Please Explain this Drive Snapshot log

I'm imaging my new computer with a SSD and just used DS as I've done in the past with my old WinXP system. My C drive shows as a size of 37GB used when I check the properties. The DS image size is around 5GB when backed up. Here is the DS log after backing up C drive and the system reserved partition --

19:52:23 Disks in backup:
19:52:23 C: -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-C.SNA
19:52:23 HD2:1 -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-HD2-1.SNA
19:52:23 Preparing for backup
19:52:23 Drive HD2:1 is not supported by the Volume Shadow copy service
19:52:29 No exchange writer involved, using internal backup engine
19:52:30 Start backup of C: -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-C.SNA
19:52:30 free space info: total 122.001MB, 83.710MB free, 10.166MB must be saved
19:52:30 C: -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-C.SNA
19:53:22 C: 38.291MB in use - stored in 4.912MB - 0:52 minutes
19:53:22 Success
19:53:23 Start backup of HD2:1 -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-HD2-1.SNA
19:53:23 free space info: total 102.396KB, 77.224KB free, 25.172KB must be saved
19:53:23 HD2:1 -> G:\C_driveBU\C_drive4-HD2-1.SNA
19:53:24 HD2:1 25.172KB in use - stored in 9.152KB - 0:01 minutes
19:53:24 Success

It got the size correct of 122GB and also that 83GB are free, but why does it say 10.166GB must be saved when there is 37GB used?? Strange!

Update - Ok, I see that it mentions 38.291GB in use. Can it really store that size in 4.9GB?? Nearly 1/8 of the size!

I'm going to restore it to another SSD in the same computer right now, from within windows. I have done this about a year ago with WinXP, but to verify that it worked I believe I must shut down after the restore and disconnect the original C drive, then reboot and see if it all comes back, correct?

 

Hi tyee

I figured out the sizes, but not at all sure about saving 38.291MB (38.291GB) in a 4.912MB (4.912GB) file. It appears to have imaged 10.166GB and the compression would likely end with a 4.9GB image file, but it sure does not sound like ALL the data of 38.291GB.

Indeed strange, and I remember when I was trying out DS, I had strange issues that I discussed with Tom, but I decided it was not for me.

I hope others will assist, as this log indeed does not appear to report the imaging of all your data, unless I am missing something obvious.

Jim

 

Thanks Jim. I was going to try Macrium tonight first thing but decided to give DS a chance but it does look like something is not right.
I added another line in my post about restoring, do you think that would work? I know I tried it like I said last year, and I forgot to disconnect the original C drive and bang, no boot, I believe because the boot process got confused, it saw two identical hard drives and crashed. I had to go into the bootstore with the startup disc and manually fix it.

Hmm...I wonder if this has anything to do with the TRIM function for SSDs?

 

If the system has a lot of RAM and is a clean install it may compress down to around 5GB. Usually, the page and hibernation files are excluded and those can take up a lot of space (I have several in the 14-18GB range). I doubt the problem has anything to do with TRIM.

 

Do you know where the 10.166GB comes from?

 

I don't use DS, but I would assume the 10GB is the data the program is including in the backup. That amount probably doesn't include excluded files (those also in the "used" space).

 

I just tried macrium also and it imaged in about 5GB also, so it must be ok.
One other question, ran an old WinPE3 I had made over a year ago just now with an old version of DS and I got confused after I restored the system reserved partition. I should have not used an old version. I will now try the new version on the WinPE drive, but how do I restore the system reserved partition. DS seems to want to give it a drive letter but it does not have one in my currently running Win7 disk management Do I need to restore it to a brand new disk along with the C partition or just the C partition alone?

update - Ok, I tried to restore with the current version of DS and it failed. I selected to restore partition structure so the new SSD would have the same structure as the original. I then restored the image to the system reserved partition, then the C partition, then rebooted with the original C drive disconnected. I got error -- NTLoader missing! I thought NTLoader had nothing in common with Win7?

I can't even get Macrium iso boot disk to recognize a driver that I loaded in Win7 for my eSATA box. This is really frustrating. I want to use DS but I guess I need help with the restore window and what to select there. I was using that old WinPE Vista (I think) bootable flash disk to do this. Would that have anything to do with that NTLoader error??

 

Hi tyee

the "NTLoader error" says means that there is no nt6 compatible bootcode written to the mbr of your ssd.
my suggestion:
boot some Pe3 or vistaPE and start the CMD box.
When C: is the "SystemReserved" Partition that you restored to the SSD,
you can type the command:
bootsect.exe /NT60 C: /force /mbr
and hit ENTER.
This should write the correct mbr for your new SSD drive.

 

Sigrub

Thanks for the info. I went on to try Terabyte IFW and it worked very well, although there are a huge number of options, kind of confusing for newbies, but I left most at default except the one to restore and fill up the new partition fully. After restoring, an extra 40MB partition existed on the new drive. I can't explain that. Building the recovery UFD was a snap, without WAIK, but using the Win Recovery Environment.

Oh, and that driver problem for sata drives turned out to be that I was, of course, installing the wrong driver, I had to select a Win64 driver from a folder with a name of AMD, who would have thought that unless you knew AMD created x64 in the first place.

I will try DS again, but what did I miss during the restore? Should I have selected to restore the MBR, and the partition structure and the disk signature? Does everybody do this for their restores to brand new blank discs?