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Number   :  7848
Date     :  2004-05-09
Author   :  Dan Anderson
Subject  :  Re: Cloning Partitions... dont need it to be bootable
Size(KB) :  12


Just a quick comment that there may be different styles with regards to
whether or not an individual would want to use partitions or not to use
partitions. It seems childish however to refer to one approach vs. the
other as being "silly" when each approach has obvious advantages and
disadvantages (although it may not be apparent from Kan's comments). As
noted, Kan acknowledges that he is "preaching" one perspective partly due to
the particular approach that is used by xxcopy and xxclone but he is not
presenting you with a balanced set of considerations. The nature of Kan's
comments should not be aimed at demeaning people that disagree with his
perspective on these sorts of issues.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kan Yabumoto" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: [xxcopy] Re: Cloning Partitions... dont need it to be bootable


>
> fshift07 wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for your help Kan... couple of questions remain.
> >
> > First) If I do clone a System Partion to a System partion,
> > but not the System of the computer doing the process,
> > Is there any conflicts?
>
> At a given moment, there is only one volume which contains
> "The system" (which I believe you call "System partition").
> In XP, the environment variable, "SystemRoot" defines it.
>
> If you clone the system volume (partition) to a target,
> the target will become a self-bootable volume which is
> for all practical purposes the new "system volume" when
> you boot your system to that volume/partition. But
> until you actually do the booting into the target volume,
> it is still just a non-system volume at the time
> XXCLONE is trying to clone a volume to another.
>
> If you select the /BACKUP1 (full backup) or /BACKUP2
> (incremental backup) options in XXCLONE, in either case,
> the target will be made a virtual replica of the current
> system volume. It does not matter what it once was.
> It could have been a system disk for another installation
> of Win9X or XP. Still, the target volume will be treated
> as a "blank". In the case of /BACKUP1 or /BACKUP2 operation,
> the XXCLONE will make sure any extra files/directories on
> the target volume be removed completely.
>
> So, while I don't quite understand your question, if you
> believe some "system" of some kind (again, I don't know
> what you mean by "system partition" for the target volume),
> pre-exists at the time of XXCLONE operation, just assume
> the worst --- anything the target volume once had in it
> will be pretty much wiped out and at the end of the
> CLONE operation, the target will be exactly what it should
> be. A self-bootable clone of the system disk (again,
> it is still a non-system volume until the system is
> rebooted into the clone --- at that time, the cloned volume
> will become the new "System volume" and the original volume
> will be a mere non-system disk (which could still come back
> as the system disk when you reboot into it).
>
> I hope you now understand what the "System volume" and
> "System Partition" (which I do not often use --- but,
> in most instances (in the spirit of the "basic disk"),
> "volume" and "partition" are almost interchangeable.
> But, Starting with Win2000 (and all later Windows),
> Microsoft invented the "dynamic" disk which may span
> a volume (known by a drive letter) into multiple partitions.
>
> The idea of the dynamic disk is fully consistent with
> my argument why it is silly to create artificial walls
> between volumes and partitions. Why Unix/Linix user
> never ask for mimicking drive letters while every new
> release of Linux looks closer and closer to Windows'
> desktop? The drive letter is a bad idea and should be
> eliminated. Or, there should be a system-wide mechanism
> to handle multiple-volume root. If you look at a Windows
> system, you will find that "My Computer" is the root of
> the local drives with drive letters. I wish the notion
> is completely formalized in such a way that we can
> routinely address the various drive letters like
>
> \My Computer\C\windows\...
>
> When a computer is accessed remotely, the UNC path
> pretty much does just that
>
> \\Server_abc\c\windows\...
>
> Alas, the second level components are still user-defined
> and not uniformly (predictably) assigned.
>
> I stand by my opinion that multiple-volumes do not add
> any improved security against virus attack. One may
> argue that a hard-disk failure can be compartmentalize.
> But then, having more things to fail, the odd of one
> of the many disks go bad will also proportionately
> increase and cancel the overall benefit.
>
> The down side is that as I said, you are complicating
> your life. If you disagree that it is still very simple,
> why are you bothering me with a bunch of questions all
> of which is an added complexities as a direct result of
> your voluntary and arbitrary action against my advice.
>
> The XP allows you to keep the non-system directories
> (notably, the so-called "profiles" area) on a non-system
> volume. For example,
>
> C:\windows\ // the XP system directory
> D:\Documents and Settings\ // user data and settings
> E:\Program Files\ // application programs
>
> If you know where these settings are saved in the
> system registry, you may force these directories to be
> pretty much any place. I would not be surprised if there
> are more convenient ways to do this rather than using
> the RegEdit utility. But, you will find there are
> many programs out there that make an assumption that
> the \Documents and Settings\ directory is on the same
> volume as the system volume is. More commonly, the
> \Program Files\ are also assumed to be on the same
> volume. If you are a programmer, you will find these
> arbitrary freedom extra and unnecessary burden for their
> main focus. Again, if there is no such thing as
> "drive letter", programmers need not deal with this
> nonsense altogether.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> As a matter of fact, XXCLONE still does not have
> a mechanism in place to designate the
> \Document and Settings\ directory which does not
> reside in the system volume. Am I guilty of not
> supporting this "perfectly legal" setting?
> Probably yes. But, we have tons of thins to
