Migrating to bigger disks - problems

Hi!

I'm using Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1 to create images of some old disks in equipments running old Unix systems in order to backup those disks and, when needed, replace them with other disks with the same image. I'm using Acronis because it seems the best product available to do this kind of things.

The problem with these backups is that the disks are small (6 Gb, 10 Gb), so, when I'll need to substitute one of these disks with a new one, it will be bigger (the smallest availabe in market nowadays).

I had success migrating 10 GB disks to 20 Gb disks of the same label and a 40 Gb disk of other label. I did many tests with different kind of disks and no problem was found. I made images of the 10 Gb disk and then pass them to bigger disks, put them on the system and everything run as it should.

My problem is to make the same thing with 6 GB disks Fujitsu MHK2060AT. I make the image, pass to a 10, 20 or 40 GB disks of other labels (Toshiba and Seagate) and when I put the new disk on the system, it doesn't run properly. The system starts briefly but then I have error messages from the Unix system and it reboots.

OM panic: srmount - not a valid root erro 0
OM: incident send incident_om_panic error -7
SM: pppSmInit() DM ppp task unreachable: error=-7
SM warning: cannot attach ppp interfaces.

It's strange because the disks should have the same information, sector by sector, but there's something that's not the same because the system fails to read something (this never happened with the disk of 10 Gb).

I compared the sectors in the two disks with Acronis PartitionExpert (the original and the one that got the image) and they were exacly the same.

Disk 1:

-> partition1 - 0x63 (Unix) Total size: 5.593 Gb
First physical Sector: 1 (cyl. 0, head 0, sec. 2)
Last Physical Sector: 11,728,395 (cyl 730, head 14, sec. 63)
Total physical sectors: 11,728,394
Block Size: 512 bytes

-> partition2 - 0x62 (Unknown(62)) Total size: 2.307 Mb
First physical Sector: 11,728,395 (cyl. 730, head 15, sec. 12)
Last Physical Sector: 11,733,120 (cyl 730, head 89, sec. 63)
Total physical sectors: 4,725
Block Size: 512 bytes

The second disk (the one who got the image) has exactly the same structure. The only difference is that has unallocated space in the end, because it's bigger.

I also compared the two disks with Acronis Disk Editor and the paratition table was the same. When I saw the fisrt sectors in hexadecimal, everything was equal, too. But something must be wrong somewhere in the disk. Any help? Does anybody have any idea? It would be very appreciated.

Thanks for your attention.

 

Try the Clone feature instead of the Image maker.

 

Hi, Ralphie! Thanks for your answer. I tried the clone feature but it's even worse. It expands the partitions (I don't know why). The first gets bigger in some Mbytes and the second passes from 2 MB to 7 MB. Obviously, the system doesn't even start with the clone of the original disk. Any other suggestion?

Thanks for your attention.

 

Are you using the bootable TI Rescue CD for these attempts? There is a way to allocate the unallocated space in the larger disks. Not sure about the process to do so but basically you create a Secure Zone then go right back and remove it. The removal process will then reallocate the rest of the space.

 

Hi! I'm using Acronis True Image 9.1 running on Windows. I connect the 2,5" disk with a usb adapter to the pc. When i tried to clone I used two usb adapters. I'm not interested to allocate the remaining space. It may stay unallocated. I just want the partitions in the bigger disk exacly the same as in the original and smaller disk, in order to run normally in the system.

Thanks for your attention.

 

I may be missing something here. So you don't mind not being able to use the extra space that the larger drive provides? (This is the case if you don't re-allocate the unallocated space). Why would you think that the system would not run normally if you let the system use all of the space that is on the larger drive? I must admit I'm a little puzzled on what you are trying to achieve.

 

Hi! Because the system doesn't need that extra space. Remember that I'm trying to do backups and restore a disk when a original disk fails. I just use bigger disks because I can't find new disks with 2 Gb, 6 GB,... I could allocate that space but it's not necessary and if I can't get this to run properly with the partitions exacly the same, I won't try to make the system run with more space, partitions, wharever,... than the original system had. I want to put an image of a 6 GB disk in a 10 GB disk and the system to run as if it was the same (and it should). Why it isn't working I can't figure it out.

 

If you had success going from the 10Gb to the 40Gb I'm at a loss as to why the 6Gb image can't be Restored to a 10 or 20 or more unless the 6Gb system has something peculiar in its hardware. Was that a typo when you wrote 2.5" in a usb adapter? Did you mean 3.5"?

