Other Norton Products

[lilewis]

Last night I successfully created an image of C:  (84 gb) to an external HD, but when I checked the 2 drives afterwards, I noticed that there was a very small difference in image sizes.

Does that mean that the image is corrupt and will give me problems some time in the future if I have to restore it back to my C drive, or is it something I need not be concerned about.

[lilewis]

3 days - no reply  so I'll ask again.

Does the fact that the image I created with Norton 14 is a slightly different (84 vs 85 gb) size from the original mean that it might not work if I need to restore my system from it?

[erik_carlstrom]

Are you creating incremental backups or just based backups?  Shouldn't be an issue, especially if the amount of space on the system changes (Temp, temporary internet files, etc).  Do you have Ghost set to verify the backup?  If so, you're golden.

[lilewis]

I created a full drive image via "copy my hard drive".

I *think* I  checked 'verify' but am not sure now.

But shouldn't an exact image be exactly the same size as the source drive?

[erik_carlstrom]

No.  Images are compressed based on the level you choose (unless you choose no compression - which is kind of a waste of space).  Not all files/sectors are compressed equally.  It depends on the data in that sector. 

[lilewis]

I think I selected 'save mbr' and 'no compression' because I wanted the image to be:

1 A boot disk

2. Allow me to see the files as if it were a the original C drive

3. I wasn't worried about compression because the external desination drive was double the

    size of the source drive and will not be used for anything else but "copy the whole drive"

If I use compression, will that slow down the copy process?

And would compression make the file unreadable to windows explorer?

[erik_carlstrom]

So, based on this and the last response I'm not sure what the issue is (I missed that you said copy).  "Copy Drive" is an exact clone.  It's intended as a way of migrating to a new drive.  Are you comparing the size right after the copy occured?  If not, then you're looking at two drives at two different states.  You want to be careful of doing this as well, as Windows can sometimes become confused if you boot with two bootable drives connected (and both set to boot).  You can end up with crosslinked files/entries that can cause a problem on one of the drives. 

Also, doing the copy drive won't create an image.  An image will be a .v2i file that you have to look at the contents via Ghost. 

Message Edited by erik_carlstrom on 04-09-2009 01:27 PM

[lilewis]

Sorry for the confusion:

I'm using a Dell XPS M1530 laptop and created a complete copy (image) to a 2nd laptop drive  that was connected via usb.

1. I would never boot with both the external and the internal both connected. 

2. My reason in creating the image in the first place, is in the event of a catastrophic failure of the laptop's original internal drive. 

   I plan to replace the original internal drive with the imaged drive.

3. And since I can afford the space on the 2nd (destination) drive, I didn't compress, thinking that in the event for some reason the clone

   didn't work after replacing the original drive with it, I could at least view the files and directory structure if I needed to view it at a later

   time.

Does that explain why I am concerned about why the image is not EXACTLY the same size as the source drive?

So if that makes sense, I am back to my original question...  shouldn't the source and destination drives have exactly the same number of bytes. And if so, should I try again to make a complete clone copy of the internal drive?

[erik_carlstrom]

The problem is that an image is not bootable.  The options you mentioned about the MBR are what you see when you are going through the "copy drive wizard."  Creating an image is when you define a backup and choose "Back up my computer" which won't have the MBR option you mentioned.  It's also where you can define comression. 

Drive copy has no compression.  This is a clone and not an image.  What are you using to compare sizes?  Did you choose to check desitnation for file system errors?  Did you check resize drive to fill unallocated space?  Did you disable smart sector copying? 

[lilewis]

Woahhhhhh

Now I'm getting confused.  I thought an 'image' and a 'clone' were the same thing.  I'm pretty sure I used "copy my hard drive", which I thought would have made an exact copy of my hard drive, sector by sector.

I did what I did because of what Pore Vinod told me on another thread last August where he was guiding me how not to make a backup with .fbf extensions where I wouldn't be able to see the files in the backup.

I had previously used an old DOS version of Norton Ghost where I run the cd and it makes a bootable/viewable copy to another drive without without opening windows (on my old XP pc).  But it seems Vista 64 doesn't like that disk.

It looks like I'm going to have to re-read the manual to figure out how to do what I'm trying to do, unless you're sympathetic enough to give a good start.

Message Edited by lilewis on 04-09-2009 02:13 PM

Message Edited by lilewis on 04-09-2009 02:13 PM