Restore image with IFW

[Brian K]

Jim,

I only bought mine a few weeks ago and all I know about brands is from what I've read here. I bought an Intel 520 Series 120 GB. It now has 10 OS installed on it and I still have 32 GB of unallocated space remaining so it is plenty large enough for me. All my data and backups is on the two conventional HDs.

I used IFL to copy the partitions from the HD to the SSD. I left BIBM on the old HD as BIBM doesn't need to be on HD0.

[Jim1cor13]

Thanks Brian for the info. and the model of the SSD Sounds like you have a neat setup, and space to spare. I will look into this, as I am aware there is some good performance with SSD.

Hope it works well for you!

[treehouse786]

@Brian K
just popped in to say congratulations on becoming a wilders imaging specialist (orange name)

[Brian K]

tree,

Thanks for the pat on the back.

[wat0114]

Originally Posted by Brian K

...I bought an Intel 520 Series 120 GB. It now has 10 OS installed on it and I still have 32 GB of unallocated space remaining so it is plenty large enough for me. All my data and backups is on the two conventional HDs.

I used IFL to copy the partitions from the HD to the SSD. I left BIBM on the old HD as BIBM doesn't need to be on HD0.

Hi Brian,

first, congrats on your upgraded title Second, how do you accomplish the above with 10 OS'? I guess it must be BIBM that allows you to create all those partitions, and do you boot off the BIBM partition, even though it's on the other hd? I assume you made it the active partition? Thanks!

[Brian K]

wat0114,

Thanks. Before adding the SSD I had two HDs. The first contained 30 OS and the 8 MB BIBM partition was on this HD. By not limiting Primary Partitions you can have over 200 Primary Partitions on a HD but you can only have a maximum of 4 in the MBR at any one time. BIBM lets you create multiple Boot Items which show in a Boot Menu.

Let's say you have 5 OS. A, B, C, D and E.
Let's say you have a common Data Partition L
Let's say you have a Linux Swap Partition M

So your first Boot Item would be A and L
Second Boot Item would be B and L.
etc

Say E is a Linux partition. Then its Boot Item would be E, L and M. That is 3 items in the MBR when it boots.

When partitions aren't in the MBR they "don't exist" as far as Windows is concerned. If you look at Disk Management the partitions not in the MBR are represented by unallocated space.

When I installed the SSD I copied my most used OS across (some of the OS are DOS and are only 16 MB in size), created new Boot Items related to the SSD and left the BIBM partition on the old HD as BIBM doesn't need to be on HD0. The SSD is now HD0. So I can boot WinXP or Win7 on the old HD and also on the SSD and compare performance. Once you get the hang of the concept it is really easy.

I considered transferring the BIBM partition to the SSD but TeraByte Support said it was fine on the old HD.

[wat0114]

Thanks Brian! More to it than I thought, offering some nice flexibility.

[moontan]

Originally Posted by treehouse786

@Brian K
just popped in to say congratulations on becoming a wilders imaging specialist (orange name)

yes, well deserved imo!

Brian goes well above and beyond the 'call of duty' to help everyone around here with their imaging issues.

[Brian K]

moontan, thanks mate!