Questions about Image for Windows

[Cruise]

Originally Posted by MudCrab

So far, I would pick to use a regular SSD over an SRT setup. I don't think it's worth the risk.

I changed the Intel SRT's acceleration mode from maximized to enhanced in order to (hopefully) reduce that risk!

Cruise

[MudCrab]

Originally Posted by Brian K

If you turn Acceleration off can you see the mSATA card as a separate partition in Disk Management?

No. The SSD is still configured as a cache drive. You have to reset it back to "available" to use it as a normal drive. The reset can be done in Windows or the BIOS.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by MudCrab

You have to reset it back to "available" to use it as a normal drive.

Thanks. That's what I need to know as a mate is buying a Dell laptop with a 32 GB mSATA card and in view of this and other threads we'd prefer to have it as a separate drive. I assume we could copy the OS onto the mSATA drive and boot it with BIBM.

[MudCrab]

Hopefully, the Dell has more BIOS options for handling the setup than HP.

[Cruise]

MudCrab,

I just tried another IFW backup followed by an IFD restore of that image and it worked perfectly. So far, the change in acceleration modes for my mSSD cache drive is looking good (thanks for that tip)!

Cruise

[Brian K]

Cruise. That is great news.

Have you restored an image taken a few weeks ago before your computer crashed?

[Cruise]

Originally Posted by Brian K

Cruise. That is great news.

Have you restored an image taken a few weeks ago before your computer crashed?

Brian, please refer back to my post #137.

[Robin A.]

Here is some related information (thread from a Dell forum).

Clean Install Windows 7 On Dell Inspiron 14z, http://en.community.dell.com/support...px?PageIndex=1

Summary: trying to install Windows with mSATA acceleration, no Control+I, suggested procedure is to erase RAID metadata from disks using Ubuntu...

There is a note about Enhanced or Maximized mode: "Enhanced mode: Acceleration is optimized for data protection. Maximized mode: Acceleration is optimized for input/output performance."

This mSATA cache SSD thing seems to be a real nightmare.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by Cruise

please refer back to my post #137.

Cruise,

Lots of information in this thread and I'm confused. I'd restore an IFW OS partition image taken prior to the crash as it will contain your programs. But if you have the new Win7 already set up then there is no need to restore an old image.

[Cruise]

Robin,

Starting with MudCrab's explanation, followed by other threads on the subject that I've found, it is indeed risky business to use the Intel SRT's maximized mode (which caches both disk-reads and disk-writes). The enhanced mode (which I now use), just caches disk-reads and is therefore much safer.

It's not only unfortunate that Intel and their PC OEMs (like Dell & HP) don't alert users to the potential risk when using the maximized mode, they also precipitate the risk by enabling maximized as the default operating mode!

Cruise