Acronis True image is that, is looks nothing like mine I'm on version Acronis®*True*Image*Home® version 11.0, is it worth the upgrade ?

I've used Acronis to save me a couple of times but normally it takes me 3-4 hours to restore everything back to the state before it went down, how can you manage it in 15mins.

I have both Acronis True Image 2009 & 2010 the instructions above relate to the 2009 version.

The principle is the same for v11 just a slight menu difference.

I thought the upgrade was worth it.

-

Carne

gadgetman496 wrote: »

After you have Acronis True Image installed

Click on the "Protection State" option in the left hand pane

In the right hand pane you need to enable the "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager"

It allows you to crate a "Secure Zone" which is a partition that you use to store your image when you create one. It will also invoke The F11 prompt every time you start your machine. As your system is posting it will display "F11 Acronis Recovery Manager" If you hit that at startup it will give you the option to restore your system, if you don't hit it the machine will continue to boot as normal after a couple of seconds.






-

Thanks, didn't think it would be so easy.

JohnCleary

Hi,
I tried following the steps below, but when I go and make the image, it's only about 100MB. Step 3 is fine and I check to include both Dick Director and True image. But nowhere does it offer to create an image of my C: Drive.

What i'd like to be able to do, and what I think you're saying is...

Once you create the image, you can burn it to a DVD (Because of size). If my C: goes t1ts-up, I can just whack this DVD into the DVD-Drive, and it will format/re-install image and i'll be back to the state where I was when I created the image - correct?

I must be missing something, because it only offers me the choice to add the app's to the image, not the C: drive itself.

Any ideas? Thanks

-EDIT- OK it just clicked, do I need to make a backup of the current C: Image first, before following your steps? Anyhow, i'm doing that at the moment. Then, if my brain is half working... I will then go back to step 3 of yours, and aswell as clicking the option to include Disk Director & True Image, I will also have the option to include the C: Image that I backed up? Then just burn that to DVD and 'viola'?

gadgetman496 wrote: »

I couldn't agree with you more

True Image is an absolute magic piece of software & I have been using for a couple of years now too.

As you said, you can be fully functional in less than 15Mins.

The only point I would mention about using it is this,

True Image restores your image by over writing the existing install (it does not format the disk) & I would much prefer to restore my image to a clean formatted drive.

Here's how I got over that,

1. Install True Image.

2. Install Acronis Disk Director.

3. Use True Image to create a Rescue Media Disc & you will now have the option to include both True Image & Disk Director on it.

4. Make your Image

From this point on you don't ever need to have either product installed on your system. You just boot from the Recovery Media disc you created, use Disk Director to format your drive/partition & then use the same boot disc to restore your image.

You can also use this disc to create any future images should you ever wish to do so.

All squeaky clean

-

Gadgetman496

Don't confuse the "Rescue Media" with your Image of drive 'C' they are not related.

1. Create a Secure Zone.

2. Backup you C drive as an image to either the Secure Zone or to another partition or external drive.

3. Create your Rescue Media disc (This can contain True Image the program, Acronis Disc Director or both) but not the actual image of your C drive.

The media disc is for booting from to restore your Image which is held either on the secure zone or an external drive.

The idea of the disc is that you don't need Acronis True Image installed anymore once you have the rescue media disc.

You can use the rescue disc to either restore your system or create any further new images by booting from it.

-

The_Thing

My version of True Image is for corporate use and includes the ability to plonk down an image onto a completely different set of hardware other than that from which it was created - very, very handy indeed. The home edition as far as I know does not offer this functionality.

The image does not have to be burned to a disc, you can store it on a USB pen drive. The image is not bootable. You use the bootable Acronis disc to perform the imaging.

Edit:
In the past, prior to imaging my drives, I have installed Disk Director Suite under Windows XP. My reason for doing so is that any time I would re-image a drive I would have a very powerful partitioning tool installed from the start.

monkeypants

JohnCleary wrote: »

Dick Director

Sounds interesting. Would be very useful when I'm out on the gargle.

JohnCleary

Ah, OK guys I think I understand now... am I right in saying....

Let's say for example I create a backup (image) of my C: in a safe state (Whole drive) to the likes of a USB Flash Disk.

I then burn a CD with Media Recovery with True Image & Disk Director

If things go t1ts up, I put in the CD which will boot. I then put in my USB Flash Disk which this bootable CD will detect, and it copies over this clean image from the USB Flash Disk, back onto my HDD. Then viola, back to clean state?

Have I finally got it right?

JohnCleary

monkeypants wrote: »

Sounds interesting. Would be very useful when I'm out on the gargle.

D'oh! Well spotted

The_Thing

Have I finally got it right?

Yes. That's it basically. But the bootable disc will not auto-detect the image and apply it. You must manually go through a few steps.

I suggest you attach the USB drive before booting from the Acronis disc too.

JohnCleary

The_Thing wrote: »

Yes. That's it basically. But the bootable disc will not auto-detect the image and apply it. You must manually go through a few steps.

I suggest you attach the USB drive before booting from the Acronis disc too.

-EDIT- Found it, was in 'Manual Mode'

Cheers I'm just testing it out now.

Can anyone point me in the direction as to where I need to go to if I want to format the HDD before re-applying the clean image? I'm currently in Disk Director Suite (Booted from the CD) but don't see any option to Format the HD.

