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#1
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a
500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? |
#2
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
John B. Smith wrote:
I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul |
#3
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 12:18:29 -0400, John B. Smith
wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? Decent backup software, partitions, especially FAT32, aren't an issue. That would be a backup image that's seeing subsequent disk manipulations, after its creation, and a minor discrepancy for, say were it resizing within a same sector/cluster ordering, when the backup routine is again initiated to see the difference. Then again, I may be spoilt... Norton's (and later Symantec) back-up tools have distinguished for that discrepancy for quite some time -- and quite well for what they actually do..."ghosting" as it goes by their moniker. Also, "optimizing" a format, per se, is fitted for some pretty narrow straits: special circumstances for newer SDD drives and speed constraints related the physics of, otherwise, a spinning platter. A file optimization, consequently, is a different flavored animal and usually is treated as such, with a different set of tools than those used within normal considerations for the creation, format and definitions permitted partitions. The concept goes: initially build your image of the OS, the way you like it, on a partition with, hopefully, the same forethought for longevity in its placement;- a file optimization is then a discrete process and to be so placed within a part of an order employed by special utilities relating to the build stage;- the final "dumbly consecutive" binary-sector image restore, then, will faithfully account for that accomplishment and placement. |
#4
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:46:39 -0400, Paul wrote:
John B. Smith wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul Downloaded Macrium Reflect. Made the Emergency Boot CD, which worked, surprising me as 2 other apps failed to make Windows PE work on my system. I tried Restoring an image backup of the XP partition with the "Restored Partition Properties" set to 'Vista/7/SSD (1MB)'. It completed I rebooted, got my WinXP/Win7 menu, chose XP, boot failed: "selected entry could not be booted because application is missing or corrupt". Booted into Win7 OK. Went back and did a restore with the "Restored Partition Properties' set to XP (CHS) and then booted into XP successfully. So I'm still not partition-aligned, but breathed a sigh of relief to be back in WinXP without major trauma. |
#5
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
John B. Smith wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:46:39 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul Downloaded Macrium Reflect. Made the Emergency Boot CD, which worked, surprising me as 2 other apps failed to make Windows PE work on my system. I tried Restoring an image backup of the XP partition with the "Restored Partition Properties" set to 'Vista/7/SSD (1MB)'. It completed I rebooted, got my WinXP/Win7 menu, chose XP, boot failed: "selected entry could not be booted because application is missing or corrupt". Booted into Win7 OK. Went back and did a restore with the "Restored Partition Properties' set to XP (CHS) and then booted into XP successfully. So I'm still not partition-aligned, but breathed a sigh of relief to be back in WinXP without major trauma. When you were in Win7, you could have tried a CHKDSK on both partitions. ******* I don't have a theory for you, as to why WinXP would not boot. If there was an Inaccessible Boot Volume, you would have had a Stop code to hint at the problem. The various stop codes are listed here. http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm ******* If you installed Win7 after WinXP, it should have picked up an entry in the BCD for WinXP. In an Administrator Command Prompt in Windows 7, you can type bcdedit to review the boot menu. Another possibility, is the partitions got put into different slots than they were originally in. The boot.ini on WinXP has a path specification that is partition number sensitive. On some boot loaders, even if one part of the boot loader is successfully pointed at the right place, some other part may still consult a configuration file (like a boot.ini) and then start claiming "cannot access boot disk" or "inaccessible boot volume", even though it's running off the boot material right now. Several Knoppix LiveCDs were famous for this kind of bug, where the current code is running off the CD, yet the code claims it "cannot read the device". Even though microseconds before, it was reading the stupid device. On the boot line, you had to "guess" what the boot device identifier might be and enter it, and it might take a half dozen guesses until you get it right. AFAIK, the last boot partition which was "offset sensitive" was something like Win98. If you shifted the starting LBA, it might become ****ed off. For the others, just preserving the partition table number, or the BLKID, is sufficient. Paul |
#6
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
On Tue, 26 Jul 2016 23:35:40 -0400, Paul
