backup a boot drive while it's a slave

Discussion in 'Paragon Drive Backup Product Line' started by skulldrinker, Oct 18, 2012.

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  1. skulldrinker

    skulldrinker Registered Member

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    I always make an image of the bootable C:drive while the drive is in the original computer. It never fails to restore. But I have never tried and have always wonder if I took that C:drive out and hooked it up as a slave on another computer then made my image there would the drive restore as usual? Would it still be bootable in the original computer if needed to restore it?

    It's just that sometimes I get a slow computer and it takes hours to make an image. I want to remove the drive and make the image on a fast computer. Will the image still boot as if it were made while in the original?

    Thanks
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I've never done it but I'd say yes although you should capture the mbr/track0 as well as the C and other partitions in your image in case there is anything unusual in the MBR.

    Since you have successfully restored previous images on this system it is safe for you to test it on the actual drive. Make an image the usual way on the slow machine then take out the drive and make an image using the fast machine.

    Restore the fast machine image and put the drive back into the slow machine and hopefully boot it up. If it fails, you can then restore the slow machine image as usual.
     
  3. skulldrinker

    skulldrinker Registered Member

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    I can not test it out on this machine cause I have to return it asap. But I have always wondered about doing it that way. I guess I should try it one day on my own machine. Seems like after the crisis ends I get side tracked and never try it and then everytime a crisis comes up again I'm wondering all over again. I know someone has had to have tried this. And yes I image all the drives sections. I checkmark all the boxes. Just was curiuos since the drive is hooked up as a slave drive when imaging I was scared that it might be imaged as a Data disk and not a boot/OS disk.

    thanks for replying.
     
  4. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The program is building the image based on the data on the disk not how it's connected so it shouldn't be an issue.
     
  5. skulldrinker

    skulldrinker Registered Member

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    Couldn't sleep til I heard it from someone else Thanks.
     
  6. brocks

    brocks Registered Member

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    Before I encrypted my system drive with TrueCrypt, I used to backup my system drive as a slave all the time. I figured I'd get a better copy when it was idle, than if it was running Windows and I had to use VSS or whatever. I have three drives in my PC, and two of them are bootable. I try to keep one as a base reference system, and the other for trying stuff out. I'd just boot from one when I wanted to back up the other. Never had any issues with it.

    This is with HDM11 and Windows 7-64, if it matters.

    And just by the way, if it takes hours to make an image, you should consider revising the way you set up Windows. There are portable versions of many programs (including full Office suites like OpenOffice -- see http://portableapps.com/apps), and even programs that have to be installed will allow you to set them up in a different partition from Windows (there's usually a "Custom" choice in the setup procedure). Best choice is to put them on a second drive ($30 should get you one plenty big enough), or at least put them in a different partition. I'm running Win7-64 with a ton of apps, and my Windows partition is 25GB, of which only 19GB is used, and it takes about ten minutes to back it up.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2012
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