Snow leo & WinXP install problem

[jbolted]

Hello, I have a fully working snow leopard install on a separate HD. I have another Hard drive I want to install Win XP on.

 

I already know to disconnect my working drive of snow leo before trying to install Win XP. Problem is that it gets to a point that it cant recognize the sata drive.

 

I have my original gigabyte CD that came with the motherboard. If I disconnect my snow leo and set my first boot priority to CD drive and put in my Gigabyte disk how should I go about just installing the sata drivers so Win XP can recognize my drive? I already formatted the drive to NTFS.

 

I don't want ot muck up my working leo, but I would like to have a backup OS in case of a bad Apple update. Which has happened before to me and I wound up going through the whole process again of reinstalling from a USB stick.

 

If there is anywhere i am going to find the solution to this it is here.

 

Thank you for any and all suggestions and if there are any questions I left un answered please let me know. My complete set up in in my signature.

[mulcyber]

Hello, I have a fully working snow leopard install on a separate HD. I have another Hard drive I want to install Win XP on.

 

I already know to disconnect my working drive of snow leo before trying to install Win XP. Problem is that it gets to a point that it cant recognize the sata drive.

 

I have my original gigabyte CD that came with the motherboard. If I disconnect my snow leo and set my first boot priority to CD drive and put in my Gigabyte disk how should I go about just installing the sata drivers so Win XP can recognize my drive? I already formatted the drive to NTFS.

 

I don't want ot muck up my working leo, but I would like to have a backup OS in case of a bad Apple update. Which has happened before to me and I wound up going through the whole process again of reinstalling from a USB stick.

 

If there is anywhere i am going to find the solution to this it is here.

 

Thank you for any and all suggestions and if there are any questions I left un answered please let me know. My complete set up in in my signature.

 

Well, I'm not sure yet. I think this should have just worked.

http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-x...hdd/182206.html

 

Usually, you install drivers after the OS installs. Just slide the dvd in. That I know of, the only sata drivers are intended for a sata/raid array which takes at least two drives.

 

Do you have Win XP x32 or x64? Because if you installed SL first, didn't you change the Bios to AHCI and HPET 64? Maybe the HPET wont' matter, but that is why I used both OS x64 versions.

 

I don't think that Win XP had support for AHCI until SP2. So is your install cd slipstreamed to include SP2 or better SP3 (Service Pack)? You may have an XP cd that doesn't support AHCI.

 

Also your Memory spec looks weird to me, you say 6GB but shouldn't it be 12GB total? And it looks like you have it installed weirdly also. You should keep your memory of the same kind together, in your case the 4GB should be in two consecutive slots further away from the edge of the mobo. For triple channel, you need 3 of the same kind, size etc. of memory.

 

I don't know if this is really important or not. But since you have to move the memory, I would try the Win XP install (especially if its x32, which only sees 4GB) with one 4GB stick installed. You can add the memory back in after XP is installed. I have Win 7 x64 on one drive and SL x64 on the other drive and there were no problems. Is your second drive a known good drive? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244556-3...led-controllers I think it's worth a look.

[jbolted]

Well, I'm not sure yet. I think this should have just worked.

http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-x...hdd/182206.html

 

Usually, you install drivers after the OS installs. Just slide the dvd in. That I know of, the only sata drivers are intended for a sata/raid array which takes at least two drives.

 

Do you have Win XP x32 or x64? Because if you installed SL first, didn't you change the Bios to AHCI and HPET 64? Maybe the HPET wont' matter, but that is why I used both OS x64 versions.

 

I don't think that Win XP had support for AHCI until SP2. So is your install cd slipstreamed to include SP2 or better SP3 (Service Pack)? You may have an XP cd that doesn't support AHCI.

 

Also your Memory spec looks weird to me, you say 6GB but shouldn't it be 12GB total? And it looks like you have it installed weirdly also. You should keep your memory of the same kind together, in your case the 4GB should be in two consecutive slots further away from the edge of the mobo. For triple channel, you need 3 of the same kind, size etc. of memory.

 

I don't know if this is really important or not. But since you have to move the memory, I would try the Win XP install (especially if its x32, which only sees 4GB) with one 4GB stick installed. You can add the memory back in after XP is installed. I have Win 7 x64 on one drive and SL x64 on the other drive and there were no problems. Is your second drive a known good drive? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244556-3...led-controllers I think it's worth a look.

