Imaging To an Identical SSD, Question

[2therock]

I don't really want to get in the way but I think I can help a little getting everybody on the same page.

Thanks, I need all the help I can get and have been well taken care of so far.

One thing that jumps out at me is, Why is Disk 2 marked Active ?

Showing my experience level here, I had not noticed or even knew what it meant. This drive was populated as a test to make sure its worked. I will be wiping the drive.
But learning an Active drive has a boot function I will unplug it first and restart to make sure I am not somehow booting from it. Heh!

I will be trying ignatzatsonic's suggestion this weekend in seeing if I can boot and run from an image recovery perhaps on the drive mentioned above.

How do you guys wipe. C:\ Format w: U/ My memory is faded. Its been a while.

 

[Layback Bear]

You need to verify that you can boot your system with only drive/disk (0) hooked up.

Wiping large drives can take a long time; many hours.
I wipe drives seldom. You are the one who know if the information on those drives is sensitive or not.
If it is sensitive information, I would wipe the drives, leaving drive/disk (0) alone.

If you decide you need to wipe some drives/disks this tutorial by Bare Foot Kid will be very helpful.
It gives several examples and methods.

We need to know whether drive/disk (0) all by itself will boot into Windows 7.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/172617-secure-erase-wipe-definition-methods.html

 

[RolandJS]

** AddRAM, I have a question: could 2therock have a System Reserved partition which needs to be Active? I cannot well enough see the image posted earlier of the disk management to tell if a SysRes partition exists **
If his Windows has no SysRes partition to make Active, then he only needs to make Disk 0 - Partition C Active, correct?

After getting the proper partition marked Active, then:
-- power down and remove all external hard-drives [I can't tell if those ext HDs require the Safely Remove Hardware or not]
-- Coldboot/startup and publish the disk management's view of your now lonely internal hard-drive

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I had more partitions shown right after installation but used Minitool Partition Wizard Free to merge them leaving me just the two.

2therock:

You definitely need to confirm per Layback Bear that the PC will boot with ONLY disk 0 connected. Yes or no?

I'm also wondering about the above quote from an earlier post you made in this thread.

I'm wondering why you did that--even if it's harmless? I'd hope it won't affect any imaging you intend to do.

Was the install to disk 0 a "clean install" and were those "merged" partitions created by the Windows installation procedure?

I note that your system partition is EFI, so I'm thinking maybe that means there are unseen partitions such as "Microsoft Reserved"?

At any rate, confirm you are bootable with only disk 0 connected.

 

[2therock]

My Can-O-Worms

WoW, I have a can-o-worms here.

I'm going to owe you guys!

Except for the SSD OS drive "disc-0" the disc numbers change here as I disconnect to try different combo scenarios so you will be better off going by the drive letter for the non OS drives because they do not change no matter the combo connected.
Remember the (E: is the one marked active and is not the disc-0 SSD OS drive.
None are setup to be safely removed. I power down each time.
I used a utility called minitool to merge the extra partitions on the 0-drive because I thought I got them from not doing a clean install correctly.
The removable drive at the bottom is my printer.

OK, I took her down to just disc-0 and she booted lightning fast and she was already pretty quick.
I noticed disc-0 is not marked as active.

I ran some programs to make sure she was good to go and ran shutdown. Well.... she cut the monitors, I heard the little pop my speakers make when it shuts down but my fans kept running. No HDD activity light was going on.
I left it alone for 5 minutes and had to do the hold power button hold down for 4sec thing for it to cut off. I repeated this three times to confirm.

So I added disc-D: to the chain, (was never marked active). It booted, shown the discs, and ran fine and powered down fine.

Next I disconnected disc-D: and connected disc-E: to the chain having only disc-0 and E: (marked active) and it booted, ran and shut down fine.

So I decided to show hidden system files on the E: (marked active) to see whats on there. Have a look.

I hope I answered things correctly. Let me know.

Can I save her without a total system re-install or refresh?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If I understand correctly:

The system will boot with ONLY the SSD connected.

And when booted with just the SSD connected, that SSD is not shown as "active". Meaning no disk is shown as active since the SSD is the only disc connected.

Is that correct???

My guess is that maybe you have an active partition on the SSD that is hidden and is not shown by Windows Disk Management.

