[<<]Message[>>] [<<]Author[>>] [<<]Subject[>>] [<<]Thread[>>]
Number : 6736 Date : 2004-01-04 Author : Dan Anderson Subject : Re: XXCLONE and MBRs Size(KB) : 10
Re: XXCLONE over-writing the master boot record on the source drive. Kan, I'll itemize the various considerations for easier reference. 1. Is XXCLONE a good product relative to Drive Image and Partition Magic and Ghost? Yes. XXCLONE is more convenient and reliable in many ways (and will be worth paying a reasonable price for it) with regard to its primary objective of making a cloned XP partition and making it bootable. With regard to paying for XXCLONE, I expect the approach will probably differ from that for XXCOPY because with the latter there has been no charge when you use only one computer ... should I send $20 anyway for my occasional use of the non-commercial xxcopy so that I don't stay in the less welcome non-paying category? (I'm still puttering along with an earlier xxcopy version from 2000 even though I occasionally download more recent versions). My impression is that neither Drive Image nor Ghost currently deliver the extra functionality that they seem to offer with regard to creating/recovering an archived XP operating system image (although they still work very well with archiving/recovering/managing W98 and data partitions), because when you try to recover an archived XP partition I have found that the following sort of error message is produced: "redundant copies of the FAT do not match the current FAT" ... and the partition is non-functional. XXCLONE may not provide that functionality either, but never really suggested that it would. As an aside, with XXCLONE I created an XP partition on a second hard drive which stayed functional as an alternate boot partition but when I disconnected that second hard drive for awhile and made various partition changes on the master hard drive, then re-connected the second hard drive, then XXCLONE could no longer see the XP partition on the second hard drive, although the second hard drive would be bootable on a stand-alone basis). XXCLONE, however, has more hands-on advantages and a more intuitive sense of the here-and-now nature of the cloning function. Nevertheless, those other products have other advantages and functions and there seems to be no need for any sort of my-way-or-the-highway conflict between XXCLONE and other products, particularly BootMagic. BootMagic is packaged with a well-respected product, PowerQuest's Partition Magic, and BootMagic is solely for the purpose of providing a convenient multi-boot capability if, for example, someone wants to run XP as well as W98 or Linux, etc. 2. Making XXCLONE convenient and reliable for general users of all sorts. It would seem UNNECESSARY to punish a user for trying to use BOTH BootMagic and XXCLONE (in an environment that uses a logical partition for the XP operating system). In that situation, when XXCLONE is asked to run with the source and destination partitions on the same hard drive (the master boot hard drive) the current result on reboot (because XXCLONE unnecessarily over-writes the MBR) is a black screen and the message "operating system not found". No warning, just a dead computer. Completely unexpected and dysfunctional. The press reviews would not be flattering, despite good intentions and the fact that the computer can be re-activated if one had the foresight to prepare a bootmagic rescue diskette. It really does not seem sufficient to say that the computer was killed because "it is XXCLONE's obligation to make sure that the MBR is in a healthy state, we cannot assume the MBR is healthy" and therefore will over-write, without warning or immediately-apparent option, whatever the master drive's MBR currently contains and replace it with what XXCLONE thinks the MBR should have contained. A completely unnecessary action. I did not encounter this problem previously because although I had both source and destination XP partitions on the same hard drive, prior to Dec 26 I happened to always have my source XP partition on the slave drive (boot.ini was in a small primary partition on the master drive) and so my master MBR was never affected by XXCLONE's actions. There may be other products beside BootMagic that would also be impacted by XXCLONE over-writing the MBR unnecessarily. 3. XXCLONE over-writing the MBR Item 2 above describes what happens currently. The solution suggested in your note (the MBR will not be over-written if it already contains the exact image that XXCLONE would over-write it with) would not seem to solve anything since the test would be redundant and the end result would seem to be exactly the same. The simplest solution (no extra warning messages or run options) would be to adjust the default so as to never alter the MBR on the boot hard drive (drive 0 in boot.ini terms when XXCLONE is run), or even go further and never alter a pre-existing MBR. There is no inherent reason for XXCLONE to alter that MBR, and it goes well beyond XXCLONE's basic functionality to suggest that it will also take on the unrelated role of MBR-cleanup-'expert' even if it means killing a fully-functional computer. I understand why the default approach is to ensure that an