Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
Thanks Rick, perhaps I should invest in a copy of Acronis and save your instructions. Have a good one! Rick Glazier wrote: This is all done on the scale of a home user, at home I cloned my Laptop to a different drive last week to stick in Win7 as a direct upgrade from Vista as a test. (Used 64bit, but can't use ANY on my old printers or scanners... No drivers.) I've been doing this so long (successfully) I have to think real hard about what I do that makes it work, or more importantly, what I did at first that always (mostly) caused it to fail. I think you never progressed to that next level... grin... This is my general rules/overview: I ALWAYS start by booting from a CD version of Acronis TrueImage. (I do NOT believe in this shadow copy or delta changes BS... AND it is not important if I go off-line with the machine for as long as it takes...) I ALWAYS do a FULL SPINDLE IMAGE. ALL partitions, the MBR, track Zero, the partition tables, etc... Acronis makes that very easy. I re-size the partitions as a different operation later, with Acronis Disk Director10. (The newer versions of ATI will do this as a one-operation multi-step deal, but why change something that works for me at this late date?) IF a Laptop, I write the IMAGE file to a USB HD since I only have one physical HD in the Laptop at a time. (HP/Compaq tells me it is normal to break the Recovery Partition information on my HP/Compaq Laptops.) Likely since I do NOT do bit-for-bit forensic images/clones/copies.) IF a desktop, I may or may not to a direct clone, following all of the above rules. When done, I pull the old drive out and put the new one in the exact electrical place of the old one BEFORE THE FIRST BOOT. I might add it back later as a slave or data only drive. Hope that makes sense and helps... I do these almost in my sleep. Sorry if it is still not clear... Rick Glazier From: swzaske I have to be honest with myself. I have some blind spots. Rick said: By doing it the hard way I don't make it simpler, but it always works.
Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
I only mentioned it because here lately I've been on an upgrade binge and have sold or am selling multiple items on Ebay. Yesterday, I received a NewEgg combo that was a Cooler Master CM690 and a Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black both for $99. I mainly wanted the hardrive because I'm getting rid of all the IDE stuff but the case I've been wanting for a long time. I consider it to be the best value that exists as far as technical details and price. True best bang for the buck because the PSU is mounted in the bottom, cables can be routed behind the motherboard tray and the hard disk cage is rotated 90 degrees which leaves more space for long video cards. It's heavy steel but I love it. Dreading to install that new drive in my main machine because cloning drives seldom works for me. Keep cool! Naushad, Zulfiqar wrote: In Saudi Arabia, energy is cheap :P But yes, every little bit of savings do add up. -Original Message- From: hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com [mailto:hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of swzaske Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 3:17 PM To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com Subject: Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced Yeah, you'd take a loss for sure. But think of the energy you'd save. Naushad Zulfiqar wrote: You mean sell on eBay? Well not now. I just built it 2 months ago. But the idea is tempting. On Oct 17, 2009 2:57 PM, swzaske swza...@yahoo.com wrote: Ebay? Naushad, Zulfiqar wrote: Too bad I built my HTPC using XBMC and a 780G Chipset from AMD with a...
Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
From: swzaske Dreading to install that new drive in my main machine because cloning drives seldom works for me. Keep cool! Cloning drives always works for me... (Going on 15 years without a problem.) What do you use? I use Acronis (I've had 6 different versions so I must like it), but for best results I always do a full physical spindle image, file type, not forensic/(or sector)... All partitions, the MBR, Track Zero, and partition tables. I re-size later, when necessary, (and it is generally necessary due to the new drive being larger...) By doing it the hard way I don't make it simpler, but it always works. Rick Glazier
Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
I have to be honest with myself. I have some blind spots. I've been involved with and building my own boxes since 1992 at least but making backups that work has consistently failed. I've spent more money than I want to remember on tape drives and various software over the years and still the best way that I know to clone a drive is to try and fail. Duplicating irreplaceable info on multiple drives and doing a fresh install is the best I've come up with. Once in awhile doing a repair install will do the trick. I've read the hardware review sites talking about installing fresh dish images to compare hardrive speeds and I just wish that I could do that on my own boxes. The most success I've had is using a program called HD Clone but you always have to clone from a smaller to a larger drive. Not perfect though because it screws up the BIOS which then thinks the new drive is the old drive. I have no idea why or if thats a consistent problem because I've only done it once on my game box with an old 250 GB IDE to 500 GB SATA but if I switched the BIOS to boot from the Seagate 500 Gigger it wouldn't boot. Change it back to the old drive which was still installed for redundancy and it booted fine with the 500 Gigger's Windows install. It must seem clear to you by now that it may be more complicated than I can comprehend not having taken a college course in it. It's just not user friendly and I follow the instructions the best I can without success. Have you ever used DriveImage XML? I used it years ago and made what I thought were successful backups only to have them fail trying to reinstall them. Years later just recently, I tried again to use this software and reinstalled the Drive C image on the new disk only to be told that NTLoader was missing or something to that effect. I ended up reinstalling Windows 7 and reinstalling my games (not done yet by the way). Believe me, I never want to go back because the best is yet to come and I'll certainly be long gone by then but there has to be something better than this. Appreciate the feedback. Rick Glazier wrote: From: swzaske Dreading to install that new drive in my main machine because cloning drives seldom works for me. Keep cool! Cloning drives always works for me... (Going on 15 years without a problem.) What do you use? I use Acronis (I've had 6 different versions so I must like it), but for best results I always do a full physical spindle image, file type, not forensic/(or sector)... All partitions, the MBR, Track Zero, and partition tables. I re-size later, when necessary, (and it is generally necessary due to the new drive being larger...) By doing it the hard way I don't make it simpler, but it always works. Rick Glazier
Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
Stan, Do not feel like the Lone Ranger here. I too have not yet been able to clone and then replace a drive image. I think I understand the basics, but I feel that there is still a lot of alchemy, black magic, personal experience, urban legend, etc. involved in being successful most of the time. Plus the whole PC playground keeps changing. What worked yesterday seems to have glitches tomorrow. Like a nature of the beast issue. But, I still try to learn the magic. Tape drives now are cost prohibitive for me now. And, now that our HD's are ~100GB and larger, my old Sony tape unit can still do the chore; if I have a case of tapes, and, a week for it to record all the tapes! LOL!! And, please do not use the machine either.during the backup... :) Best, Duncan swzaske wrote: I have to be honest with myself. I have some blind spots. I've been involved with and building my own boxes since 1992 at least but making backups that work has consistently failed. I've spent more money than I want to remember on tape drives and various software over the years and still the best way that I know to clone a drive is to try and fail. Duplicating irreplaceable info on multiple drives and doing a fresh install is the best I've come up with. Once in awhile doing a repair install will do the trick. I've read the hardware review sites talking about installing fresh dish images to compare hardrive speeds and I just wish that I could do that on my own boxes. The most success I've had is using a program called HD Clone but you always have to clone from a smaller to a larger drive. Not perfect though because it screws up the BIOS which then thinks the new drive is the old drive. I have no idea why or if thats a consistent problem because I've only done it once on my game box with an old 250 GB IDE to 500 GB SATA but if I switched the BIOS to boot from the Seagate 500 Gigger it wouldn't boot. Change it back to the old drive which was still installed for redundancy and it booted fine with the 500 Gigger's Windows install. It must seem clear to you by now that it may be more complicated than I can comprehend not having taken a college course in it. It's just not user friendly and I follow the instructions the best I can without success. Have you ever used DriveImage XML? I used it years ago and made what I thought were successful backups only to have them fail trying to reinstall them. Years later just recently, I tried again to use this software and reinstalled the Drive C image on the new disk only to be told that NTLoader was missing or something to that effect. I ended up reinstalling Windows 7 and reinstalling my games (not done yet by the way). Believe me, I never want to go back because the best is yet to come and I'll certainly be long gone by then but there has to be something better than this. Appreciate the feedback. Rick Glazier wrote: From: swzaske Dreading to install that new drive in my main machine because cloning drives seldom works for me. Keep cool! Cloning drives always works for me... (Going on 15 years without a problem.) What do you use? I use Acronis (I've had 6 different versions so I must like it), but for best results I always do a full physical spindle image, file type, not forensic/(or sector)... All partitions, the MBR, Track Zero, and partition tables. I re-size later, when necessary, (and it is generally necessary due to the new drive being larger...) By doing it the hard way I don't make it simpler, but it always works. Rick Glazier
Re: [H] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: WD TV LIVE HD Media Player With Network Connection Announced
This is all done on the scale of a home user, at home I cloned my Laptop to a different drive last week to stick in Win7 as a direct upgrade from Vista as a test. (Used 64bit, but can't use ANY on my old printers or scanners... No drivers.) I've been doing this so long (successfully) I have to think real hard about what I do that makes it work, or more importantly, what I did at first that always (mostly) caused it to fail. I think you never progressed to that next level... grin... This is my general rules/overview: I ALWAYS start by booting from a CD version of Acronis TrueImage. (I do NOT believe in this shadow copy or delta changes BS... AND it is not important if I go off-line with the machine for as long as it takes...) I ALWAYS do a FULL SPINDLE IMAGE. ALL partitions, the MBR, track Zero, the partition tables, etc... Acronis makes that very easy. I re-size the partitions as a different operation later, with Acronis Disk Director10. (The newer versions of ATI will do this as a one-operation multi-step deal, but why change something that works for me at this late date?) IF a Laptop, I write the IMAGE file to a USB HD since I only have one physical HD in the Laptop at a time. (HP/Compaq tells me it is normal to break the Recovery Partition information on my HP/Compaq Laptops.) Likely since I do NOT do bit-for-bit forensic images/clones/copies.) IF a desktop, I may or may not to a direct clone, following all of the above rules. When done, I pull the old drive out and put the new one in the exact electrical place of the old one BEFORE THE FIRST BOOT. I might add it back later as a slave or data only drive. Hope that makes sense and helps... I do these almost in my sleep. Sorry if it is still not clear... Rick Glazier From: swzaske I have to be honest with myself. I have some blind spots. Rick said: By doing it the hard way I don't make it simpler, but it always works.
