This is topic Copying A Hard Drive in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-16-2002, 07:07 PM:
I have a DOS based hard drive that I need to make a mirror copy of onto another hard drive to back it all up and keep it as a standby in case the original hard drive fails. I seem to remember watching a computer tech once using some program in built into DOS that performed all of this in one long step. It copied, verified, etc all of the data from one drive to another drive. Is there anyone out there that knows how to do this properly? Also could you tell me the exact commands to perform this?
Thanks
Mark @ CLACO
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-16-2002, 07:15 PM:
I am not aware of any image programs included in DOS but there are many such as Norton`s which fit on one or two diskettes. Maybe the tech had already copied it to the hard disc and ran it from there.
Michael
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-16-2002, 07:32 PM:
There used to be several programs that also made a mirror so the cloned drive was bootable It was popular with PC makers to make multiple pre configured machines
I think it was called Drive Image or linkwiz
http://www.pcx.com/
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-16-2002, 07:45 PM:
I have Drive Image Pro 4. It works very well. I would mail it to you but my modem connection is rather slow. Surely somebody in your vicinity has it.
Michael
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-16-2002, 08:00 PM:
I am quite fond of Norton Ghost. It will create an exact duplicate of your hard drive bit for bit, file system and all. I use it to backup the servers and if something should crash, 10 minutes later all is back to the way it was as of the time of the last Ghosting. I even have full Windows 2000 installations along with all of my most commonly used software Ghosted and stored on a 700MB cdrom. I can put the Ghost floppy into the drive and the cdrom into the cd drive, let it boot to the floppy and tell it to restore from cdrom. 10 minutes later...viola! Sure does save time over reinstalling the OS and programs from scratch. 
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 10-16-2002, 08:25 PM:
I also am not aware of any DOS image command. I always use Drive Image 3 when I need to image a drive, like moving across the country or before I try out some new major software package.
Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 10-16-2002, 09:48 PM:
I second Brad's suggestion. Our house took a direct lightning strike over the summer, and it fried everything hooked to the phone lines...computer included. I took my hard drive into the local computer repair place and the "logic controller" on the hard drive was burnt out, but their tech guy removed the actual disks and read/write heads of my hard drive, put them into another case and then "Ghosted" a mirror image of my hard drive to three CD's. Once I got my new computer, I was able to take my Ghost CD's and restore all of my original programs and data. By looking at the monitor, you'd never even know I had a new computer.
------------------
Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Lebanon, Tennessee
Stardust Drive-In Theatre
Watertown, Tennessee
Posted by Wes Hughes (Member # 981) on 10-16-2002, 10:06 PM:
I too like Ghost. I have (somewhere) an older version of Ghost. It had a really basic interface, but worked well. I was trying to mirror a couple of hard drives last year with a newer version of Ghost (don't remember the version) and I could not get it to work properly. I used that older version and it worked wonderfully. It fit onto one floppy.
Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-16-2002, 10:14 PM:
I think you're talking about xcopy. Most versions of it don't create a bootable copy but I believe some new versions will with the /H option.You would use this: xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /a /e /h /v
Where c: is the source, d: is the target, /a is keep attributes, /e is copy all sub-dirs even empty ones, /h is also copy hidden and system files and /v is verify.
I have used Ghost Software's Ghost for years (now owned by Symantec), it is _the_ best imaging tool you could ask for. Especially handy is multicast mode which allows you to clone a whole lab full of PC's at once. I used to use it to automatically reload 200 PCs in a computer engineering lab until we started using Deep Freeze to stop people from screwing with the systems.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-16-2002, 11:03 PM:
Thanks Daryl,
X copy, thats the one. Thats the command line!! I was able to make a mirror bootable copy with a version of Drive Copy that I found in my software junk storage tub. I guess it pays to be somewhat of a packrat with software. Alot of software doesnt take up very much room. I'll test this mirrored drive in the actual automation computer tommrrow. If it works out ok it will give them a back up hard drive that they can just plug in place of the original and keep going. The system is a number of years old so this older drive was some concern.
Mark @ CLACO
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-16-2002, 11:10 PM:
And now my stupid question: Obviously you can use xcopy only to backup an image if you have a second hard disc or partition? Or are there any cd writers which work under DOS? Or is the idea to create an image file under DOS, then start Windows and burn the file on a cd?
That`s actually three stupid questions.