wrote: John B. Smith wrote: On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:46:39 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul Downloaded Macrium Reflect. Made the Emergency Boot CD, which worked, surprising me as 2 other apps failed to make Windows PE work on my system. I tried Restoring an image backup of the XP partition with the "Restored Partition Properties" set to 'Vista/7/SSD (1MB)'. It completed I rebooted, got my WinXP/Win7 menu, chose XP, boot failed: "selected entry could not be booted because application is missing or corrupt". Booted into Win7 OK. Went back and did a restore with the "Restored Partition Properties' set to XP (CHS) and then booted into XP successfully. So I'm still not partition-aligned, but breathed a sigh of relief to be back in WinXP without major trauma. When you were in Win7, you could have tried a CHKDSK on both partitions. ******* I don't have a theory for you, as to why WinXP would not boot. If there was an Inaccessible Boot Volume, you would have had a Stop code to hint at the problem. The various stop codes are listed here. http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm ******* If you installed Win7 after WinXP, it should have picked up an entry in the BCD for WinXP. In an Administrator Command Prompt in Windows 7, you can type bcdedit to review the boot menu. Another possibility, is the partitions got put into different slots than they were originally in. The boot.ini on WinXP has a path specification that is partition number sensitive. On some boot loaders, even if one part of the boot loader is successfully pointed at the right place, some other part may still consult a configuration file (like a boot.ini) and then start claiming "cannot access boot disk" or "inaccessible boot volume", even though it's running off the boot material right now. Several Knoppix LiveCDs were famous for this kind of bug, where the current code is running off the CD, yet the code claims it "cannot read the device". Even though microseconds before, it was reading the stupid device. On the boot line, you had to "guess" what the boot device identifier might be and enter it, and it might take a half dozen guesses until you get it right. AFAIK, the last boot partition which was "offset sensitive" was something like Win98. If you shifted the starting LBA, it might become ****ed off. For the others, just preserving the partition table number, or the BLKID, is sufficient. Paul I performed another try and came up with an additional piece of info. I first chdsk-ed the drive thoroughly. I did find going into Win7 to check the XP partition very helpful - no reboots. After the Macrium Restore of the XP partition with Partition Properties set to Vista/7/SSD, when I attempted the XP boot, it says: "File \ntldr Status 0xc0000225" I booted to Win7 via the bootup menu and used EasyBCD to restore the BCD info (which exists on the Win7 partition anyway) no help. Macrium contains several boot repair tools but hate to try them blind, without some inkling of what's going wrong with my 'alignment' procedure. Macrium won't take questions without a license. |
#7
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
John B. Smith wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2016 23:35:40 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:46:39 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul Downloaded Macrium Reflect. Made the Emergency Boot CD, which worked, surprising me as 2 other apps failed to make Windows PE work on my system. I tried Restoring an image backup of the XP partition with the "Restored Partition Properties" set to 'Vista/7/SSD (1MB)'. It completed I rebooted, got my WinXP/Win7 menu, chose XP, boot failed: "selected entry could not be booted because application is missing or corrupt". Booted into Win7 OK. Went back and did a restore with the "Restored Partition Properties' set to XP (CHS) and then booted into XP successfully. So I'm still not partition-aligned, but breathed a sigh of relief to be back in WinXP without major trauma. When you were in Win7, you could have tried a CHKDSK on both partitions. ******* I don't have a theory for you, as to why WinXP would not boot. If there was an Inaccessible Boot Volume, you would have had a Stop code to hint at the problem. The various stop codes are listed here. http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm ******* If you installed Win7 after WinXP, it should have picked up an entry in the BCD for WinXP. In an Administrator Command Prompt in Windows 7, you can type bcdedit to review the boot menu. Another possibility, is the partitions got put into different slots than they were originally in. The boot.ini on WinXP has a path specification that is partition number sensitive. On some boot loaders, even if one part of the boot loader is successfully pointed at the right place, some other part may still consult a configuration file (like a boot.ini) and then start claiming "cannot access boot disk" or "inaccessible boot volume", even though it's running off the boot material right now. Several Knoppix LiveCDs were famous for this kind of bug, where the current code is running off the CD, yet the code claims it "cannot read the device". Even though microseconds before, it was reading the stupid device. On the boot line, you had to "guess" what the boot device identifier might be and enter it, and it might take a half dozen guesses until you get it right. AFAIK, the last boot partition which was "offset sensitive" was something like Win98. If you shifted the starting LBA, it might become ****ed off. For the others, just preserving the partition table number, or the BLKID, is sufficient. Paul I performed another try and came up with an additional piece of info. I first chdsk-ed the drive thoroughly. I did find going into Win7 to check the