beginner question number 2 :)

The size of the drive isn't the important number it is how much of the space is in-use. TI only images the sectors that are in-use, not the free space. To get around compression factors, page and hibernation file sizes, I usually look at the size of my .tib files and use a rough number of about 1GB of normally compressed .tib file can be backed up or restored using an internal disk. An external disk with a reasonable driver in the Linux environment can take the same amount of time or 2-3X longer. If the driver is real poor, then it can take much longer.

The verifying takes very roughly about the same time as the restore so you can figure that the restore took about 2.5 hrs.

If you are using USB1 instead of USB2 (both the drive and the PC's USB chipset have to be USB2 to get USB2 speeds) then the restore can take much longer because USB1 is theoretically 40X slower than USB2.

What is the size of your archive tib file(s)? Did you use any compression?

I believe you booted with the TI CD to start the restore? Is this correct? I ask this because TI9 (TI10, too ? ? ? ) will do a validate in Windows when the restore is started in WIndows and then do another Validate when the Linux version starts after the reboot. In other words, does your posted time refer to 1 or 2 validations?

 

I am using TI 10 and I am not sure of the file size, will have to check when I get home. Do you recommend using the validation? I did use the recue disk when I booted the system

 

The risk of not using the validation on a restore is if the archive is faulty (say a disk sector got damaged) then you will end up with nothing on your partition. If the disk is new or blank this isn't a problem but if you are just restoring an operational C drive to a previous version then it can be a problem because one of the first things TI does on a restore is delete the partition being restored. So yes, I do it.

Some people say it isn't worth doing because of false positives and negatives. IMO, false positives are often caused by validating in Windows and having the archive declared good. The user then uses the Linux recovery environment to restore an Active partition and the restore fails. Odds are the problem is an usuitable driver for the devices such that the archive can't be processed properly.

The validation process is a big checksum calculation. Each 256Kbytes of data has a checksum calculated for it by TI when the archive is created. When you validate an archive the archive is read and the checksums are recreated and compared to the ones stored in the archvive. If ALL of them don't match EXACTLY the archive is declared corrupt and is useless for a restore although you may be able to Mount it and extract files. Note that this validation processes archives that are several gigabytes in size and if only 1 bit is wrong it is declared bad. This means your PC hardware must be rock solid. One cause of archives failing validation is bad RAM. Regular PCs read and write RAM without any indication that the data is correct so you can have a bad or intermittently bad location without knowing about it until something goes amiss with your data. A bad location in say a jpg file might never even be noticed.

 

Thanks for all your help and your explanation.

If I have a hard drive that is bad and I need to replace it with a new one am I correct in assuming that I will be able to restore my old immage on the new drive? Must I purchase a new drive with the same space as the old or can I get a larger drive?

Steven

 

It can be any size as long as it is at least big enough to hold all of the data when the archive is restored. I would imagine the majority of failed disks get replaced with a larger one.

 

Thanks again for all your help SEEK, this site is great and so is this program.