HDM2011S WinPE Copy Function

Discussion in 'Paragon Drive Backup Product Line' started by wptski, Mar 4, 2011.

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  1. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    Does the Copy Function from the WinPE disc need to reboot to perform the function like it does from W7?

    Got a USB 3.0 PCI Express Card coming that "might" work from WinPE providing I can load drivers but if it needs to reboot, it won't! It reboots from W7, so drivers would be lost, that's why I was wondering about WinPE.
     
  2. aladdin

    aladdin Registered Member

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    I was wondering about it too, as my laptop has USB 3.0

    Also, got a USB 3.0 PCI Express Card for my desktop, but couldn't install as the slot is covered by the PCI Video card. I wonder if they make this card for just normal PCI and not express?

    Best regards,

    KOR!
     
  3. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I think as long as the USB 3.0 port(s) are on the mother board on your laptop, the BIOS sees them and you shouldn't have any problems.
     
  4. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    I have an EVGA PCIe USB 3.0 card installed. When I connect an external USB 3.0 disk to it and load Hard Disk Manager 2011 WinPE disk, the program does not see the external disk. I could load the 32-bit drivers, but I have only the 64-bit version.

    The only WinPE disk that I have been able to use with the USB 3.0 is the Windows 7 x64 repair disc, after loading manually the 64-bit drivers.
     
  5. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I'm getting a Buffalo PCI Expresscard and I think there is only one driver, so like many things, I'm not sure how it works.
     
  6. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    Normally the drivers come as an EXE file. This EXE contains both the 32-bit and 64-bit drivers. If it is executed on a 32-bit system, it installs the 32-bit drivers, and similar for the 64-bit ones.

    The load the drivers on a WinPE disk, the EXE file cannot be used. It is necessary to use the INF, SYS and CAB files that are extracted when the EXE is installed on Windows.
     
  7. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    Isn't the W7 64-bit repair disc actually based on WinPE? If the EXE works on one, why not the other?

    EDIT:
    I wonder if one could install the card on a 32-bit machine or in XP Mode on W7 to get the right drivers? In XP Mode, devices are shared/released, so that may not work unless it's installed under XP Mode first.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2011
  8. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    The EXE file does not work in any WinPE disc, AFAIK.

    When the EXE is executed in Windows, it installs the drivers, and leaves the INF etc files in a folder. In my,case, Win 7 x64, they are in: C:\Program Files (x86)\NEC Electronics\USB 3.0 Host Controller Driver\Driver\x64. This is what I mean when I say they are "extracted".

    There is not an "x86" folder, so I don´t have the 32-bit drivers.

    If the EXE is executed in a 32-bit Windows 7 system, there must be an "x86" folder with the 32-bit drivers in it after the installation, I suppose.
     
  9. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    Yes, it appears to be as I looked up the WinPE DrvLoad function. It only meantions inf and sys files.

    Do you happen to have/use the XP Mode? If not, it'll have to wait till I get my card this coming week. Not sure what happens when a shared device is used in XP Mode. When I used my BlacX 5G USB 3.0 docking station for the first time in XP Mode, it did the normal, found device and loaded drivers. Not sure what'll happen when plugged into the USB 3.0 PCI Express Card? Maybe it'll load 32-bit drivers and I could copy them?

    I extracted the drivers from my Buffalo and StarTech exe files. Both have the same exact files with file date, etc. so they must use the same chip(s). In fact, your EVGA card has the same file names but a later file date.
     
  10. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I posted a question about the HDM2011S Recovery Disc needing a reboot to do a copy function to Paragon support seven days ago with no reponse. I just went ahead and tried it. No, it doesn't need a reboot, it just opens the normal window that you see when a backup is in operation.

    I still have the driver problem to deal with but I haven't received my USB 3.0 PCI Express Card yet so I'll update the outcome later, bad or good.
     
  11. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I got my Buffalo card today. I like you was able to recover the inf, etc. and load the drivers from the W7 Recovery/Repair Disc. Like you said you need the 32-bit set to use with a Paragon product with WinPE.

    I think that most all PCIe cards use the same chip(s) so the drivers "may" be the same. I've looked at many brands even your EVGA and the downloads don't contain what's included with the Buffalo. SIIG has them all seperated by OS, 32-bit and 64-bit. They also have two in EXE and two in ZIP format.

    What was on your EVGA CD, just an EXE file or more?

    Some say that if you run a EXE extract file, just extract the files, leave the window open and look in the TEMP folder for the files. Others say the only way to extract the files is to install or just like what we've done to get the 64-bit set.

    I know the USB 3.0 has cut the time for my differential backup in better than half!
     
  12. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    Okay here's a link: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19880&keyword=usb+3.0&lang=eng for the latest USB 3.0 drivers. Unlike other EXE files, the actual driver files can be extracted. I thought they were for only USB 3.0 ports on motherboards but somebody went ahead and extracted the files for 32/64 bit in another forum.

    I just tried the 32-bit files using the HDM2011S recovery disc and my external USB 3.0 drive now shows up!:D Just have to remember to load the nusb3xhc.inf first then the nusb3hub.inf last.
     
  13. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    Yes. it works. I ran the EXE file, extracted to a temp folder, stopped the installation process, browsed for the x86 drivers, and copied them to another folder.

    I then booted with the WinPE Hard Disk Manager 2011 USB stick. The USB 3.0 external disk (1 TB WD disc in a Vantec enclosure) connected to the EVGA USB 3.0 card was recognized.

    Using the Paragon program, I created an image of the system partition (Windows 7 x64) in 6:40 min, and verified it in 2:15 min.