I'm guessing that the first step is to format the HDD (Again guessing from within Disk Director?), THEN go into True Image and copy over the clean image from USB Drive?

Sorry for all the Q's lads, but there's only one way to learn

Amalgam

Overheal wrote: »

Like the Almighty says anything newer than XP SP1 has SATA support native. Why would you be installing anything less?

Some motherboards, like mine, still require you to roll in drivers to the .iso, or use a floppy. (stop laughing down the back..) ..even with an OEM XP SP3 CD.

Using an MSI KT6 Delta VIA KT600 Socket A (Barton) motherboard.

I still think the OP doesn't grasp the idea of imaging a PC though.

Amalgam

You don't really need Disk Director, Acronis is quite tolerant, I often restore images to PC's where Dban has just been used, as in, there's no partitions on it at all.

I don't entirely trust True Image, always verify your images after creating them. I've been burnt once or twice, Acronis like to beta test on the buying public now and then.. :mad:

JohnCleary

I tested the image I created and it works fine (tested by formatting C: Partition and re-applying 'clean' image i'd made earlier) - Worked perfect

-Edit- If I come across a machine that still requires SATA drivers, i'll just slipstream. For the sake of a CD-R it seems to be the easiest option

The_Thing

+1 To Amalgam:

You should select the option to verify the integrity of your Acronis images. However, having said that I have NEVER had a problem in about five years of using Acronis software. I also select maximum compression for my images and I don't find that it makes any significant difference to the length of time it takes to image a drive. I usually delete all the partitions from a drive before re-imaging too.

An image is basically a bit-for-bit copy of the contents of a hard drive, but does not include the free space.

I've also used it as a data recovery tool on drives that would not boot - blue screens of death, etc.

monkeypants

JohnCleary wrote: »

D'oh! Well spotted

Sorry, I'm just being pedantic.

JohnCleary

Been playing around a bit with Acronis True Image and it's pretty handy, BUT, when I try it on a machine with an SATA drive, it doesn't pick up the drives (Even if I change it to ATA mode in the BIOS (As opposed to AHCI))

Maybe it's something i'm doing? Either way it's handy for IDE, but if anyone knows how to get it to read an SATA drive it'd be great

Gadgetman496

JohnCleary wrote: »

Been playing around a bit with Acronis True Image and it's pretty handy, BUT, when I try it on a machine with an SATA drive, it doesn't pick up the drives (Even if I change it to ATA mode in the BIOS (As opposed to AHCI))

Maybe it's something i'm doing? Either way it's handy for IDE, but if anyone knows how to get it to read an SATA drive it'd be great

I don't know why you are having that issue, I use it with SATA drives all the time on many different machines & even in RAID mode and never encountered that.

-

JohnCleary

gadgetman496 wrote: »

I don't know why you are having that issue, I use it with SATA drives all the time on many different machines & even in RAID mode and never encountered that.

-

Bugger, must be doing something wrong... Will have a tinker with the laptop here (which uses an SATA drive) and see how I get on.

Would it matter that the original image was created from an IDE drive?

Gadgetman496

JohnCleary wrote: »

Bugger, must be doing something wrong... Will have a tinker with the laptop here (which uses an SATA drive) and see how I get on.

Would it matter that the original image was created from an IDE drive?

That might well be an issue because the image would not have sata drivers.

I had an issue once where I had to use the 3.5 floppy to load the sata drivers when restoring an image to XP Pro but that only happened once on one particular machine.

-

gamer

I use drivermax program,to back up all the drivers ,then use it it to reinstall maybe 2,3 drivers for devices that windows misses .I copy documents /my drivers folder to another usb, or hardrive be4 i reistall.Every laptop seems to have different mobo,pci ,battery drivers.SO i use drivermax to import the drivers from the saved folder,ie u just tick the box beside the missing drivers.or just put em on a usbkey, at some point your hd will crash and you,ll need em.Burn em to a cd too.

The_Thing

Been playing around a bit with Acronis True Image and it's pretty handy, BUT, when I try it on a machine with an SATA drive, it doesn't pick up the drives (Even if I change it to ATA mode in the BIOS (As opposed to AHCI))

Maybe it's something i'm doing? Either way it's handy for IDE, but if anyone knows how to get it to read an SATA drive it'd be great

My version of both Acronis Disk Director and True Image has an option of booting the bootable disc in a "Safe Version"

I too was stumped as to why Disk Director (Full Version) wasn't seeing SATA Drives, but after doing a Google I found a post somewhere that said to boot into the "Safe Version" in order for SATA drives to be picked up.

Hope that helps? ?? ???

JohnCleary

The_Thing wrote: »

My version of both Acronis Disk Director and True Image has an option of booting the bootable disc in a "Safe Version"

I too was stumped as to why Disk Director (Full Version) wasn't seeing SATA Drives, but after doing a Google I found a post somewhere that said to boot into the "Safe Version" in order for SATA drives to be picked up.

Hope that helps? ?? ???

I'm going to give this a go now, will report back for anyone else who may be interested!

The_Thing

I also install Disk Director on my machines prior to imaging - the reason for this is that when I come to re-image my machines later I will have a very powerful disk utility already installed so there is no need to go looking for my bootable disc if I need to work with any hard drive that is connected to a particular machine.

Disk Director also works on flash drives and SSD's.