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Number : 6724 Date : 2004-01-03 Author : Dan Anderson Subject : Re: XXCLONE and MBRs Size(KB) : 4
Thanks Kan. That helps to clarify the overall context. I understand the reasoning for why the default approach for XXCLONE would be to continue to overwrite the MBR when the destination partition is on a separate hard drive. Even in that situation, it is a pretty serious (and non-standard) approach for a product to over-write the contents of the MBR and it may not enhance xxclone's future acceptability as a general-user product. To the extent possible, one product should not damage another product's functionality (despite what Mr. Gates et al might do sometimes). Your call, but that is one feature that might warrant an option-warning message (unless it is self-evident because xxclone is being provided only for the purpose of new-drive installation) that asks the user to confirm that this is indeed a new harddrive that is being installed and therefore would require a new MBR. I fully agree that something less technical would be needed in such a message and I understand your objective of a very simplified approach for new users, so maybe when the destination partition is on a second hard drive you will still decide on a no-warning default approach of over-writing the MBR (with the potential of a line command option to not overwrite the MBR). However, however, however, when the source and destination partitions are on the same hard drive, maybe in that situation the default should be that the MBR is not affected by running XXCLONE. If that approach is taken then XXCLONE can more conveniently be run from the standard gui interface rather than from a line command with parameters that alter the default approach. It would be good if XXCLONE could co-exist as much as possible with a fairly standard product such as bootmagic, so long as the general user is not adversely affected. Thanks for giving this consideration. Dan ========================================= ----- Original Message ----- From: Kan Yabumoto To: Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:53 AM Subject: Re: [xxcopy] XXCLONE and MBRs Dan wrote: > Is there any reason why the default approach now for XXCLONE > is to overwrite the MBR? What is the purpose of the overwrite? > Each time I run xxclone now, it wipes out the bootmagic setup > that I have installed to dual boot between W98 and XP and > I have to re-enable it. If you initialize a brand new disk using the XP, the MBR will not be initialized with the master boot code. Therefore, if XXCLONE does not initialize the MBR, it will never be able to reboot by itself. The problem is if the byte pattern is any different from what XXCLONE is about to write, it is not possible for XXCLONE to know whether the image there is just a garbage. If we do not initialize the MBR, I guarantee you that XXCLONE's batting average will go way down. So, it is simply a matter of our estimation that most people use the standard setup. If you show us a statistic that shows that more people use tools like "boot magic" than sticking to the "standard", we will definitely change XXCLONE. As far as we are concerned, gimmicks like "Boot magic" that deviates from the standard behavior is impediment to a proper operation of a product like XXCLONE. If Boot magic operates with a completely standard MBR, XXCLONE's reinitialization of the sector should not matter. Therefore, XXCLONE will have little choice but to do it with how it knows to make the system operate. Also, this attitude is based on our optimistic assumption that the end users are smart enough that when XXCLONE modifies the MBR or boot sector, the end user will be resourceful enough to find a go around (e.g., you can always reinitialize the boot sector image to what you want after XXCLONE finishes its job). We assume those who know enough about the tool like "Whatever magic" can handle such a situation. But, the same is not true for novices. That is, we just cannot make the life of novices with standard environment miserable to help small minority with a non-standard setup. > My impression is that the overwrite of the MBR only began > with the most recent version of XXCLONE, or maybe I was > not affected before because I have only recently placed > my XP windows-directory logical XP partition and my XP > boot.ini primary partition onto the same hard drive? No. The latest version (v.0.20.7) was the first version that allowed you to choose NOT to initialize the MBR and boot sector by /BC0. All earlier versions behaved like /BC7 without any alternative. Now, you have an option. Kan Yabumoto --------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe eMail to: Or to post a message, send eMail to --------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xxcopy/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xxcopy-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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