 

Hi! No, it was not a typo. Something like this (http://www.mittoni.com.au/40gb-usb-...29.html?sID=b76b8f1eef09f363cabea83ef79b7c7d).
You can find a lot of 2.5" hard disk drive cases here (http://computers.listings.ebay.co.u...QfromZR4QQsacatZ86759QQsocmdZListingItemList).

These Unix systems I'm working with uses 2.5" disks in special hardware.
In order to make the images and put them in other disks, I connect the 2.5" disks (notebook disks) to the usb adapter and via usb to the PC.

I have news. I also was able to go from a 2 GB Hitachi disk to 10 GB, 20 Gb and 40 Gb disks with no problem (although the BIOS of the system only recognized 8 GB). So, there's no barrier in size. I think the problem with the disks of 6 GB are that they're all Fujitsu. I could not migrate them to bigger disks nor could I migrate the 2 GB Hitachi disk to the Fujitsu 6 GB disk (just to 10 GB Toschiba, 20 GB Toshiba and 40 GB Seagate). No success with operations with Fujitsu disks until now (except copying images of them to each other). So, I guess what is wrong has to do with those Fujitsu disks (Fujitsu MJK2060AT - 6 GB). Is it a bug of Acronis? Are these disks special? Anyone understands what is going on with this?

Thanks for your attention.

 

Does anyone ever had problems using Acronis with Fujistu disks? Any feedback?

 

It's normal to have label issues? What may influence those different behaviours between labels? Disk geometry?

Thanks for your attention.

 

Have you checked with the Fujitsu drives if they have setting to make them behave as small drives rather than their complete capacity?

Does the BIOS show the correct drive size?

Colin

 

Hi, bodgy. Thanks for your answer. I don't think they have any kind of setting to make them behave as small drives. The only setting I can make is to put a jumper to make the disk slave or cable select.

Yes, the Bios shows the right size.

Remember that I can't run an image of a smaller disk in one of those Fujitsu disks (but it runs with others and bigger) but also an image of a Fujitsu disk in other bigger disks. So, Fujitsu disks don't work (with images from others or its image in others). There must be something that makes Acronis fail in putting the image in the disk or retrieving the image from the disk. Any suggestion?

Thanks for your attention.

 

Hi!

I did some more research. I made an image of a 6 GB Fujitsu disk and then I put it in a 10 GB Toshiba disk. Then I made the image of that 10 GB Toshiba disk with the same options in Acronis. I expected the images to be exactly the same. In size, that was true but then I compared the two image files with an hexadecimal tool. I realized that in the beginning of the disk there were 16 bytes different and in the the end of the image file theres was a chunk different (it had info on the disk label, model,...). So, Acronis images have in the end info about the disk they were made from. The problem is that something different from the original image must be being put in the disk because the system doesn't run properly. Does Acronis put in the disk who receives the image info about it's label? If so, that's not a bit by bit copy. Any way to solve this?

 

I made another test wich altered a bit my conclusions. I had access to a 6 Gb Hitachi disk and made the image of the disk. Then I put it in other disks (10 Gb, 20 Gb Toshiba and 40 Gb Seagate) and the system didn't run properly. I then put the image in a 6 Gb Fujitsu and it run without problems. Those Fujitsu disks were the ones that I thought it didn't run images from any other disks. So, the problems are more related to the size of the disk than to the label. To summarize, here are the tests I did and their result:

10 Gb Toshiba: 6 Gb Fujitsu(-); 10 Gb Toshiba(V); 20 Gb Toshiba(V);40 Gb Seagate(V)
20 Gb Toshiba: 6 Gb Fujitsu(-); 10 Gb Toshiba(-); 20 Gb Toshiba(V);40 Gb Seagate(V)
20 Gb Hitachi: 6 Gb Fujitsu(-); 10 Gb Toshiba(-); 20 Gb Toshiba(V);40 Gb Seagate(V)
2 Gb Hitachi: 6 Gb Fujitsu(X); 10 Gb Toshiba(V); 20 Gb Toshiba(V);40 Gb Seagate(V)
6 Gb Fujitsu: 6 Gb Fujitsu(V); 10 Gb Toshiba(X); 20 Gb Toshiba(X);40 Gb Seagate(X)
6 Gb Hitachi: 6 Gb Fujitsu(V); 10 Gb Toshiba(X); 20 Gb Toshiba(X);40 Gb Seagate(X)

The V means I had success (passed the image to the other disk, insert it in the system and it run OK) and the X means the system started but halted in a error message.

I only was able to pass images of 6 Gb disks to other 6 Gb disks, despite the label, and run it correctly in the system. Disks of other sizes had no problems. Any known issue with this size?