First to answer your questions about memory. On my mother board there are two channels They are staggered, they are not togther. If I put my chips together I would have one on one channel and one on another and not get the benefit of a dual channel config. This is how the motherboard instructed to set it up. They make the me slots in colors yellow/red/yellow/red.So you can't muck it up. Now as for the memory. I had bad memory problems with the OCZ and finally got that fixed me DL'ing memtest and running it without any operating system, just booted off of memtest.iso disc to find the errors so OCZ would send me an RMA. They were real {censored} I will not miss dealing with them!

Now for memory, I only have in the 4 gb of ram now, the Gskil I took out, just to make things simpler. So right now I have 2 sticks of 2 gb each in slots 1 & 3 which is exactly where the mobo manufacturer says to put them. I ran memtest and get zero errors., ie. There is no memory problem. The hardrive is fine I ran all kinds of tests on it. It formats, it is working! I am saying this because i don't want to go off coarse with a hardware issue when there is none.

 

Now on one of your links you provided me, someone mentioned that if it is an older version of WinXP (it is WInXP Home Edition) before service pack 2 or 3 it don't have sata drivers on it. This I know already because It already told me that. It keeps asking me to insert the sata drivers into the floppy drive A. I don't even HAVE a floppy drive, so I tried to mimic one with a usb stick. Windows is one strubborn MF!It won't accept that either. I got sata drivers form the gigabyte website, I also have the gigabyte disk that came with the computer. I am afraid to use it It may muck up something on my Bios that I have setup to run Leo.

 

I need to know how the hell I'm supposd to get a sata driver on the drive without a floppy drive?? Now I know why people hate windows! Windows will not let me eject the instlall disk while it is trying to install, so I am guessing I have to get them on the drive first somehow. And before anyone suggests making a disk in windows, I don't have windows installed. So I can't do that

 

This is one perplexing situation here. Grrr...

[jbolted]

Is there a way to mimic a Drive A floppy drive with a USB flash drive, maybe in the boot order??

 

In other words I am installing on a blank drive formatted to NTFS. My first boot priority is CD so it will boot Win XP. Does anyone know what priority windows xp looks for in a Drive A.? Does it go to the second boot priority? If so then maybe I can just change boot priority 2 to a usb floppy, and instead of using a usb floppy use a usb flash drive? with the driverset on it?.

 

Any suggestions on that idea?

[mulcyber]

Is there a way to mimic a Drive A floppy drive with a USB flash drive, maybe in the boot order??

 

In other words I am installing on a blank drive formatted to NTFS. My first boot priority is CD so it will boot Win XP. Does anyone know what priority windows xp looks for in a Drive A.? Does it go to the second boot priority? If so then maybe I can just change boot priority 2 to a usb floppy, and instead of using a usb floppy use a usb flash drive? with the driverset on it?.

 

Any suggestions on that idea?

 

The Bios boot order can be changed. Firmware upgrades that used to done through a floppy can now be done by booting to a USB stick, in my Bios, I must choose USB hard drive, which has the firmware on it. That is the extent of mimic.

 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Win...-F6-47807.shtml

Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy (F6)

 

"Thus, for those owning older mainboards with SATA support an extra step is required while attempting to install Windows XP. Windows XP does not provide drivers for all the SATA controllers, therefore, during the installation procedure, the user must insert a floppy with the drivers that came in the package along with the motherboard.

 

Not a big deal, not much effort, but the funny thing is that a great number of people passed on their floppy drives. Under these circumstances, no floppy means the impossibility to install Windows XP on SATA (on some mainboards). The result? The installation guide simply won't detect the SATA HDD.

 

Let's take it slow. Where is the problem? We have a driver problem strictly because the SATA driver we need does not come embedded in the Windows XP installation package. What if we add the driver by ourselves before installing Windows?

