New HDD and Ghost 2003

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Dimension 4300 XPHome SP2
Ghost 2003
Original drive 80 GB and want to replace it with new 120GB drive.

1. should I use ghost to create an image to an external drive, and then use
the boot floppy to put the image on the new HDD in the primary position or

2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would be in the
secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I don't foresee any
problems with cloning to the second and then pulling the old drive , moving
the newly cloned drive to primary and putting the drive that I removed back
in.

3. Is there anything I need to do in the BIOS settings after moving the
cloned drive to the primary position?

4. I assume I will get all of my OS files, updates etc. The drive currently
has four partitions on it, and from what I have read, Ghost will create four
partitions on the cloned drive but the size of each will increase.

The original drive that came with the Dell is still OK, but I need some more
room.

Thanks
Bob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Leanin' Cedar" <Nospam@nospam.org> wrote:
>2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would be in the
>secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I don't foresee any
>problems with cloning to the second and then pulling the old drive , moving
>the newly cloned drive to primary and putting the drive that I removed back
>in.

Never have two drives that are mirrors (exact images) of each other in
a system at the same time. Wipe the old drive (using a DOS boot disk
and fdisk, for instance) before reinstalling it.

>3. Is there anything I need to do in the BIOS settings after moving the
>cloned drive to the primary position?

Nope.

>4. I assume I will get all of my OS files, updates etc. The drive currently
>has four partitions on it, and from what I have read, Ghost will create four
>partitions on the cloned drive but the size of each will increase.

You will be allowed the option of resizing the partitions on the new
drive.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Leanin' Cedar" wrote:
> Dimension 4300 XPHome SP2
> Ghost 2003
> Original drive 80 GB and want to replace it with new 120GB drive.
>
> 1. should I use ghost to create an image to an external drive, and
> then use the boot floppy to put the image on the new HDD in the
> primary position or
>
> 2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would
> be in the secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I
> don't foresee any problems with cloning to the second and then
> pulling the old drive , moving the newly cloned drive to primary
> and putting the drive that I removed back in.

Personally, I would use Ghost only from a DOS boot floppy, never from within
Windows, and in that case option 1 would have you spending a lot more time
trying to get DOS to recognize your external drive than it would take to do
the actual cloning. I'd go with option 2, except I'd put old disk in
secondary position, new disk in primary, boot from floppy, and use Ghost to
clone from secondary to primary.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Leanin' Cedar wrote:
> Dimension 4300 XPHome SP2
> Ghost 2003
> Original drive 80 GB and want to replace it with new 120GB drive.
>
> 1. should I use ghost to create an image to an external drive, and then use
> the boot floppy to put the image on the new HDD in the primary position or
>
> 2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would be in the
> secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I don't foresee any
> problems with cloning to the second and then pulling the old drive , moving
> the newly cloned drive to primary and putting the drive that I removed back
> in.
>
> 3. Is there anything I need to do in the BIOS settings after moving the
> cloned drive to the primary position?
>
> 4. I assume I will get all of my OS files, updates etc. The drive currently
> has four partitions on it, and from what I have read, Ghost will create four
> partitions on the cloned drive but the size of each will increase.
>
> The original drive that came with the Dell is still OK, but I need some more
> room.
>
> Thanks
> Bob
>
>
Out of curiousity, is there something stopping you from running the two
drives simultaneously (perhaps you want to use the old drive for another
system, etc.)? If not, unless the new drive is faster (eg. 10000RPM vs
7200RPM) or has more cache (8MB vs 2MB), there's no speed benefit from
having the new drive as the primary master. Likewise, couldn't you just
add the new drive as the primary slave and not bother with Ghost at all?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

William P. N. Smith wrote:

> "Leanin' Cedar" <Nospam@nospam.org> wrote:
>
>>2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would be in the
>>secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I don't foresee any
>>problems with cloning to the second and then pulling the old drive , moving
>>the newly cloned drive to primary and putting the drive that I removed back
>>in.
>
>
> Never have two drives that are mirrors (exact images) of each other in
> a system at the same time. Wipe the old drive (using a DOS boot disk
> and fdisk, for instance) before reinstalling it.
>
You should probably preface that statement with, "In a non-RAID
environment". RAID levels 1, 10, & 0+1 are all based on mirroring.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I had not considered the option of putting the new disk as primary, old as
secondary and cloning that way.
I have already tried the Ghost boot disk, and no problem recognizing the
external firewire drive and image.