> resolve before spending a lot of time (and adding
> the complexities in the XXCLONE program ---
> add an extra ComboBox in the set up page and let
> you select which volume you want the
> \Document and settings\ directory should saved?
> Supporting such a rare case will burden 99% of
> "regular" users who do not know what \Documents
> and settings\ are really for. We will have to
> explain this to everyone and have them understand
> this simply because Windows allows it...
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> If you say my answer here is wordy, it's not my fault.
> You want multiple-partitions. All of a sudden, you
> need a lot of questions answered. If this is not
> adding unneeded complexity to the whole process,
> what is it?
>
> I said, keep it simple. I do not need further
> explanation. The advice itself is recursively simple.
>
> Another reason why partitioning a volume into smaller
> pieces is a bad idea:
>
> 1. If you have two partitions, you need two separate
> reserve spaces. It will be very unlikely that
> the two volume's storage demand will be accurately
> predicted in advance. So, you will end up with
> more wasted space. The more walls you build in
> your system, the more wasted space.
>
> 2. One partition can be handled with a direct invocation
> of XXCLONE without even creating a batch file.
>
> If you have two partitions, currently there is no
> way to do it in one XXCLONE invocation. Now, even
> though we could support such a scheme within XXCLONE,
> why should we?
>
> 3. If you have one volume that contains everything,
> there is no such thing as "system volume" and
> "non-system" volume. There is no extra distraction
> in making a proper backup.
>
> 4. I wish the system's various directories are
> more clearly segregated. But, if you look into
> the C:\Windows\ directory, you will find all sorts
> of directories and files that are not always
> pure OS-related. There is no clear bounds inside
> the system. That is the reality and make it
> pointless to try to design your backup/archive
> and restore strategy based on the false premise.
>
> 5. The system registry is a pretty monstrous entity.
> It is a collection of files which are scattered
> into directories. If you keep \Documents and Settings\
> directory on non-system volume, it will be all over
> the place and things could go wrong. That is,
> if the \Documents and Settings\ directory is on
> a different volume from the system volume, then,
> if either of the two volumes does not work properly,
> the system may not even boot.
>
> 6. There is no basis that virus which can do harm to
> one volume would not do any harm to the contents of
> additional volumes. If it were true, we would't have
> much virus problem. All we have to do would be to
> keep all the user and application program volume
> separate from the system volume.
>
> 7. Again, your notion of combining all components into
> one larger volume will somehow increase a vulnerability
> has no basis. If that were the case, creating
> tens of partitions would increase the system
> reliability. I just don't buy that argument.
>
> I' not saying multiple-partitions are always bad.
> I'm sure there are cases where you want to have
> a separate partitions for various reasons. But,
> I'm saying it does not improve the system reliability
> by doing so. Rather, the added complexity is a
> price to pay for whatever the intended purpose.
> If there is no special purpose (e.g., the entire
> volume in a separate drive can be on a USB-interfaced
> external disk which can be disconnected and carried
> away).
>
>
> > I am temporarily adding two drives from one computer
> > onto another for the purpose of Copying a dying
> > system drive onto a new drive. XXClone comes up with
> > a message
> > "The source volume you chose is not the current Windows
> > directory is kept. Do you want to Continue?"
> >
> > If I continue, will XXClone ignore the current Windows
> > and only copy the other system volume I specified?
>
> Again, the fact you need to ask this question is
> a proof that you are making your system more complex
> than necessary. We provided the solution for the case.
> It should work as intended. But, probably due to our
> poor communication skill, the warning message was not
> sufficient to explain the (slightly more) complicated
> situation well.
>
> > Second) In your reply you mentioned that you believe
> > having more than 2 partitions would be silly.
> > I like to keep data and the paging file off my System
> > drive to allow for imaging to a single DVD.
>
> I'm wondering why so many people try to save the
> "system volume". The "system" can be brought back
> within an hour or so by re-installing everything from
> the Install CD. As long as you have the original CD
> from Microsoft, you need not worry about making your
> "personal backup" of the system directory. It is the
> cheapest (and reproducible) part that you should not
> waste your time backing up. It is the user-generated
> data that are truly important. For this, there are
> many way to backup. It is often much simpler because
> there is no extra hassle of the "bootability" issues.
> Just copy all the user-generated files into DVD or
> what have you. We encourage frequent archiving and
> backup using XXCOPY with a wide range of options to
> support many backup strategies.
>
> So, what XXCLONE offers is the missing link there.
> A quick and reliable backup of the entire system
> for a self-bootable volume which can be brought to
> life within a few minutes without even a restore
> operation.
>
> My advice to common users is
>
> 1. one system disk C:\ with everything in one volume.
>
> 2. one backup disk D:\ with sufficient space to duplicate
> everything.
>
> 3. Run daily "XXCLONE C: D: /BACKUP1 /START"
>
> 4. Make additional sets of user file backup on CD-RW/DVD-RW
> as archive. Probably, it is a good idea to keep some
> of them off-site.
>
> 5. Automate much of the above. It is safe to assume that
> human beings are too lazy to do it regularly.
>
> 6. Keep it simple!!!
>
>
> I'm guilty of not doing all of the above as I preach 
> I haven't lost much important data for quite a few years
> During the last 7-8 years, I did not lose any significant
> amount of data. But, I have come close to a disaster
> a number of occasions.
>
> Kan Yabumoto
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>



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