www.aiscl.co.uk

Hello,

I have been looking long and hard for Windows backup software. Most of the other more popular offerings seem to be too "bloaty" and dumbed down. They are also more expensive and most of them contain many features I wouldn't use. Finally I found this product AISBackup and think it may finally be the solution I have been searching for.

Here's my situation- I am taking on a fairly ambitious (in my eye at least) backup project in which I want to back up both a Macintosh OS X and Windows XP system to the same external hard drive. The external hard drive will ultimately contain 3 separate partitions. One partition in NTFS (for the XP backup), one partition in HFS+ (for OS X) and one partition in FAT32 (for miscellaneous storage, accessible by either platform). I have figured out how to create the 3-partition, 3-format hard disk, and have come up with a backup solution for my macintosh. The only snag left is backing up the Windows XP installation.

Basically I do not want a very complicated or fancy backup software. Essentially all I really want it to do is mirror the current installation of Windows onto the backup hard disk. No compression, no disk images, just copy all the files. The instructions you posted on making a bootable backup of the hard disk is pretty much exactly what I was looking for- a "bootable" (but not REALLY bootable since this will be an external FW hard drive) and identical copy of the files on my working hard disk.

So basically I was wanting to make sure- is this possible with AISBackup? I know it can do more things like partial or progressive backups, but is it also possible to simply copy all files over onto an identically-sized partition? No compressing into .zips either, I prefer uncompressed and have allocated the necessary disk space to do so. Oh also, will doing a complete disk-to-disk copy require repartitioning of the drive? I had to use some OS X terminal commands in order to get the drive partitioned and formatted properly, and although I am not sure- it's possible that re-partioning the drive on windows will cause problems. But since I have already made partitions on the drive, AISBackup should not need to do so yes?

Also, I was very interested in your mentioning of the BartPE compatibility- as I think this would be the best solution. It gets around any issues of current files in use, etc. etc. and also is the only way (short of physical drive swapping) to recover from a "disaster" scenario in which the original Windows is non-bootable or physically damaged. Is this BartPE functionality already incorporated or is it still yet to be completed?

If I am understanding the BartPE system correctly- what I would do is boot from the BartPE CD, then run AISBackup from within BartPE, and then initiate the copy from my internal HD to my external HD. BartPE is necessary because then the windows XP on the internal HD is no longer the functional OS but rather just a bunch of files, right? Restoring would work opposite: boot into BartPE and copy the contents of the backup partition onto the damaged original, overwriting everything and bringing me to a previous and working state.

That's probably enough for you guys to chew on for now, sorry it's a little long. I have downloaded and installed the demo of AISBackup and so I would be able to try some of these things out except I had to return my external HD, and I haven't ordered a new one yet. Which leads me to my last question- I plan on getting a firewire external HD (because Macs can boot directly off of a FW HD)- this should not pose any problems for Windows right? Or should I consider a dual-option FW/USB drive instead?

Anyways thanks for your time!

Ruahrc

First I would purchase a separate caddy and disk, these will have their own warranties which will not be invalidated if you remove the disk from the caddy, as it would if you purchased something like a Maxtor external drive (I mention Maxtor because they would not let me try and recover my data by removing the drive without invalidating the warranty – shame on them!). In the UK the price of an external caddy is not much more for a dual USB2 / FireWire – so I’d go with that to cover all bases.

I have yet to get Windows to boot over USB – as soon as Windows initialises USB the load fails – perhaps I am missing something? If the NTFS partition is made active you should be able to install the disk into a Windows PC and simply boot – the Mac partition should be ignored as Windows does with Linux HPFS.

The AISBackup New Job / (Second form) Disk to Disk Copy is the option to use, this will copy everything first time, but then only differences (optionally removing files that no longer exist on the source disk). Version 2.2 beta will copy opened exclusive files so there is no need to run AISBackup from BartPE plus we are still working on the instructions for this). If you create a desktop shortcut for the Disk to Disk copy AISBackup will not ask before deleting files which no longer exist – running from the interactive mode always asks.

If you can test the backup / install disk in PC option and get the Mac booted from the same drive then please post back here.

Barry

Okay i went out and bought a drive today. Firewire/USB dual option connect and everything. Formatted it up into 3 partitions on OS X, and copied my OS X image onto the HFS partition of the external. Macintosh boots off the backup via Firewire no problems.