I am not quite sure I understand the difference it would make between a
"DOS" boot disk, and using the Ghost PCdos boot disk?

Thanks
Bob


"dg1261" <dgREMOVE-THIS1261@cs.com> wrote in message
news:Ycale.21339$J12.18896@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
> "Leanin' Cedar" wrote:
>> Dimension 4300 XPHome SP2
>> Ghost 2003
>> Original drive 80 GB and want to replace it with new 120GB drive.
>>
>> 1. should I use ghost to create an image to an external drive, and
>> then use the boot floppy to put the image on the new HDD in the
>> primary position or
>>
>> 2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would
>> be in the secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I
>> don't foresee any problems with cloning to the second and then
>> pulling the old drive , moving the newly cloned drive to primary
>> and putting the drive that I removed back in.
>
> Personally, I would use Ghost only from a DOS boot floppy, never from
> within
> Windows, and in that case option 1 would have you spending a lot more time
> trying to get DOS to recognize your external drive than it would take to
> do
> the actual cloning. I'd go with option 2, except I'd put old disk in
> secondary position, new disk in primary, boot from floppy, and use Ghost
> to
> clone from secondary to primary.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

The secondary drive "G" is full of info etc. that I have a lot of shortcuts
to. Thus I want to keep that disk as G, I plan on using the old drive in an
external firewire case for editing video from my home entertainment center
Dish PVR. I also would like to have a larger primary drive.

Bob

"Nicholas Andrade" <sdnick484@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:AMele.1528$kS3.217@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> Leanin' Cedar wrote:
>> Dimension 4300 XPHome SP2
>> Ghost 2003
>> Original drive 80 GB and want to replace it with new 120GB drive.
>>
>> 1. should I use ghost to create an image to an external drive, and then
>> use the boot floppy to put the image on the new HDD in the primary
>> position or
>>
>> 2. Use ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive that would be in the
>> secondary position. This already has a drive in it but I don't foresee
>> any problems with cloning to the second and then pulling the old drive ,
>> moving the newly cloned drive to primary and putting the drive that I
>> removed back in.
>>
>> 3. Is there anything I need to do in the BIOS settings after moving the
>> cloned drive to the primary position?
>>
>> 4. I assume I will get all of my OS files, updates etc. The drive
>> currently has four partitions on it, and from what I have read, Ghost
>> will create four partitions on the cloned drive but the size of each will
>> increase.
>>
>> The original drive that came with the Dell is still OK, but I need some
>> more room.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Bob
> Out of curiousity, is there something stopping you from running the two
> drives simultaneously (perhaps you want to use the old drive for another
> system, etc.)? If not, unless the new drive is faster (eg. 10000RPM vs
> 7200RPM) or has more cache (8MB vs 2MB), there's no speed benefit from
> having the new drive as the primary master. Likewise, couldn't you just
> add the new drive as the primary slave and not bother with Ghost at all?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Leanin' Cedar wrote:
> The secondary drive "G" is full of info etc. that I have a lot of shortcuts
> to. Thus I want to keep that disk as G, I plan on using the old drive in an
> external firewire case for editing video from my home entertainment center
> Dish PVR. I also would like to have a larger primary drive.
>
> Bob
>
Ok, I see where the issue is, but Windows XP allows you to manually
specify the mount point. For example, if I go to Administrative Tools
-> Computer Management -> Disk Management, and I select the second
partition on my primary drive (E, I can right click on it and select
Change Drive Letter & Paths. Basically as long as you are not booting
off G:, you can rename any partition to it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Leanin' Cedar" <Nospam@nospam.org> wrote:
> I had not considered the option of putting the new disk as primary,
> old as secondary and cloning that way.

