BootIt BM CD - Way Too Many Choices!

napoleon,

What do you mean by 'any of the others'? Which others? Faster doing what?

 

IFD = DOS
IFL = Linux
IFW= Windows

IFL is faster for Napoleon than IFD and IFW for restoring images.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

While I can understand IFD (DOS) being relatively slow compared to the other two, I would expect IFW to be the fastest restorer.

 

Hi Brian,

The weekend is here, so I am now ready to try BootIt BareMetal (BM).

Question 1: Why install BM on a DVD or USB? Can't it be directly installed from Windows on the hard drive?

Question 2: See Image. Disk 0 is 120GB SSD with Windows 7 x64 and has Deep Freeze on it. I understand since Deep Freeze modifies MBR, therefore I cannot put BM on it. Is this correct?

Question 3: See the same image again. Disk 1 is 500GB regular hard drive. It has four primary partitions on it.

1. Master
2. Slave
3. MBR Protection: Firefox, iexplorer files, .temp files and .tmp files. It is protected with Shadow Defender (SD).
4. DataDisk

Since Partition "MBR Protection" has SD on it, can I put BD on this Drive 1 or not? If I have to, I can remove SD.

Question 4: Since Drive 1 has already 4 primary partitions on it, therefore I have to create EMBR on this drive. Is this correct?

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. These are the initial question, more will be coming later after you have answered the above.

 

Sorry...I meant IFL (for me) is faster at imaging and restoring than IFW or IFD.

 

That really surprises me, especially that you find IFL to be faster than IFW at both backing up and restoring!

 

Yes it's much faster for me...I'd say easily 20% faster if I had to guess. The consensus on here seems to be that IFW is faster so maybe my machine is an exception.

 

Hmm, since Windows doesn't come into play when you boot IFL, your version of Windows shouldn't make a difference in that regard. I wonder if others here have also found IFL to result in faster backups and restores?

 

ok i think ifw is good..but when you restore an image with like 16,18 character in password [to secure your image]
there is no option like a text to include your password and do a copy/paste
whe the password is needed.
i used ifl when restoring because is faster.

 

KOR,

No, not from Windows. Use a CD (not DVD) or USB flash drive. Some people use a SD card but I haven't tried it.

Typically you create at least 8 MB (not GB) of unallocated space on HD0 and BIBM will create its own partition (around 8 MB) and install into that partition. You can install BIBM to HD1 or HD2 but I don't recommend doing this as it can create confusion in the future. I only install BIBM to HD0. So in your case I'd resize the Nexus partition 10 MB smaller (using a BIBM CD) and then run the install as per the BIBM userguide.

However, I don't understand what Deep Freeze and the MBR Protection partition are doing and I wouldn't install BIBM to this system.

Regarding the EMBR. It must be on HD0 and also the HD that BIBM is installed on. So if BIBM is installed on HD0 then you only need an EMBR on one HD. But it doesn't matter if you want an EMBR on all HDs. An EMBR allows you to have more than 4 primary partitions on that HD. But only 4 primary partitions can be loaded into the MBR at any one time. If you had 20 primary partitions Windows would only see 4 primary partitions but you can change those 4 with a reboot and load a different 4. Usually you would only want multiple primary partitions for multiple OS.

Edit... The MBR on HD0 is always replaced by the BIBM bootstrap code so if you have a custom MBR it will be over-written.

 

acuariano,

I'm not ignoring your posts. I just don't use passwords with images.

 

KOR,

Do you have a test computer where we can really test all features of BIBM?

 

Dear Brain,

Yes, I have a test computer, but I rather do it on a live one, the "Nexus" Computer for which I posted the screen shots above. Anyhow, I tried to install as automatic but it didn't install. So, I installed it as manual on HD0 as you recommended on a separate 1.5GB "BareMetal" Partition as EMBR. See screen shot below.

Now when I boot, I still boot into the "Nexus" Partition C, which is good. But how do I access the "BareMetal" Partition without the USB?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

Something is wrong because the computer should boot into BIBM where you have the option of booting into Win7. You only need 10 MB for BIBM and you have a 1500 MB partition. Let's start again.

