My first image -2

[viking33]

... I reran the dynamic-->basic process and the disk is now reported as Basic.
[acid test] reboot and see if Windows loads ....
(later still)
[/acid test]
So far so gooder. Win7 reboots...

Now ya DO have me on the edge of my chair with awaiting the next report...

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Chris and his dynamic disks.
Will they work OK?
Will he have his problems solved?
Will he chain his machine to the railroad tracks and wait for the train to pass?
Will he invite everyone to the Montreal Deli on his nickel?
Only time will tell!

[ChrisGreaves]

I'm wondering now whether there is something intrinsically wrong with this hard drive.

If we call a brain a hard drive, then "there is something intrinsically wrong with this hard drive".

The Notebook hard drive, the one that shipped inside the machine, is partitioned into C:, E: and F:. D: being the DVD burner.

C: is my boot & software drive.
E: is the rEcovery partition.
and F: is a chunk of the drive I carved out and encrypted with TrueCrypt for my data operations.
Right now the encrypted drive is mounted as T: and, I'll bet a bagel to a sandwich at The Montreal Deli, that Truecrypt has got a pretty tight grip on that partition known to Windows as F:

And that poor old Easeus has been struggling to gain access.

So once I've finished the d/l of the 1.67GB WAIK file (should've saved it to T: yesterday instead of C: prior to another recovery operation) I'll reboot and NOT mount that encrypted partition and try Easeus again.

Give me back my 80-column punched cards!

[ChrisGreaves]

Now ya DO have me on the edge of my chair

Al, lean forwards and read the post above ...
:fallingoffedgeofchair:

[agibsonsw]

Perhaps his dynamic disks were so fast that, to Explorer, they were just a blur

[ChrisGreaves]

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Chris and his dynamic disks.

I'd ignore this if I could.
Rebooting ...
(later) Nada
Tried the Dynamic--> Basic again, didn't "stick". Since Windows always thinks an encrypted drive is "Unformatted", that's possibly the cause of confusion for Easeus..

I am now RoboCopying my encrypted drive, all 85GB of it to a spare 100GB external prior to (sod it) merging the two partitions C: and F:, if I'm allowed, then retry the conversion to basic again.
(sigh!)
If this works, of course, I'll then be able to create a new partition, encrypt it, and roll 85GB back.
See y'all after Christmas ...
(double sigh)

[Argus]

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Chris and his dynamic disks.

What a nice and interesting thread, Chris; seems you have been helping yourself, finding the answers, all the time.

(I've been using the free Easeus Partition Manager/Master, even if not for this, and I agree with Bob, good tool.)

And yes, I would not have anything TrueCrypt-like mounted when working with the disk.

[agibsonsw]

@Chris
I can't tell from the posts, but I'm hoping this is not a new laptop? Particularly if you've had to recover it a couple of times

(I was quite pleased that I was getting mine running smoothly/briskly (Windows 7 64 bit), but then I had cause to use my mates' work-desktop computer. It's a year old, Windows XP, Office XP, but was running blindingly fast and was able to open Office 2010 documents )

[ChrisGreaves]

I'm hoping this is not a new laptop? Particularly if you've had to recover it a couple of times

Hi Andy.
Purchased Dec 22 last year, 10 months old. Compa Presario CQ62.
At the time I bought it I struggled to get it up and running, tried to install my old WinXP; didn't realize the Compaq was a 64-bit m/c etc, so utilities wouldn't install blah blah blah.
Back then I felt I did not have the time to explore images etc so these past few days have seen me doing what I would normally have done over the Christmas break (quiet time around here)

It's a year old, Windows XP, Office XP, but was running blindingly

I am disappointed with this beast; in particular Explorer takes about a minute to load a folder; I get quite frustrated. Task Manager shows Explorer hogging 98%.
I tried several suggestions from the web, none worked.
i had/have been hoping that a clean restore without HP-crap might relieve the problem, but it doesn't seem so.
Now I am finding I have Dynamic Disks.
In the words of Isidor Isaac Rabi: "Who ordered that?"

[ChrisGreaves]

And yes, I would not have anything TrueCrypt-like mounted when working with the disk.

Next morning: RoboCopied my data overnight to an external drive; I'm about to blow away the encrypted partition and try again ...
(minutes later)

easeus002.png

I don't know how I missed this (above), but miss it I did. My fault.
I think there is a teeny-tiny delay in Easeus, or else I'm faster than a speeding bullet (akak impatient), or else the slowness of this machine ... whatever, here's a dialog box that I saw this morning.

easeus003.png

... and here is another. I had been watching the effects of my right-click "Convert" on the drive, and didn't realize that when that process was finished, there was a "now implement it!" phase to be run. That is, the r/c Convert is just setting up a batch job to be run later.
(see below)

easeus004.png

And here we are, ready to reboot.
We reboot.
The Easeus batch process takes about two minutes, tops, to do its thing and we reboot into Windows.
I'd like to show you the results of the conversion, but sadly there is a limit of three images per post, so y'All 'll just have to wait until I feel like making another post.

[ChrisGreaves]

The story so far: ... so y'All 'll just have to wait until I feel like making another post.

easeus005.png

Now, of course, we don't no whether my stumbling block was my impatience/inattention or whether it was the TrueCryption.
That is left as an exercise for the reader ...
Back to essaying with image files, for me.