Ghost has an unpublicized "feature"--it fiddles with the boot.ini file on
the copy to try and guess how it should be changed so the copy is bootable.
People run into trouble when they move disks around *after* Ghost has
already taken its shot at boot.ini. Ghost often seems to guess right, but
cloning to a disk that is already in the position you want it is just a
hedge to help Ghost guess right.


> I have already tried the Ghost boot disk, and no problem recognizing
> the external firewire drive and image.

Then you'll have no trouble with the biggest PITA in running from DOS. I
think the transfer rate is faster with two disks hooked up internally, but
if there's not going to be any headaches accessing an external drive from
DOS, then that opens up an advantage for the external option: you can keep
an image of the OS as a backup. If you do the transfer internally, you'd
use cloning--clone old disk directly to new disk, but when you're done you
don't have a backup image to store away for safekeeping. If you use an
external drive as an intermediary, you'd use imaging instead of
cloning--image from old disk to ext.hd, swap internal disks, restore image
from ext.hd onto new disk, and when you're done you're left with a known
good image on ext.hd as a by-product of the transfer.


> I am not quite sure I understand the difference it would make between
> a "DOS" boot disk, and using the Ghost PCdos boot disk?

None--I'm using "DOS" generically, and the Ghost PCDOS boot disk is one. I
was making the "DOS" distinction because Ghost 2003 can also be installed in
Windows. Running from within Windows is, IMHO, less reliable, but does seem
to provide for better driver support, which for some people becomes an
issue.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Thanks for the feedback;

I think I will do it with the new disk as primary and do it all internally
using the boot floppy. Just in case, before I do the clone, I will do a
Ghost image to the external firewire drive. I do not want any "nightmares".
LOL

Bob
"dg1261" <dgREMOVE-THIS1261@cs.com> wrote in message
news:UBule.21627$J12.4359@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
> "Leanin' Cedar" <Nospam@nospam.org> wrote:
>> I had not considered the option of putting the new disk as primary,
>> old as secondary and cloning that way.
>
> Ghost has an unpublicized "feature"--it fiddles with the boot.ini file on
> the copy to try and guess how it should be changed so the copy is
> bootable.
> People run into trouble when they move disks around *after* Ghost has
> already taken its shot at boot.ini. Ghost often seems to guess right, but
> cloning to a disk that is already in the position you want it is just a
> hedge to help Ghost guess right.
>
>
>> I have already tried the Ghost boot disk, and no problem recognizing
>> the external firewire drive and image.
>
> Then you'll have no trouble with the biggest PITA in running from DOS. I
> think the transfer rate is faster with two disks hooked up internally, but
> if there's not going to be any headaches accessing an external drive from
> DOS, then that opens up an advantage for the external option: you can keep
> an image of the OS as a backup. If you do the transfer internally, you'd
> use cloning--clone old disk directly to new disk, but when you're done you
> don't have a backup image to store away for safekeeping. If you use an
> external drive as an intermediary, you'd use imaging instead of
> cloning--image from old disk to ext.hd, swap internal disks, restore image
> from ext.hd onto new disk, and when you're done you're left with a known
> good image on ext.hd as a by-product of the transfer.
>
>
>> I am not quite sure I understand the difference it would make between
>> a "DOS" boot disk, and using the Ghost PCdos boot disk?
>
> None--I'm using "DOS" generically, and the Ghost PCDOS boot disk is one.
> I
> was making the "DOS" distinction because Ghost 2003 can also be installed
> in
> Windows. Running from within Windows is, IMHO, less reliable, but does
> seem
> to provide for better driver support, which for some people becomes an
> issue.
>
>