Boot from your BIBM flash drive (click Cancel on the Setup window and OK to enter Maintenance)
Delete the 1.5 GB partition
Slide the Win7 partition to the start of the HD. (choose 0 Free Space Before)
Resize the Win7 partition using a New Size that is 10 MB less than the Max Size
Now try and install BIBM using the Auto choice

The choices should be...
Welcome to setup.... OK
BootIt BM can support... No and no tick in the EMBR box
You can manually.... Yes
It's recommended.... Yes
Setup has all... OK
Setup completed successfully... OK
Click Close and then OK, remove the flash drive

You will Boot into BIBM and see a Boot Menu
You can boot into Win7 or click Maintenance to access the BIBM desktop

 

Hi Brian,

I see what the problem is. When I boot into the USB it becomes HD0, the HD0 becomes HD1 and HD1 becomes HD2, so the BM installs itself on HD0 which is the USB.

I have no DVD in this "Nexus" laptop. The DVD bay has the regular 500GB hard drive which came with the laptop. The laptop itself now contains the 120GB SSD.

I tried the BIOS, but no joy. I removed the USB after booting into BM but still no joy.

Don't know where to go from here?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

I just installed BIBM from a USB flash drive. Even though the flash drive is seen as HD0, BIBM will install into HD1 which is your HD0 when the flash drive is removed. It will install fine from a flash drive. It understands the HD0/HD1 situation.

So after your recent partitioning you should have had 10 MB of unallocated space following the Win7 partition. BIBM should have created its own partition in this space. You don't have to create the partition yourself.

Boot from your BIBM flash drive again. Look at Partition work. Do you have a 5 to 8 MB partition at the end of HD1 (following the Win7 partition)? The small partition should be called BootIt EMBRM. Is HD1 labelled EMBR Partitions?

Edit.... In my instruction above I forgot to say don't tick the "Install to any drive" box. This is at the "It's recommended...." window.

 

I just did a test and putting a tick in "Install to any drive" messed up the install. If you used that option then delete the BIBM partition and try another install.

 

KOR,

In BIBM, is HD1 your Win7 partition?

I have a computer that swaps the HD order in BIBM (when using a flash drive) and this makes installing BIBM "unusual".

 

Hi Brian,

Yes, above is the case, and I don't know what to do next?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

I'm now having trouble installing from a flash drive on this other computer. I'll do more tests and get back to you in the morning. I didn't realize flash drives could be such a pain. Do you have an external CD drive?

 

Hi Brian,

Yes, I do have an external USB DVD drive and an external USB floppy drive, though I threw away all my floppy diskette (bad mistake). Where I kept them, need to dig them out, but the connection is USB.

I will wait for you to see what happens in the morning.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

I can't work out why my other test computer won't correctly install BIBM from a flash drive. The 3 HDs are reversed in BIBM. I'll contact TeraByte support.

If you can use a CD that should fix your problem and there is no issue with using a USB external CD drive. Delete the BIBM partition before you do the CD install.

 

KOR, I found a a workaround for my problem. I temporarily disconnected the second and third HDs, installed BIBM from a flash drive and reconnected the HDs. The issue doesn't occur if I install BIBM on that computer from a CD.

That's what I suggest. Temporarily disconnect your second HD while you install BIBM.

 

Instead of temporarily disconnecting your second HD you could temporarily turn off your second HD in the BIOS. Both methods work for me.

 

Dear Brian,

You are always so kind and so helpful. It is such a joy to know you!

I have a test laptop, basically a netbook. No DVD and one hard drive. I have recently installed a 60GB SSD in it with 2 partitions, system partition and datadisk partition.

I will update this computer, then image it to my NAS server and will try to install BM on this netbook first.

I had some problem with Nexus, deleting the small 2MB unallocated partition on both drives. Basically, these are needed by NTFS and it made both drives to collapse. Spent some time, but as usual learned something in the process. Being old, old cot, learning is the only thing left at this age.

Please see your PM.

Best regards,

Mohamed (KOR!).