My primary, boot disk (w/ Vista x64 & several partitions) was failing - "SMART" failure. Though it'd still boot & work OK, if a bit slow at times. Disk 1 (2nd disk) is for BU / data - simple 2 disk, SATA setup - not raid.
Already had image BU of the C:\ (OS) partition & other partitions simple backup / copied to another disk. Got replacement disk of same brand, size, model (seagate ST3100333AS - 1 GB SATA2).
Restoration of C:\ to new disk went fine & - eventually - it booted OK, but NOT till AFTER some messing around, looking at partitions / MBR w/ latest BootIT Bare Metal (BIBM) 1.12a & switching serial cables' order to the 2 disks.
1) Created a new partition on new disk w/ BIBM, larger than old one. After restoring Vista partition to new disk, booted OK. Old OS disk was NOT connected then.
I wanted non critical data off one partition on old disk before wiping / RMA'g.
Shut down, reconnected old disk. Tried to copy data off the old disk (a non booting partition), w/ BIBM, but couldn't read it.
Then tried same thing w/ a boot disk of Disk Director - it couldn't read data. I thought it was odd, because old disk was booted & running not long before. Oh well. Decided to see if Explorer could copy data from the old disk. IT DID - but NOT before lot of hassle or end of my tale.
2) Back in BIBM, set OLD disk hidden, inactive. As you may guess, when tried booting w/ new & old disks attached, didn't want to boot to new disk. It DID boot the old disk, though was set hidden, inactive in BIBM. Noticed was still calling old disk (0) & new one disk (1), but thought nothing of it. I don't think BIOS knew BIBM had set old disk hidden, inactive.
In BIBM, I deleted the BCD entry & MBR of old disk. Disconnected old disk so could get 1 good boot w/ new disk. It did. Connected the 2nd data disk (never was a booting disk) & rebooted to see how all looked. That time, after POST, got msg to effect of "non booting disk. Press any key to boot from floppy." It tried to boot from 2nd, data disk. I can only assume this was because the data HDD was listed in BIOS as Disk (0).
BTW, don't have floppy & CD/ DVD, HD Group are 1 & 2 in boot order. Maybe because BIOS didn't find a boot CD or bootable HDD, went to next in list - floppy?
3) Figured I'd have to switch mobo HDD cable order so new booting disk was in slot (0). But BIBM also had errors / warnings on the new disk. Turned out they don't stop system from booting, but I AM CONCERNED about disk geography / Boot IT error msgs, for the next time I do a Ghost image / restore. Had a problem w/ it in past - another pc.
Honestly DON'T know if these errors are from restoring image from another disk to a NEW one, and partition sizes on restored disk were diff than original, or if just partitioning / geography issues, unrelated to Ghost.
1st error: "Invalid head & SPT values exist in the BPB. Fix it?" (this was for the NEW disk).
Since I'd never heard of either till looked them up, left them alone, since NEW disk HAD booted at least 1x. I believe BPB (BIOS Parameter Block) pertains to FAT file systems. If so, I don't have any. Only thing BIBM might THINK was FAT file system, is the HP OEM recovery partition, which isn't shown by ANY partition manager as FAT32. It's mostly compressed. But, who knows.
I'd never seen this BIBM error before (using earlier versions), on any PC, that I'd done partition work w/ ANY tool, including Vista disk manager. Found one blurb from BootIT site (in forum) about the msg, but didn't explain much. Said, "Invalid Head & SPT values" was:
"Probably because partitions aren't using cyl. alignment & you're using BIOS auto mode. Easiest solutions: disable BIOS auto mode, then reboot couple times, THEN fix values & they should stay fixed. Otherwise, in BootIt, enable align on 2K sectors [same as 2048], then boot couple times. These values only matter for boot partition."
Since it's showing this for new disk (now # 0) & partitions appear to be 2048 aligned, not sure.
And both disks (actually, all 3) were 2048 aligned on boot partition AND I've booted "couple of times," but BIBM still shows the error.
OTHER WARNINGS / ERRORS in BIBM:
It's giving this msg under properties, on several partitions of new disk, but not keeping it from booting OK. "Warning - file system ends on LBA xxx,xxx,xxy." While, in the "LBA Info" box, shows an LBA of xxx,xxx,xxz [denoting 1 or more digits are different].
Is it REALLY important where the LBA(s) end, as long as partitions don't over lap. Isn't it much more important where they begin - on even 2k boundary if using 2048 alignment? I assume?? it's indicating where LBA REALLY ends & where (something - BIOS?) thinks it ends, are different?
-Which value is which & how do I know which is right?
-Does this need to be corrected - for ALL partitions - to prevent potential, future problems w/ Ghost, Windows, etc?
-Is there a way to create partitions w/ anything other than Windows, where ending LBAs won't be diff than (BIOS?) shows?
The 2 partinfo files were taken before / after I deleted & recreated 3rd partition on disk 0.
Doing so didn't get rid of BIBM errors on that partition.