XP partition very helpful - no reboots. After the Macrium Restore of the XP partition with Partition Properties set to Vista/7/SSD, when I attempted the XP boot, it says: "File \ntldr Status 0xc0000225" I booted to Win7 via the bootup menu and used EasyBCD to restore the BCD info (which exists on the Win7 partition anyway) no help. Macrium contains several boot repair tools but hate to try them blind, without some inkling of what's going wrong with my 'alignment' procedure. Macrium won't take questions without a license. That doesn't seem like a WinXP error. That could be related to the boot manager in Windows 7, before it hands off (chain loads) WinXP or something. https://social.technet.microsoft.com...w8itprogeneral And by chance, does the volume involve GPT ? WinXP doesn't support GPT, and would likely freak out if chain loaded and it was partitioned that way. If you can get any tool to boot, have a look at the disk setup first, to see what's happened to it. Paul |
#8
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
On Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:50:15 -0400, Paul
wrote: John B. Smith wrote: On Tue, 26 Jul 2016 23:35:40 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: On Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:46:39 -0400, Paul wrote: John B. Smith wrote: I have the ambition to align my main C: (XP) partition. It is on a 500gig hard drive partitioned in half for XP and Win7. Msinfo.exe says that the Partition Offset for the XP partition is NOT divisible by 4096. AOMEI promises to align the partition and Optimize it, and I'd like to try, if only I KNEW I could safely recover a backup if things went south. I have a couple image backup restorers which I'm pretty sure wouldn't work if AOMEI tampers with the partitioning. I think what WOULD work a rescue is COPYING the files back onto the 'Optimized' partition if push comes to shove. My Easeus backup, when booted from a CD will not do this. My ancient Drive Image 7 will, and rewrite the MBR if I desire. So I'm here to pick some brains and MAYBE get scared off enough to leave well enough alone if that's the consensus. Thoughts? You can never be too rich, or have too many backups. Macrium Reflect Free, you can back up as your mixed alignment image. Then, during Restore to the SSD, re-align the partition on the fly. In the filmstrip here, about a bit past the middle of the strip, there is "Partition Properties". And there, you can select 1MB alignment if you want. The one megabyte alignment was invented by Microsoft, as their solution to doing the best job possible for Flash Memory on SSDs. Using 4KB alignment (not an OS feature), is of usage for HDDs with 512e emulation. It makes them perform a bit better. But 1MB alignment handles both cases at the same time, doing a good job on a HDD with internal 4K sectors, as well as SSDs with large power-of-two flash memory pages. https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif The process is not cosmetically perfect, but it is functionally correct. While not shown in the example, when I did a four-partition disk, there were "gaps" between partitions. So it's not as suave as a real Partition Manager. But considering it is free (i.e. cheaper than a copy of the Paragon Alignment Tool), it's a good deal. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx The download process consists of: A stub downloader program Download main program Download WinPE5 for making the Rescue CD During the install, the WinPE5 is re-packed and stored somewhere on C: . You make the Rescue CD, in case you ever need to boot the CD, and overwrite your entire OS disk from a backup. The Rescue CD, while it is being prepared, can have NIC drivers added. And that raises the possibility of using file sharing for the backup. In my experience, it doesn't always work, so you should always have some facility on hand for connecting the backup drive, locally to the machine. Like, a USB drive enclosure, or an available bay with SATA port in your tower. The WinPE5 should have some USB3 drivers. Paul Downloaded Macrium Reflect. Made the Emergency Boot CD, which worked, surprising me as 2 other apps failed to make Windows PE work on my system. I tried Restoring an image backup of the XP partition with the "Restored Partition Properties" set to 'Vista/7/SSD (1MB)'. It completed I rebooted, got my WinXP/Win7 menu, chose XP, boot failed: "selected entry could not be booted because application is missing or corrupt". Booted into Win7 OK. Went back and did a restore with the "Restored Partition Properties' set to XP (CHS) and then booted into XP successfully. So I'm still not partition-aligned, but breathed a sigh of relief to be back in WinXP without major trauma. When you were in Win7, you could have tried a CHKDSK on both partitions. ******* I don't have a theory for you, as to why WinXP would not boot. If there was an Inaccessible Boot Volume, you would have had a Stop code to hint at the problem. The various stop codes are listed here. http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm ******* If you installed Win7 after WinXP, it should have picked up an entry in the BCD for WinXP. In an Administrator Command Prompt in Windows 7, you can type bcdedit to review the boot menu. Another possibility, is the partitions got put into different slots than they were originally in. The boot.ini on WinXP has a path specification that is partition number sensitive. On some boot loaders, even if one part of the boot loader is successfully pointed at the right place, some other