    I also tried another WinPE disc with a different program and it also worked without problems, created an image in 3:18 min and verified it in 1:36 min.

    Thanks.
     
  14. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I just did a differential backup from the HDM2011S recovery disc with no problem but there is one odd thing. It was completed at around 11:45pm on 3/16/2011 and the complex file say 3/17/2011 at 3:51am!!
     
  15. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I have another issue now! I thought that it was slower from the recovery disc and it is. It seems that I forgot about the driver for the enclosure. Did you install a driver for you enclosure too?
     
  16. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    There is not need for a driver for the enclosure. One the USB 3.0 card is enabled, it should work with the USB 3.0 enclosure or USB 3.0 hard disk automatically.

    About the time issue: I think the image is stamped with an "incorrect" time when the WinPE does not permit to change the time zone. Some WinPEs allow the time zone to be changed, but not Paragon´s.

    A similar problem is the keyboard language. Some WinPE permit to change it, others like Paragon´s do not. When a non-English keyboard is used, this is a problem for typing files names and paths, comments and so on.
     
  17. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    Yes, you are correct about the driver but I'm having a speed issue. Doing a differential backup from the recovery environment, there are two opertions that take place, one takes only a few minutes and the second one runs till its complete. In that second part the write speed drops to half or better than when it's performed under Windows.

    Not sure if it's just a differential that slower or what but I'm going to try just a full image and compare speeds. Right now, USB 3.0 is useless from the recovery environment because of the write speed loss.

    Nope! A base image took 17 minutes from Windows and 33 minutes from the recovery environment. The write speed was around 100mbps in Windows and around 40mbps with the recovery environment.
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2011
  18. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I put in a support request and got two quick responses. The following is the response I received today.
    >>>
    Our recent researches showed that most of the current USB3.0 controller drivers have problems under WinPE. Thus to avoid dataloss during backup and recovery we decided to use 2.0 mode. With update of WinPE to version 3.1 this problem going to be fixed but with no guarantee. Currently it is bound to the way Microsoft WinPE and PCI controller driver compatibility. ______________________ With best regards, Musa Aliev Support Engineer Paragon Software Group
    >>>

    I guess that the only solution might be to create your own WinPE disc for HDM2011S. Maybe the latest drivers don't cause errorso_O??

    I had a WinPE disc with B&R2010FA on it so I manually installed the latest USB 3.0 drivers from above and it made no difference in the total backup time. I wasn't sure about that answer of using USB 2 mode but regardless, either Paragon or WinPE 3.0 doesn't play nice with USB 3.0. I might download the AIK SP3.1 for WinPE 3.1 and create another disc to try. If I need W7 SP1 which they say you don't, I'm done! I like a bunch of others can't install that update.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2011
  19. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I created a WinPE for HDM2011S first with WinPE 3.0 and my image took the same 31 minutes to complete. I updated to WinPE 3.1 and created another WinPE disc. It still took 31 minutes to complete!
     
  20. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    You could check the performance of the external USB 3.0 disk from Windows, using some hard disk utilities. I get between 2 and 3.5 times the performance of USB 2.0 (in MB/s) in most operations. If the results deviate too much from the expected results, there may be a problem with the USB card or the PCIe bus.
     
  21. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    USB 3.0 is much faster in Windows. Doing a backup from HDM2011S is twice as fast as USB 2.0 but my issue is when using HDM2011S Recovery Disc it's no faster than USB 2.0.

    Watching the R/W/R-W speeds during a backup from the recovery disc, the write speed is about half of what it is in Windows. The read speed is actually in Windows is slower but as long as it's faster than the write, it has no effect. The R-W speed is twice as fast in Windows also.

    Are your operations from the recovery disc as fast as from Windows? You mentioned above the time to copy a partition, you don't perform backup images?
     
  22. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    I don´t have HDM installed, so I cannot check its Windows speeds. The times in the previous post are times to create an image and verify it.

    I made further tests with the HDM 2011 WinPE disk operating in USB 3.0 mode and in USB 2.0 mode. I used a 9.1 GB image saved in the disk and restored it to a partition in the same disk. The results were as follows:

    USB 2.0

    Read: 67.4 MB/s, write: 19.5 MB/s, read/write: 14.6 MB/s. Time to restore: 17:17 min.

    USB 3.0

    Read: 68.9 MB/s (almost equal to the USB 2.0), write: 59.5 MB/s (3.05X), read/write: 30.9 MB/s (2.1X). Time to restore: 8:11 min (0.47X).
     
  23. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    I had write times of 100MB/s in Windows and for the backup image only 40MB/s with the HDM2011S WinPE disc which took twice as long to complete which is a 60MB file. R/W times in Windows around 60MB/s and the HDM2011S WinPE around 30MB/s.

    I hand timed a large file from the command line using a WinPE 32-bit, WinPE 64-bit and W7 64-bit recovery disc. All came in at 25-27 seconds.

    I picked up DiskDesk, using the same file, it clocked at 65.78MB/s for 25.9s on USB 3.0. USB 2.0 clocked at 22.65MB/s for 75.3s. Around 25s is what I got from the WinPE, etc. command line using XCOPY.

    It's either the type of operation and/or file size plus maybe a Paragon issue.

    I just did the same backup from the HDM2011S recovery disc connected to USB 2.0 and it took 28 minutes compared to 31 minutes with USB 3.0.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2011
  24. SIW2

    SIW2 Registered Member

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  25. wptski

    wptski Registered Member

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    SIW2:

    I take it that this works on W7 64-bit system now? What about WinPE 3.1?
     
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