I am trying to set up the backup job in AISBackup for Windows. I am running into a problem. I manually created a folder in my C:\ drive and called it "temp". I use this folder as a "junk box" where I put miscellaneous files in. AISBackup isn't selecting Temp and I can't seem to force it to select. I think AISBackup thinks my "temp" folder is some kind of temporary (read: unecessary) folder because it's called Temp. Is there a way to force AISBackup to copy this folder? It does contain files I use and need, I just call it Temp because things in it are temporary. If I find I need them permanently I will locate them elsewhere on my HD.

Ruahrc

edit: silly me it's in the next tab over! BTW, I notice a number of default exclusions in this tab. I removed them all just to see what would happen. Is it safe to remove all exclusions, and copy EVERYTHING on the drive over? Like I said I have plenty of disk space and if i don't mind the extra time required to copy: then there's no harm in removing these exclusions right?

The copy is in progress now, I will report my results back when it's done.

Okay I got it all copied over but it won't boot. First I tried booting straight via USB which did not work (but I would like to play with this further... as the BIOS correctly identified the external USB HD???). Then I removed the drive and plugged it into the computer direct via IDE. Still didn't work.

I have a suspicion that my problems are coming from an improperly configured boot.ini or boot sector. The reasoning behind this suspicion is this:

when I partitioned the disk in OS X, I created the HFS+ partition first, followed by the NTFS partition, and the FAT32 partition last. When I examine the disk in Disk Manager in XP- it looks like this:

[disk0] [128MB Unformatted] [55.78GB Healthy (Unknown Partition)] [XPC Archive 111.80GB NTFS Healthy] [SWAPMEET 65.19GB FAT32 Healthy]

"XPC Archive" is the partition on which I want to copy my backup to. "SWAPMEET" is the miscellaneous cross-platform FAT32 partition. The "Unknown Partition" is the HFS+ partition. I don't know how to upload an image on this forum, but read the entries left to right and that is the order in which they appear left to right in Disk Manager.

So I am thinking it is seeing 55.78GB Unknown Partition as partition 1, which means I need to edit my boot.ini to boot from partition 2? But I tried this and it did'nt work either. So maybe the presence of the HFS+ partition being before the NTFS partitions is messing it up somehow? I am thinking I can go back and re-partition the drive in OS X and make the HFS+ partition 2nd or last. That way the partition number of the backup volume (XPC Archive) and the source (just plain old C:) will be the same, 1- and get rid of this boot.ini funny business.

Think that'll work? It would involve re-copying the whole drive over again: 1hr30mins to complete (60GB of data). Too late tonight to try it but might try it tomorrow. I don't think merely deleting the HFS+ partition via Windows will work because I would be unable to recreate it under OS X. The method I am using requires me to create all partitions at once (I think).

Do you have any other insights that might help?

P.S. I don't know if it makes much difference, but I should point out that my main working drive is SATA and my backup drive is IDE. Does having a SATA and IDE drive working at the same time cause any special funkiness that must be dealt with? I don't think there are any problems relating to lack of SATA drivers either. When I installed Windows on this computer I slipstreamed my XP CD with SP2 as well as a bunch of updates and drivers. Among the drivers I installed were the SATA drivers for my chipset. So essentially I have eliminated the lack of SATA drivers problem on my installed copy of Windows.

Ruahrc[/img]

From the previous post:

It is okay to remove the exclusions, these are mainly temporary files (temp and intenet explorer cache) as you found out. You should leave hiberfil and pagefile excluded as these are large and will be recreated by Windows on the first boot of the backup drive.

The last post:

It is okay to copy a SATA drive to IDE but not the other way round, unless you install the SATA drivers afterwards (something we must look into for AISBackup).

This problem is most likely because the NTFS partition is not a Primary, ACTIVE partition. Windows cannot be booted from a logical drive in an Extended Partition, however, this does not mean that Windows cannot be run from a logical drive in an extended partition - to run this you need to 'point' the boot.ini menu to the correct disk / partition.

To make the drive Active see towards the bottom of this web-page (Right click My Computer / Manage / Disk Management):

http://www.aiscl.co.uk/Formatting.htm

Alternatively make a ‘catch all’ boot diskette, for Windows XP in a folder called *:\WINDOWS use the following instructions:

Tools / Copy Boot Files to Bootable Diskette
Select Source of Boot Files (Shown if there is more than one boot disk in the system)
Format Diskette

After the copy edit the diskette so create 3 partition options for each disk in the system. Example, 3 disks 3 partitions each looks like this:

Tools / Edit Windows Boot Menu
Select Boot Menu Drive A:\
Click Edit File

For Windows XP just copy this data into boot.ini:
Windows NT and Windows 2000 is usually in a folder called WINNT not WINDOWS

Barry

Well I tried those things and still couldn't get it to work. I re-partitioned the HD on my Macintosh, this time putting the NTFS and FAT32 partitions first. That didn't seem to make a difference. I made sure it was listed as "active" under disk management in XP, didn't help. Then I tried changing the boot.ini on the USB HD to be that "catch-all" boot.ini you posted. I even expanded it to include multi(0)-multi(2) as well as disk(0)-disk(2), etc.