Not sure what you mean by "Can I save her without a total system re-install or refresh?"

Why would you think, at this point, that you might have to reinstall? What are we not understanding?

As far as I know, your only problem is that we did not know if the system was bootable with only the SSD installed and that you weren't exactly clear on how to make and restore images.

Or are you saying you have performance issues or something else going on that you don't understand?

 

[RolandJS]

Along with the other very excellent advice from the others, I also believe our dear new-found friend needs to use disk management and mark Drive 0 Active.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Here's an example of a working system with no active partition shown. It's mine.

 

[2therock]

If I understand correctly: The system will boot with ONLY the SSD connected.

Yes

And when booted with just the SSD connected, that SSD is not shown as "active". Meaning no disk is shown as active since the SSD is the only disc connected. Is that correct???

Yes

My guess is that maybe you have an active partition on the SSD that is hidden and is not shown by Windows Disk Management.

Just a hidden partition =This is good news.

Not sure what you mean by "Can I save her without a total system re-install or refresh?"
Why would you think, at this point, that you might have to reinstall? What are we not understanding?
As far as I know, your only problem is that we did not know if the system was bootable with only the SSD installed and that you weren't exactly clear on how to make and restore images.
Or are you saying you have performance issues or something else going on that you don't understand?

I was perhaps thinking the not marked as active, and the the other being marked as active was a sign if corruption or something more serious.

So where I stand now is I know I can boot from the Disc-0 with no other drives connected.

However for some reason when running the disc 0 alone and I run shutdown the displays turn off, the speakers pop indicating its shutting off, but my PC does not seem to shut down.
My fans continue to run, my power light is on, and responds to nothing (keyboard, mouse movement, momentary power button press, reset button press). No HDD activity light.
My BIOS power button setting is set to hold down for 4 seconds to force shut down. Thats what I have to do to get it to power down.
If I connect another HDD, any HDD it will run shut down successfully. Weird.

I have a question about the "System Volume Information" folder being on my disc-0 and on the E: drive, the one marked as active.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Open disk management with E and SSD connected.

Go to action menu, "all tasks".

Mark E as inactive.

Reboot.

Go to Disk Management and confirm E is not active.

Shut down.

Disconnect E again.

Confirm you can still boot with only SSD connected.

Then confirm you still have that shutdown weirdness with only SSD connected.

 

[RolandJS]

"...Mark E as inactive...." ?I think end-user has to mark another Partition as Active in order for E to become inactive? That's the way my Acronis Disk Director and my Windows 7 Pro's Disk Management works.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You could be right, Roland. It's been a long time since I had to fiddle with that setting.

I assume some partition on the SSD is already active if the PC boots with only the SSD connected---thus my assumption it's a hidden partition. But...........?

 

[2therock]

Hi, I Don't Know If I'm Having Fun Yet or Not. Mercy. As a former PI its in my blood not to give up. My goal here is to get my ducks in a row. If I cant see the Forrest for the trees I'm hoping you guys hang with me not pulling any punches. Thanks for everything so far.

So....... She is running fine and can boot on the single drive and stopped the hang in shutdown. Sigh!

In disc management I cannot get any of the drives to allow me to mark or unmark as active. Its always shaded out.

I have a feeling the use of minitool to merge the partitions I considered as clutter is my bane. Learning the hard way here.

So I opened mini tool to look around and see different or at least more info than in disc management.
I can see the C:\ EFI partition is identified as Active & Boot. Well Now!
I notice the C:\ is a GPT, I did not do this. I remember being asked and stuck with the default.
I also notice I can toggle any other drive on the system as active or inactive from a right click drop down menu but not for the partitions on C:, no toggle choice at all.
No more experimenting or assuming for me (like the clutter thing) I just backed out.

I then ran the partition recovery tool but did not act on it. Again I say, Just looking.

What you do here is scary for me. You select the drives you want including existing, hit next and it basically tells you the unchecked will be deleted. And then hit next.
Note: As you select them, in my case just to see what happens I selected the Existing 100MB EFI & Main 953.77GB and the Lost/Deleted 3.01MB Boot partition.
As I checked them they were marked as "overlapped". There is an option in this program called "Align" and My guess is after the recovery this would be the thing to run.
Just looking, I did not hit next.