MBR is present on the second hard drive when the destination partition is on that second hard drive and there is no pre-existing MBR, but it really seems completely unnecessary to blindly second-guess a pre-existing and seemingly valid MBR. Virus-testing of the MBR should be a separate function that is addressed in some other way than a no-warning-option approach of always-replace-whatever-is-there. Or, is the problem here that the MBR is where XXCLONE is temporarily storing some of the instructions for what to do when the system re-boots into the destination partition? (I don't think that's the case since XXCLONE is already storing something on the source partition for that purpose, as becomes obvious if one tried to hide the source partition prior to booting into the destination partition for the first time and the process is unable to complete until the source partition is made accessible again)? ============================== My personal preference would be to use both XXCLONE and the other products, because their functionality can be complementary, one to the other. My own interest in XXCLONE is not just for the purpose of transitioning from one hard drive to another, but for its ongoing ability to create alternate XP (logical) partitions (on the same or different hard drives) that can be used to pre-test the installation of a product or to run with different environments (e.g. keep a separate XP partition for a member of the family that may want a different set of functionality and software that I don't want installed on my primary XP partition). Sincere Regards, Dan Anderson ======================================= ======================================= ----- Original Message ----- From: Kan Yabumoto To: Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 7:24 PM Subject: Re: [xxcopy] XXCLONE and MBRs Dan wrote: > 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. We cannot assume the MBR is healthy. Please see XXTB #33 (it shows that we can boot into XP without a healthy MBR.) I think XXCLONE should make sure that the MBR and other components that XXCLONE depends on are initialized to a known state. ---------------------------------------------- Actually, one may argue that once XXCLONE initializes the MBR, why does it have to continue doing so forever in subsequent operations? It is XXCLONE's obligation to make sure that the MBR is in a healthy state (because it could be overwritten by a virus or another tool. Since XXCLONE cannot determine whether it's written by virus or a good tool, it should assume the worst. But, we don't like to write the same thing over an already healthy image (there is a slight chance the overwriting the same info could go wrong and result in a bad sector image in a worst case scenario). Therefore, XXCLONE will first read the sector and see if every byte in the sector is exactly the same as the image it wants to write. If every byte matches the image, XXCLONE will *NOT* overwrite the sector. The same goes true to other sectors (and for that matter, the key files such as NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM). Because there are only a few sectors and just a few files, the time is not an issue here. ---------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- Here's how to click XXCLONE to run with a /BC0 setting: 1. Create a batch file with "XXCLONE.EXE /BC0" 2. Make a shortcut icon for the batch file. 3. Double click the icon to invoke XXCLONE. --------------------------------------------------------- A command line option is not an exclusive feature to non-GUI products. --------- I'm just curious on one issue. Apparently, you believes in Partition Magic, DriveImage, Ghost or whatever Symantec/Norton does (I have great respect to their products). Obviously you know there are two major approaches in cloning a volume: disk-imaging such as Ghost/DriveImage and logical-file-copying such as XXCLONE/XXCOPY. (Here, I will just call it Ghost, collectively to refer to other tools for related purposes). Is there any reason that you want to continue to perform the two different approaches indefinitely? I guess if Ghost performs well for what it does, I don't see why you want to use XXCLONE/XXCOPY. It is my understanding that Ghost requires that you allocate a substantial amount of time every day to run Ghost just to get a good drive image that takes a long time. Apparently, you like the completeness and willing to allow it to spend the significant amount of time. If so, I just don't see much point doing more by XXCLONE/XXCOPY just do the same thing. (I understand only if you have two different backup volume --- one created by Ghost and the other handled by XXCLONE). It also seem to make little sense to alternate Ghost and XXCLONE on an every-other-day basis. If you choose XXCLONE/XXCOPY for its quicker incremental backup and you are satisfied with XXCLONE, is there still a strong motivation for you to continue to use Ghost? On the other hand, if your complaint about /BC0 was only for the transition that you are not committed to either product, I understand that. Kan Yabumoto
This message if part of XXCOPY's message Archive. The archive contains all the messages posted at Yahoo!Groups: XXCOPY.