TrueImage/DiskWizard Restore Question

I've been helping a friend of mine reinstall win xp on a machine (DELL Dimension 8400) after a HDD crash. After the install, we loaded DiskWizard so he could make backups to a newly purchased Seagate FreeAgent Pro External USB2 drive.

Since performance is slow with the DiskWizard boot disk, I am going to make a BartPE (with the DiskWizard plugin) disk for him. However, the 8400 machines use AHCI with their SATA drive. While the DELL restore CD apparently has these drivers slipstreamed into them (I could reinstall XP with the BIOS set AHCI), it's not clear that I can easily build a BartPE CD for this setup.

Several Questions:

1. The fresh install did not create an i386 folder. I'm going to use the software from winfuture to create an xp cd (with the correct i386 folder). Will this i386 folder contain the appropriate drivers to create a workable BartPE CD?

2. If not, could he simply reinstall xp so that AHCI is recognized and then run DiskWizard or ATI from xp to do a restore? If so, does he have to reload all the DELL drivers prior to running DiskWizard/ATI in order to obtain max USB performance?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

I don't have an answer for your question 1. There is a possible alternative by using a Vista based boot disk, which would mean downlaoding from Microsoft their WAIK and then using PEBuilder that Mustang has a write up about in one of the postings here.

Not sure about adding a script of DiskWizard to it. Is DiskWizard one of Acronis's OEM versions of TI?

The other option long winded as it maybe for the future is create a boot CD (assuming Dell have a similar setup to Acer) with their emergency utility or just a bootable installable XP CD with SP2 using BART if you prefer, restore the system, then install the Windows based version of your software and then restore or make images form there.

If the software is operating in the Windows environment you should get full speed, unless you are missing the Dell specific drivers.

Or have I missed the point here?

Colin

 

Your second option is really what I was asking about in my second question. Since we have the XP Restore CD, we can reinstall the XP with the correct AHCI driver and then install DiskWizard (it is the Acronis version 10 made for Seagate) and proceed to the recovery of his image.

In the first method I've run into issues in that a BartPE CD did not recognize the HDD if AHCI was enabled. We had to change the BIOS setting etc.

What I was wondering about is whether the required XP drivers, for the BartPE CD, are found in the i386 folder. If so, I was hoping the XP Restore CD would have slipstreamed the AHCI driver into that folder.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Right now I'm with it!

If the computer is post SP2 publishing date, then I doubt that the correct AHCI drivers would be included. A quick way of checking would be if Dell havd a specific driver package for the machine which includes motherboard drivers - rather than just utility and video drivers) then I think you'd have to unpack them into your I386 folder, and then remake your boot XP CD.

It is unusual for there not be to the equivalent of an I386 folder on the harddrive as this is normally allows new hardware to be added without having to resort to an OS CD.

Have you checked that they haven't given the folder a different name? I know from the Acer's at work this folder has a completely different name, though naturally it is in the same place.

Colin

 

The reinstall using the DELL Reinstallation CD did load the AHCI drivers since the reinstall was successful with the BIOS set to AHCI. However, it did not place an i386 folder onto the new HDD (I also searched for it).

My first attempt was to copy over the i386 folder which was on the Reinstallation CD and make the BartPE CD using it - this failed. My next attempt is to use the software from winfuture to make a "proper" i386 folder to copy over. But, unless this now contains the AHCI driver, it will also fail.

In other words, what I am hoping for is that BartPE uses the i386 folder to obtain the proper drivers ( this would make it specific to the machine it was created on).

Thanks,
Harvey

 

If you point Bart to that folder then it should. Don't forget though you'll need to have the root files of - WIN51, WIN51IP, WIN51IP.sp2, setup exe + check that in I386 the correct SETUPP.INI file is included.


Colin

 

I'll report back when we get a chance to try it. May take a couple of days or so to get back over there.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

The problem with BARTPE is not the SATA drivers. Dell puts those on the Reinstallation disk. I had an 8300 and now have an XPS 600. The problem is that you will have to go through a convoluted method to get BARTPE to work on a Dell. Dell alters a registry key and BARTPE will not work until you fix the ControlSet001\Services\iastor key which Dell added to the Setupreg.hiv which BARTPE doesn't like. You can't just go in the registry and change the permissions either as Regedit won't do it. (Something like this...it has been a while since I read the thread thoroughly). PEBuilder doesn't care for this. I tried over and over to make a BARTPE disk and it wouldn't work and I had no idea why I had all the problems until BlueZanetti gave me a link to a very long thread to read where the members of the thread thrashed out the actual problem and finally came up with a working solution so that Dell computers can use BARTPE. I didn't try it though so I can't say personally whether it works or not. Post #87 contains the fix but you need to read the entire thread to have a full understanding of what the problem is with Dells and BARTPE and how to fix it.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12917

 

I have a Dim 8300. I used the software from:
http://www.winfuture.de/xpisobuilder3_en
to create a "true" XP CD (which contained the proper i386 folder) from the DELL Reinstallation CD. I was then able to make a BartPE CD using the newly created i386 folder.

Did you also have a problem with your 8300? I do remember the "fixdell" issue from a while back and was surprised that the above software allowed me to successfully create the BartPE disk. Is it possible that the above software also fixes the DELL issues or is there something else going on?

Thank,
Harvey

 

I no longer have the 8300 and I did not know about the winfuture software back when I had that computer and was trying to create a BartPE CD.

The 8300 had many hardware problems and was replaced by Dell with an XPS 600 in Jan 2006. I haven't tried to create a BartPE on this XPS machine as I have read about others having the problem still with the "fixdell" issue. Maybe I will try the winfuture software when I have some time. But my problem was not with no i386 folder when creating the XP CD but maybe that winfuture software does fix the dell problem.

 

FWIW, I also have a new DELL Precision M4300 (a few months old). I was able to make a BarTPE CD without problems (it already had the i386 folder). Maybe DELL has finally fixed this issue.

Thanks,
Harvey