 

[Layback Bear]

On disk "0" the EFI System is active. That is why is why disk "0" will boot to Windows 7 on partition "C".
System = Active.
At this time I would recommend leaving Disc "0" alone. It's working as it should.

What I would like to know, is their anything on the other drives/disk that needs to be saved.

The orignal question.

Imaging To an Identical SSD, Question

I'm not seeing another SSD.

Disk "0" appears as it does because the EFI System does not have a partition letter and it should not have a partition letter.

 

[2therock]

Thanks, I am no longer tense about my system thanks to you guys.
The SSD has not been purchased yet. I'm waiting to get paid on something I sold and it will come this week I hope. Thats what brought me here asking before I pull the trigger.

Discs 1 & 2 are removed.
Disc 3 is what I backup my data files to using Genie Backup Manager. I know its still in the same box but its in case the SSD freaks. Its 459GB of uncompressed files.

Disc 4 will eventually be removed but is where I will make an image tonight and tomorrow do the test you spoke of by disconnecting disc 0 and trying to boot, recover from the image, and run on the drive its parked on? Can I do that? Image a SSD system to a HDD and run it there?

The SSD will be disconnected when its not having the backup written to it. I plan on updating it once a week minimum.
Question: My PC case has an SATA dock built in and I can easily mount and mount it by hand. Should I configure it for "Quick Removal" or use the "safely remove hardware" method.

Make Since?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

see comments in bold

Disc 4 will eventually be removed but is where I will make an image tonight and tomorrow do the test you spoke of by disconnecting disc 0 and trying to boot, recover from the image, and run on the drive its parked on? Can I do that? Image a SSD system to a HDD and run it there?



No.

You don't "run" image files.

You make them and you restore them.

An image file can't be restored to the disk on which it is stored.

The SSD versus HDD question doesn't matter in imaging in my experience. They are treated equally.


I'd do these things in this order:

1: decide on which drive you intend to store your test image.

2: decide on the drive to which you intend to restore that image.

Steps 1 and 2 can't have the same answer. So, I'd assume you would choose 2 different internal drives.

3: decide how you intend to boot your PC while you are pretending drive 0 has failed. If you can't boot after a primary drive failure, you are stuck.

4: Fire up your imaging application and make a single image file of ALL partitions on your current boot drive, saving that image to whatever drive you chose in step 1.

5: Shut down and disconnect all drives EXCEPT the 2 drives you chose in steps 1 and 2.

6: boot the PC using whatever method you chose in step 3.

7: Navigate to the image and restore it from the drive chosen in step 1 to the drive chosen in step 2.

8: Shut down and disconnect all drives except the one you chose in step 2.

9: See if the PC will then boot with only that drive connected.

I think that would be a reasonable test.





Question: My PC case has an SATA dock built in and I can easily mount and mount it by hand. Should I configure it for "Quick Removal" or use the "safely remove hardware" method.


Generally speaking--I'd forget about that for now until you are certain you can get through the imaging and restoration process without any issues. Worry about that later--possibly by starting another thread.

 

[2therock]

Thanks, I copy that and will do it this week and get back.

 

[2therock]

I tried the test and @7hrs it had 11hrs to go?
Maybe I didn't prepare the HDD correctly or trying to restore an image from a 1TB SSD to a 750GB HDD is wrong?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not enough detail provided.

We don't know:

What app you are using.

If you at least think you successfully created an image file.

What you mean by "prepare the HDD".

The size of the image file you created.

I assume you are not using Macrium, so I can't help much if you aren't.

I think most imaging apps will let you restore to any drive whose total size is at least as large as the occupied space of the partititions imaged. As I recall, you had somewhere around 500 GB occupied on disk 0.

Maybe you are using EaseUS. They may have a forum.

I wouldn't expect the restoration to take more than an hour or 90 minutes for partitions totaling 500 occupied unless you are on an antique PC---using Macrium.

 

[2therock]

Thanks, I'll post on EaseUS forum.

Image is from a 1TB SSD and is 452GB.
Destination HDD is 750GB.
I may have not prepared the HDD good enough. I did a quick format thinking EaseUS will do the rest and got a warning about the drive being formatted.

We will see.