Michael
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-16-2002, 11:45 PM:
When I saw X copy work it went from disk to disk, and we ended up with a new bootable larger hard drive. Don't know about going to CD rom but I imagine it might be possible to.
Mark
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-17-2002, 01:28 AM:
Mark:As far as I know, what he did was not make a ghost drive. The tech duplicated everything on a new drive.
XCOPY *.*/s should do it. However, you must FDISK it first if it is a new drive. If you don't use the /s, it will not copy sub-directories. Use Daryl's command line if the /s I suggested does not copy everything.
By the way, which version of DOS are you using? If it is anything less than 6.22, use Daryl's command line suggestion. If your version of DOS doesn't like it, you will have an insult hurled back at you which will basically tell you why. The command line is space and switch sensitive, so watch your typing.
The most sure-fire way is to use a hard drive installation disk supplied with new hard drives and it will copy everything, including the boot sector.
Just about every installation disk eliminates the use of "FDISK."
Don't let DOS low-level format a high capacity disk. And, since you are using it for DOS, don't allow the hard drive installation disk to go "FAT-32". Use FAT-16.
I use Maxtor's version of Max-Blast and it has not failed me yet. You can probably download it form Maxtor's site, but I don't know that for sure anymore. The version 1.24S (which I use) works with Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Fugitwhateverthehellitis, and probably others as well that use the FAT 16 or FAT 32 tables. The hottest drive installation disks will allow the NTFS format.
It is a self-booting disk to start the program. Set your BIOS to boot from floppy. Also make sure you have floppy drive seek on boot-up is enabled. Most newer BIOS's give you that option.
If you use the Maxi-Blast (or software supplied with your new drive) be sure to read the prompts before you do it. Personally, I would recommend you use the drive's new software. If you have an old DOS computer that can't see a new drive because it is too big, DOS will probably partition it to about 540 megs.
If you have a large capacity drive and the BIOS won't recognize it, you would have to allow the software to install EZ Bios so your MB can recognize the new drive. But it will want you to also install EZ Bios in your old drive as well. The software will point that out to you, and after you OK it, it'll partition your new drives to chunks big enough for the the BIOS to see. When you log to any partition through the root directory of when you go to file manager in Windows and you don't see the extra drives, you will have to modify your config.sys file which is in the root directory. Add a line to the bottom that says:
LASTDRIVE=Z
Save it on exit, and then reboot. It should come back and show your new drives and all its partitions.
Now that you are completely confused, just exactly what do you want to do? Make a Ghost drive, or make a clone of your old drive that you want to rathole somewhere in case your old drive goes to Drive Heaven? (Or the junk pile) 
Rather than screwing around with all these command lines, just get a hard drive installation disk and "have at it."
If you need one, I have a bunch and will be happy to send you one.
Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-17-2002, 02:27 AM:
Michael,In short, yes. From within the Norton Ghost Corporate Edition Console you can make a bootable ghost disc with CD-R(W) writing capability.
If you don't own the Corporate edition I'm sure there are some free drivers (probably the same ones included with Ghost CE) that you could use under DOS.
Of course you could just burn the xcopied files to a CD from within Windows but you would probably want to use some sort of compression (Ghost image file, etc.) if you were going to be burning CD's. Afterall, a modest 60GB harddrive is going to take up 'a few' CD's, even compressed.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-17-2002, 07:05 PM:
I tried the Hard Drive today in the actual show controller computer and it all works fine. Had I remembered about X copy I would have done it that way but my old copy of Drive Copy worked fine.
Thanks for everyones help and suggestions!!
Mark @ CLACO
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-17-2002, 07:32 PM:
Now, if you want to change the title of the drive, use the LABEL command. DOS 6.22 is cool. If you have any questions about DOS command lines, just simply type
help
when you are logged on to the DOS drive. Then use the tab key to scroll to the help subject and press enter.
Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-18-2002, 01:46 AM:
While looking for help in DOS one can never forget |more after that /? Unless of course you can read real fast. Sometimes I wish |less was a valid parameter.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-18-2002, 01:56 AM:
I'm not a fast reader or a fast typer. But I like computers that give the answer AFTER the enter key is pressed, and not before. I am a modified "hunt and peck" typer, and what really frosts my butt is I still have to look at the keyboard and not the screen. When I type in command lines one mile long to get something done, and the insult "Syntax Error" flashes up, I feel like bashing the computer silly. 