Also tried booting both by mounting it internally to the case via IDE or having it go via USB through the BIOS.

I still have the feeling it's either a boot sector/MBR problem or a boot.ini one. I booted off the XP CD and got into the DOS-based windows setup and had a look around... from there my backup drive was not being seen as a multi(0) type disk (I could see the 0,0,0,1 labels on my internal SATA but they were not there for the backup HD which was being mounted USB at the time). That may be the problem too?

Anyways I'm out of ideas for now. Bootable backup isn't critical and I will still have disaster recovery via the BartPE option right? (Any timeframe on the instructions for this) Unless you have some more things I should try...

Ruahrc

PS All my partitions are seen as "primary partitions" in XP disk management (dark blue color coding). If that makes any difference...

Did you put the boot files onto a diskette? The drive does not have to be active for the diskette to work. It may also be worth checking that the drive is connected via the IDE cable as a Primary drive rather than cable select or a slave - it will then be drive 0 (zero). My thought is to get this working the 'simple' way before we start running (Booting Windows using USB will be a bonus if you're lucky!).

It is not clear fro your posts if you are actually seeing a boot menu from which to select Windows, are you?

Also your PC BIOS may be set to boot from SATA at the moment, you may need to change the boot order to 'IDE 0' first (or diskette).

Barry

My computer lacks a FDD, so either booting from the Hard disk(s) or CD-ROM is the only option. I ditched the FDD as legacy when I built this machine up.

You are correct, I do not ever see a boot menu from which to choose. (Are you speaking of something similar to the menu presented when you boot into safe mode?) What happens is my PC goes through its normal startup, then I am left with the following on the screen:

Verifying DMI Pool data..................
Boot from CD.....
_ (<-- blinking cursor)

Verifying DMI pool data is a biod function, right? Not applicable or important here.

Boot from CD shows up because I have my BIOS to boot from CD first. If it doesn't find any CD it will go to the 2nd boot device, listed as "hard disk" in my BIOS. There is an option in my BIOS where I can select the priority of HDs to boot from. If I move my backup HD above my SATA internal I get the blinking cursor/hang. If I move my internal SATA above the backup HD, the system boots off the SATA normally. This behavior is the same whether or not the backup HD is connected via USB or IDE. I will look again in my BIOS for other SATA/IDE settings.

The other problem I am having is I am a little short on cabling. Currently I am disconnecting my CD-ROM drive and hooking my backup HD in its place. It is the only IDE device in my system. Unfortunately I don't have a spare IDE cable around to have both IDE devices connected simultaneously (and the IDE cable I do have has only one connector on the end) The HD has no jumper on it although I think no jumper means "master". At any rate, I have no trouble accessing the backup hard drive when it's connected via IDE so I don't think it's a jumper/cabling problem.

The blinking cursor is where I think the hangup is. I think it's looking on the specified drive (backup HD in the case of when it hangs) and not being able to boot from it because of missing files/incorrect configuration.

I remember in the past encountering a similar problem (hang on boot)- a problem I was able to fix by booting off the Windows CD and "logging on" to the problem windows installation via the recovery console. From there I was able to fun FIXBOOT and/or FIXMBR (I never really knew which one fixed it) and it repaired it. Is there a way to run FIXBOOT and/or FIXMBR from within windows or safe mode? i.e. is there a way to boot into the recovery console w/o the CD? (Although I have not yet tried booting off my original Windows CD... the SP2 slipstreamed XP CD I made I can't seem to get to the recovery console in. Any ideas why?)

Whew okay I think that's enough info for now! I will look in my BIOS and see what I can see. You are estimating that if I were able to get to the "boot selection" menu that things should proceed normally from there on out? (ignoring the whole boot from IDE/USB issue- whichh does not come into play until later on)

Ruahrc

From beta build 279 AISBackup can make bootable CD's which contain the boot.ini boot menu files.

http://www.aiscl.co.uk/aisbackup_beta.htm

This will allow owners of PC's without floppy diskette drives boot from a CD instead.

Barry