 

What ingredients are involved in this operation? The original Windows XP Installation CD, a freeware application named NLite and a blank CD. Moreover, we need the drivers for the SATA controller provided by the manufacturer. In case you did not find any floppy inside the motherboard package or you cannot locate them on the mainboard installation CD, you can consult the manufacturer's website to download the latest versions. To do the trick I have been talking about, it is assumed that you already have a Windows installed on an IDE drive. In case you don't, pay a visit to a friend and ask him to let you use his computer. It won't take too much time, I guarantee." [instructions included]

"The new CD will be the twin copy of the Windows Installation CD but with one difference, it includes the SATA driver."

 

mulcyber: This is called slipstreaming although that term usually applies to integrating a Service Pack.

I think getting a copy of Windows 7 Pro x64 is the much easier way of resolving this.

[jbolted]

The Bios boot order can be changed. Firmware upgrades that used to done through a floppy can now be done by booting to a USB stick, in my Bios, I must choose USB hard drive, which has the firmware on it. That is the extent of mimic.

 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Win...-F6-47807.shtml

Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy (F6)

 

"Thus, for those owning older mainboards with SATA support an extra step is required while attempting to install Windows XP. Windows XP does not provide drivers for all the SATA controllers, therefore, during the installation procedure, the user must insert a floppy with the drivers that came in the package along with the motherboard.

 

Not a big deal, not much effort, but the funny thing is that a great number of people passed on their floppy drives. Under these circumstances, no floppy means the impossibility to install Windows XP on SATA (on some mainboards). The result? The installation guide simply won't detect the SATA HDD.

 

Let's take it slow. Where is the problem? We have a driver problem strictly because the SATA driver we need does not come embedded in the Windows XP installation package. What if we add the driver by ourselves before installing Windows?

 

What ingredients are involved in this operation? The original Windows XP Installation CD, a freeware application named NLite and a blank CD. Moreover, we need the drivers for the SATA controller provided by the manufacturer. In case you did not find any floppy inside the motherboard package or you cannot locate them on the mainboard installation CD, you can consult the manufacturer's website to download the latest versions. To do the trick I have been talking about, it is assumed that you already have a Windows installed on an IDE drive. In case you don't, pay a visit to a friend and ask him to let you use his computer. It won't take too much time, I guarantee." [instructions included]

"The new CD will be the twin copy of the Windows Installation CD but with one difference, it includes the SATA driver."

 

mulcyber: This is called slipstreaming although that term usually applies to integrating a Service Pack.

I think getting a copy of Windows 7 Pro x64 is the much easier way of resolving this.

 

I think your right. Because I do not have a running version of windows installed anywhere. I do have an old ide drive a 30 gb drive , but I am not sure how mixing ide and sata would work on my rig. LikeI said I don't want to muck up my Leo. It

s just that every time an update comes out, it's like playing russian roulete. If ya know what I mean. Maybe I should just use time machine and just keep cloning my drive now to the other drive. Does that work. I know its a different forum topic but just curious.

 

BTW ~ thank you for your answer about mimicking a floppy drive. You answered my question.... it will not work with a USB flash drive huh? Shame that would solve it. Also my firmware is fine I am not mucking with that. The one I have is working fine. : ) Corection.. I thought you meant my Bios. Is FE and has been upgraded form a previous one. I have the disk that came with the gigabyte mobo, I'm just afraid it will downgrade my bios. The boot order and all of the other changes are not a problem for me I just don't want to lose FE.

[mulcyber]

I think your right. Because I do not have a running version of windows installed anywhere. I do have an old ide drive a 30 gb drive , but I am not sure how mixing ide and sata would work on my rig. LikeI said I don't want to muck up my Leo. It

s just that every time an update comes out, it's like playing russian roulete. If ya know what I mean. Maybe I should just use time machine and just keep cloning my drive now to the other drive. Does that work. I know its a different forum topic but just curious.

 

BTW ~ thank you for your answer about mimicking a floppy drive. You answered my question.... it will not work with a USB flash drive huh? Shame that would solve it. Also my firmware is fine I am not mucking with that. The one I have is working fine. : ) Corection.. I thought you meant my Bios. Is FE and has been upgraded form a previous one. I have the disk that came with the gigabyte mobo, I'm just afraid it will downgrade my bios. The boot order and all of the other changes are not a problem for me I just don't want to lose FE.