[agibsonsw]

I don't recall ever having eaten a floppy supper? Well, now that you mention it, I suppose spaghetti falls under that description

[Argus]

I don't recall ever having eaten a floppy supper? Well, now that you mention it, I suppose spaghetti falls under that description

I've heard it's supposed to be a healthy low fat16 diet, much better than fat32.

[ChrisGreaves]

I've heard it's supposed to be a healthy low fat16 diet, much better than fat32.

Acid test #2 (in brief) I recreated the rescue disk on DVD, created an image backup on an external drive; deleted a simple file from drive C; then restored the drive and see the simple file is returned to me. So it all works!
Along the way I discovered that:
(1) My Compaq Presario doesn't want to auto-boot from the DVD; I need to interrupt the boot sequence with Esc, tap the F9 key for boot options, and nominate the CD drive; I can live with that without complaining too much.
(2) The Macrium action buttons/sequence baffle me. My first two attempts to restore C: took 12 seconds and 15 seconds respectively; not bad for 24GB, I thought at the time. 27 seconds of reflection told me something was wrong. I suspect the "Copy when I press Next" didn't work. When I selected the partition, clicked "Copy" and THEN clicked next, the restore took a healthy 60 minutes or so.
(3) Macrium bombed out with an exception error after finishing the restore; bodes not well, but perhaps I can resolve that.

I'm happy to have a rescue disk that works and an image of my recovery partition and a means of restoring C:.

With all that in hand I can now make a serious stripped-down installation of Win7/HE and a few staged impressions along the way (e.g. basic Win7 PLUS my regular applications, ...)

Thanks to all who went before me, traveled with me, and plan to eat with me.
Spaghetti for everyone at The Montreal Deli.

[ChrisGreaves]

I'm happy to have a rescue disk that works

I think the first thing that any/everyone should do after creating a rescue disk is to check that the darn thing actually does reboot. There seems to be little point in having an image of a partition if one doesn't have the means to restore it.
On further reflection I'm puzzled that Windows doesn't automatically suggest/force one to create a rescue DVD as a part of the installation process. For those machines that have DVD burners.
The DVD could be tied to the machine's hardware signature.
Dummy users would at least have the kit when they call in not-so-dummy people like me to help them.

Macrium, too, might have suggested an immediate test of any bootable medium ⁽¹⁾ created.

I'm just saying ...

⁽¹⁾ For anyone who wants it, there's an immediate opening for a joke about ghost drives there. That's the spirit!

[viking33]

So far as the need to tap F9 or whatever, in order to boot to the CD/DVD, you could go into the BIOS and change the boot sequence to change the order in which the boot up starts. Make CD first, Hard Disk second choice, etc. Then IF you have a CD in the drive it will attempt to boot from it and if it isn't a boot-able CD, it will then step down to try the HD.
Another step that at least Acronis has, is to do a VERIFY of the created image to insure that it was created properly.
Of course, if you really want peace of mind, you could test the bootabllity (is that a word?) of the new CD. Only takes a few minutes.

[agibsonsw]

@BOB

Hello. How do I change this BIOS setting? Is it via a command prompt?

I can't see that Macrium has a test or validate rescue CD option.

Thanks, Andy.

[StuartR]

...How do I change this BIOS setting? Is it via a command prompt?...

On most Compaq PCs you press the F10 key early in the boot sequence to get into the BIOS menu.

[viking33]

@BOB

Hello. How do I change this BIOS setting? Is it via a command prompt?

I can't see that Macrium has a test or validate rescue CD option.

Thanks, Andy.

BIOS is always changed by going into the setup at the first boot screen.
I have Award BIOS, so I press the DEL key a few times and a BIOS screen comes up. Scroll down to Advanced BIOS Features, Enter.
There is a group of choices for First Boot Drive, 2nd, 3rd. You can select each and enter your choice of devices there. I have it mine set for Hard Drive first, CD/DVD second and [gasp] floppy third.

My BIOS also allows a ONE-TIME choice of drives without going to BIOS at start up, by pressing F12. The next boot up reverts to the standard set up that is my default.

I'm not that familiar with Macrium, so it may not have that feature that Acronis has, to verify the image.

[agibsonsw]

Thanks both.

Doh! I should have known that but haven't gone into this area recently (that's my excuse..). My Compaq suggests pressing Esc to get
into setup, which I suspect will lead to the same area. If not, then I'll bash F10.

Regards, Andy.

[Argus]

I'm happy to have a rescue disk that works

I think the first thing that any/everyone should do after creating a rescue disk is to check that the darn thing actually does reboot. There seems to be little point in having an image of a partition if one doesn't have the means to restore it.

Yep. And sometimes it would be good to also test the image just created; rescue CD is one thing, but if the image doesn't work... I know, "but what if it breaks my working computer, I thought that for a short second (after I had started using Macrium), then I tested it, a system restore. As you say, not much use if a CD doesn't work, and not much use if an image doesn't work, but one can't restore every now and then, but at least verify the image and try to mount it.

I created my CD with the Bart PE Builder (but that only works for Windows XP 32-bit, or at least did only, don't know now). As for images they can be verified within Windows in Macrium, and from the rescue CD (for example before restoring) at least with Bart PE CD.