[dba-Tech] Petulant PC

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Jun 8 08:04:16 CDT 2007


Folks,

I just did my laptop last night.  It worked fine, moved all the system/data
to the USB drive, which for whatever reason would NOT boot even though the
PC claimed to be able to boot off of USB.  I suspect that problem might be
the fact that the internal drive is SATA where the drive out in the USB is
IDE.  Whatever the reason I can't boot off of the resulting drive, hanging
off the USB port.  

As for problems, the user interface is totally "wizard driven".  I had a
little problem figuring things out but in the end it worked.  HOWEVER, one
of the screens had a set of three radio buttons, the default of which was
plainly labeled "destroy source data".  Now why you would want to destroy
source data is beyond me, and why it would be the DEFAULT is beyond me, and
why there is no "are you SURE you want to delete the source data" warning is
beyond me.  Let me simply say that I wasn't paying close enough attention.
I copied the data from my laptop to my external USB disk and when I was done
my laptop wouldn't boot. 

And it took me several hours of screwing around trying valiantly to rescue
my unrescuable laptop drive before I simply copied the data from the USB
back to my laptop.  It was at that point that I discovered the "destroy
source data" radio button, UNCHECKED IT, and ended up with my laptop booting
again AND a copy out on my USB drive, which was what I originally intended.

Anyway, as Lembit said, "the only problem I had was a misinterpretation on
one screen, but once I got it, no problems".

It did function, it functioned well, it allowed me to resize the partitions
etc.  I like to run a dedicated swap file partition which was not on my
laptop originally.  Whereas I would NOT have gone through the agony that I
went through just to get that dedicated swap file partition, I did so once
it became obvious that I had to recover my partition.

One other weirdness is that after copying the system/data back to the laptop
from the USB drive, the Bluetooth insisted on reinstalling itself.  The old
"new stuff found" message.

So... It works.  Just be on the lookout for a radio button that has you
deleting the source data.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Lembit Soobik
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 8:25 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC

Robert,
can you please tell us what these problems are?
I am using Acronis True Image 10 Home, and the only problem I had was a
misinterpretation on one screen, but once I got it, no problems.
have done many images of system- and other drives and installed them on
other drives with no failures.

thanks
Lembit

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert" <robert at servicexp.com>
To: "'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'" 
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC


> Be very careful with Acronis TrueImage, with out going into detail, the
> product seems to get worse with every update. I have been dealing with
> several known issues from version 7, on top of new problems in version 10.
> They rarely seem to correct existing problems.
>
>
>
> WBR
> Robert
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:56 PM
> To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC
>
> Well, my saga with TrueImage is beginning.  It refuses to install on one
> machine, I haven't tried it on any others yet.  Google shows this install
> problam dating back to at least version 8.
>
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Steve Erbach
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:25 PM
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC
>
> John,
>
> I took the drive to my sysadmin at work and he hooked it up with this
> hydra-headed connector to an external IDE drive controller.  He saw that 
> the
> registry was, indeed hosed.  He was able, however, to rebuild the registry
> from a restoration point made Saturday morning.  He said, though, that at
> one point my drive took down his own machine!
>
> I got the drive plugged back in and it was like it was a Bic pen:
> first time, every time!
>
> Now to begin the removal of Symantec products from my system...
>
> Steve Erbach
> Neenah, WI
>
>
> On 6/5/07, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
>> Steve,
>>
>> I decided to try True Image 10.  I have just had all I can stand from
>> Symantec, their tech support is about as bad as it gets.  True image
>> is available through NewEgg for $35 including shipping.
>>
>> My biggest issue with this stuff is actually trying a restore.  I read
>> one service site that said "never do a restore over existing data"
>> (they were talking images here).  The reason is simple, if the restore
>> fails you have hosed whatever chance you might have had of getting the
>> original data recovered.
>>
>> Of course that means getting another disk large enough to perform the
>> restore on, and of course in the case of a laptop, which will
>> physically fit in the machine once you are done recovering the backup.
>>
>> I was reading a side by side review of Symantec's product and True Image.
>> The author stated that he was a die hard fan of the Symantec product
>> until the latest versions started creating corrupt backups.  While the
>> product would say that things failed in the LOG FILE, it never
>> actually said so on the screen, so the only way to know whether you
>> got a good backup was go read the log file.  Which of course the
>> average Joe will not think is required.  In fact the author was burned
>> and discovered this when his backup was corrupt.
>>
>> Anyway, I am going to do this stuff once I get my software.  Get a
>> good image of both my laptop and my wife's laptop, then get both
>> backing up critical data.  I have already moved my family photos off
>> onto the Raid 6 system, and have a backup area out on that machine for
>> raid protected storage.
>>
>> John W. Colby
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