Software Clone-n-Recover
3. Can Clone-N-Recover using switch, so I can automatic to execute the program without menu selection?
5.For desktop PC, can I clone a SCSI to SCSI hard drive?
7. I have NT 4.0 system on my source drive, can I clone my hard drive to a larger hard drive?
A: Looks like the source drive may have some bad sectors. Try-bi command line option to ignore bad sectors and continue copying. At DOS prompt, type "diskpro -bi" instead of just "diskpro". Another rare possibility is the actual source drive capacity is less than what BIOS reports. In this case, simply adjust the CMOS settings of the source drive to match its capacity.
A: Clone-n-Recover software does a byte for byte copy, but only onto a second
hard drive of equal or larger size. It does
not copy to an image file or a CD. If this is acceptable, you may want to
try our free lite version (1-time only) of the software which can be downloaded
directly from our web site.
3Q: Can Clone-N-Recover using switch, so I can automatic to execute the program without selection?
A:
Yes you can. The way you use it is to save the sequence of keystrokes for the
intended operation in a file and feed that file as an input to
the DiskPro. (e.g., diskpro < file )
The file should look something like the following:
Y
Y
1
.
.
.
...
0
The first Y is to accept license agreement. The 2nd Y is to agree on the hard
drive listing.
The 1 is to use the express cloning option. The last 0 is to exit the program.
Our software uses a
second hard drive as the target media. It's a clone of the original hard drive
and can be used just as if it's the original. The use of the 2nd hard drive
poses no great inconvenience to the desktop but may requires more work on the
laptop as the laptop does not normally provide access to allow 2nd hard drive
connection.
This approach may or may not be what you intended. If it's acceptable, the
product "Hard Drive Upgrader, Personal Edition" (SFUPG) may be what
you need. The target drive can be larger. In case of a system crash (with hard
drive OK), you can reverse clone from the 2nd drive back to the original drive,
or you can simply swap two drives. If the original drive becomes bad, you simply
swap the drive and you're back to business.
For your info, below is the comparison of our two products:
The clone product (SFDPCR) is mainly for backup purpose. It duplicates the drive
exactly (byte by byte, sector by sector, or an mirror image) without expanding
any partition. Any extra space on the new drive will be left unused. It works on
all PC-based or non-PC-based partition types. For certain hard drive usage
(embedded, proprietary, certain boot management software, etc),
this may be the only way to copy the disk.
On the other hand, the Upgrader (SFUPG) is mostly used for one-time PC-based
hard drive upgrade by utilizing the full space of the new drive. It will expand
FAT16/32 type partitions but copy non-FAT partitions as is without
5Q: For desktop PC, can I clone from a SCSI hard drive to another SCSI hard drive?
Yes, but clone a scsi disk, you need to enable the extended BIOS on the scsi adapter (controller) card, or load a driver that provides BIOS INT-13 support. This is due to the fact that the Upgrader software is BIOS INT-13 based. You can verify this by booting up from a DOS floppy, run FDISK and check whether the scsi disk is recognized by FDISK. If so, the disk should also be recognized by our software..
Our hard drive upgrader and/or
clone-and-recover product(s) work with those
external drive products. But read the following precautions:
Our software (Upgrader & Clone-n-Recover) typically runs from a clean
environment (i.e., DOS) without multitasking & locking, etc. This is to
ensure the target drive is not out of sync with the source drive. On the
other hand, USB/IDE hard drive can only be recognized when running
Win98. There is no DOS driver to recognize the USB/IDE hard drive.
What we found is that if we boot up the system to Win98 and then run
Upgrader or Clone-n-Recover from the Command prompt window, we can still
copy the internal hard drive to the USB/IDE hard drive. We then shutdown the
Windows (here, more files are updated on the internal drive but not
reflected on the USB drive), install the USB hard drive as internal and
reboot. It would complain about the system not being properly shutdown
previously and SCANDISK is performed. But after that, it seems to work
properly. Before rebooting, I did a file compare of the original and the
target drive and found 3 to 4 files (system files) that were out of sync. It
is these out-of-sync files that causes Win98 to generate the improper
shutdown message and force the SCANDISK check. I guess my conclusion is that
this scenario works for me with a slight twist in this case. But I don't
know whether there would be circumstances where the out-of-sync issue can
cause a bigger problem than what I saw.
7Q:. I have NT 4.0 system on my source drive, can I clone my hard drive to a larger hard drive?
I think NT 4.0 saves some
system stuff at the end of disk which is not cloned to the target disk. This is
due to the fact that NT 4.0 does not use BIOS to access hard drive once it
passes the initial boot loading. It (i.e., its disk driver) accesses the hard
drive directly bypassing BIOS. NT 4.0 sees a hard drive that is potentially
larger than what BIOS can see. This is because the BIOS, by its design, uses
Translation (LBA, etc) in order to see a larger disk. But translation itself
loses a slight capacity compared to the actual capacity (as seen by NT 4.0).
What this means is Diskpro, being BIOS based, sees a capacity that is less than
what NT sees. If there is important data placed by NT 4.0 but out of BIOS range,
then the Diskpro won't be able to copy those data to the target disk. This may
cause the problem that you got.
Two possible work around are listed below: the idea is to make the BIOS
recognize the disks fully.
A. Change the BIOS settings to AUTO detection, but NORMAL (or CHS) translation
mode for both disks. Run DiskPro, check the C/H/S parameters listed and compared
to the actual drive parameters (on the hard drive label itself). If they match,
you can go ahead and copy.
B. If the listed C/H/S is one cylinder lower than the actual parameter, it's
caused by BIOS deducting one cynlinder for landing zone (which is no longer
necessary). In this case or other cases where capacity don't match, you can try
this:
change the BIOS settings to 'USER' and NORMAL (CHS) and enter C/H/S parameters
manually so that Cylinder is ONE more than the actual cylinder, and HEAD/SECTORS
match the actual parameters. Reboot the system from floppy and run DiskPro, you
should see the listed c/h/s parameters match the actual
numbers. If so, continue copying.