part may still consult a configuration file (like a boot.ini) and then start claiming "cannot access boot disk" or "inaccessible boot volume", even though it's running off the boot material right now. Several Knoppix LiveCDs were famous for this kind of bug, where the current code is running off the CD, yet the code claims it "cannot read the device". Even though microseconds before, it was reading the stupid device. On the boot line, you had to "guess" what the boot device identifier might be and enter it, and it might take a half dozen guesses until you get it right. AFAIK, the last boot partition which was "offset sensitive" was something like Win98. If you shifted the starting LBA, it might become ****ed off. For the others, just preserving the partition table number, or the BLKID, is sufficient. Paul I performed another try and came up with an additional piece of info. I first chdsk-ed the drive thoroughly. I did find going into Win7 to check the XP partition very helpful - no reboots. After the Macrium Restore of the XP partition with Partition Properties set to Vista/7/SSD, when I attempted the XP boot, it says: "File \ntldr Status 0xc0000225" I booted to Win7 via the bootup menu and used EasyBCD to restore the BCD info (which exists on the Win7 partition anyway) no help. Macrium contains several boot repair tools but hate to try them blind, without some inkling of what's going wrong with my 'alignment' procedure. Macrium won't take questions without a license. That doesn't seem like a WinXP error. That could be related to the boot manager in Windows 7, before it hands off (chain loads) WinXP or something. https://social.technet.microsoft.com...w8itprogeneral And by chance, does the volume involve GPT ? WinXP doesn't support GPT, and would likely freak out if chain loaded and it was partitioned that way. If you can get any tool to boot, have a look at the disk setup first, to see what's happened to it. Paul Did I mention that I again Restored via the XP CHS Macrium ooption and am now typing from within my XP again? I'm wondering if Macrium is implementing a GPT boot when I specify the Restored Partition Propertie be Vista/7/SSD. Their directions say "This could be used to 'convert' and (sic) XP aligned partition for SSD alignment". That doesn't PRECISELY say it IS an XP partition, just an XP aligned partition. On XP I have a free Active Disk Editor, if I install that over on Win7 I could look at the defective XP partition, but how do I determine if it's set up for GPT? I suppose I could also just rewrite the MBR from within the Macrium CD but it seems like shooting in the dark. I'm getting frustrated enough to just pay the $30 for that Paragon Alignment Tool http://www.paragon-software.com/home...rements.html#0 |
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
John B. Smith wrote:
After the Macrium Restore of the XP partition with Partition Properties set to Vista/7/SSD, when I attempted the XP boot, it says: "File \ntldr Status 0xc0000225" I've managed to reproduce your problem (in a dual boot VM). https://s32.postimg.org/jfkjmc1c5/pr...reproduced.gif You can see right away, what's wrong. The "restored,bad" BCD info is on the right. The good one, on the left. https://s32.postimg.org/kffk030yd/bc...ixing_ouch.gif It should take some bcdedit commands to fix that, and you can do them from an Administrator Command Prompt window in Windows 7. ******* As is usually the case with these, I never invent anything myself, just copy the command from somewhere :-) http://windowsitpro.com/systems-mana...cratch-bcdedit bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=d: bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=d: All fixed :-) ******* The bottom frame, the numbers on the right are now divisible by 2048, so they're both now aligned. In the top picture, the WinXP partition is divisible by 63, the Win7 one divisible by 2048. I used Macrium to realign-on-restore, the WinXP partition. The bottom partition table shows the results. https://s32.postimg.org/y0rqn8m6p/realigned.gif Paul |
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Aligning my XP partition on my 500gig WD harddrive
Paul wrote:
John B. Smith wrote: After the Macrium Restore of the XP partition with Partition Properties set to Vista/7/SSD, when I attempted the XP boot, it says: "File \ntldr Status 0xc0000225" I've managed to reproduce your problem (in a dual boot VM). https://s32.postimg.org/jfkjmc1c5/pr...reproduced.gif You can see right away, what's wrong. The "restored,bad" BCD info is on the right. The good one, on the left. https://s32.postimg.org/kffk030yd/bc...ixing_ouch.gif It should take some bcdedit commands to fix that, and you can do them from an Administrator Command Prompt window in Windows 7. ******* As is usually the case with these, I never invent anything myself, just copy the command from somewhere :-) http://windowsitpro.com/systems-mana...cratch-bcdedit bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=d: bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=d: All fixed :-) ******* The bottom frame, the numbers on the right are now divisible by 2048, so they're both now aligned. In the top picture, the WinXP partition is divisible by 63, the Win7 one divisible by 2048. I used Macrium to realign-on-restore, the WinXP partition. The bottom partition table shows the results. https://s32.postimg.org/y0rqn8m6p/realigned.gif Paul The very last link is wrong. It should be: https://s32.postimg.org/8uqsgekwl/realigned.gif Paul |
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