 

I was giving an example of something you could do with a usb stick that used to be done with a floppy = "mimic", it had nothing to do with you actually flashing your bios. I don't think it will work with XP, your idea = http://www.pendriveapps.com/virtual-floppy-drive/

 

------------------------------------------

 

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsys...allxpnew1_3.htm

The Windows Setup screen will appear and a number of files and drivers necessary for the setup process will load.

 

Toward the beginning of this process, a message will appear that says Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver.... As long as you are installing from a Windows XP SP2 CD, this step is probably not necessary. On the other hand, if you're installing from an older version of the Windows XP installation CD and you have an SATA hard drive, you will need to press F6 here to load any necessary drivers. The instructions that came with your new hard drive should include this information. For most users though, this step can be ignored.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916196 [some USB floppy drives are listed/supported in Txtsetup.sif]

 

Problem: A connected USB floppy disk drive does not work when you press F6 to install mass storage drivers during the Windows XP installation process.

 

Answer: This issue occurs if the USB floppy disk drive is not supported for use during Windows XP installation. To be supported in this situation, the drive must be listed in the Txtsetup.sif file."

 

USB emulation mode to floppy. I think that a 512mb usb pendrive might be treated as a usb floppy,

 

 

USB Emulation Mode

 

Common Options : Auto, Force FDD, Force HDD

 

Quick Review

 

This BIOS feature determines if the USB flash drive should be treated as a floppy disk drive or a hard drive. Of course, it only comes into effect if you have a USB flash drive plugged into your computer's USB port when it boots up.

 

When set to Auto, USB flash drives that are less than 530 MB in size are automatically emulated as floppy disk drives. USB flash drives larger than 530 MB in size will be treated like hard disk drives.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

You could try usb emulation to floppy in Bios, if you have it. Format the usb stick with FAT32. Load the drivers that you think this needs, (Sata Preinstall/F6?). Try your Win XP install again and see if F6 works/substitutes. I doubt that it will.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f15...fix-251422.html

[mulcyber]

I think your right. Because I do not have a running version of windows installed anywhere. I do have an old ide drive a 30 gb drive , but I am not sure how mixing ide and sata would work on my rig. LikeI said I don't want to muck up my Leo.

 

Keep your SL drive unhooked. Change your sata to ide in Bios. Install XP IDE on your second drive.

Then build or obtain your slipstreamed integrated package with SP3. This is a legal/corporate method.

Burn the cd or dvd. Now disconnect IDE and change Bios back to sata. Connect your XP to be, sata drive. This should install Win XP without F6 because the drivers you need should already be contained in your slipstreamed cd you built. After the install is complete, hook up SL. Add SL to the XP bootloader or add XP to Chameleon. Check to see which drive is active. If you don't have money to afford the easy solution, then elbow grease will have to compensate and it's a fairly major project, so you may need to use Google. Also buying one of the recommended (in link) usb floppy drives may also work, and is cheaper and might save some work. Have you backed up your SL install?

[jbolted]

Keep your SL drive unhooked. Change your sata to ide in Bios. Install XP IDE on your second drive.

Then build or obtain your slipstreamed integrated package with SP3. This is a legal/corporate method.

Burn the cd or dvd. Now disconnect IDE and change Bios back to sata. Connect your XP to be, sata drive. This should install Win XP without F6 because the drivers you need should already be contained in your slipstreamed cd you built. After the install is complete, hook up SL. Add SL to the XP bootloader or add XP to Chameleon. Check to see which drive is active. If you don't have money to afford the easy solution, then elbow grease will have to compensate and it's a fairly major project, so you may need to use Google. Also buying one of the recommended (in link) usb floppy drives may also work, and is cheaper and might save some work. Have you backed up your SL install?

 

This is all a matter of sata drivers for the sata disk drive. Wouldn't my gigabyte CD i got with my motherboard install them onto the drive?

 

If anyone has a gigabyte mobo can you answer this question for me?

And of coarse I always unhook my leo drive when mucking around with anything windows. Chameleon should pick up XP after install is complete. I should just be able to rehook my leo drive, hit a key to choose a drive, after a successful XP install. I can afford a floppy drive but I'm not wasting a dime on one.

 

Lets just say for petes sake that I just built a computer with a blank sata drive in it. No software at all. I have a Win XP disk that is before the SP2 update...wouldnt the gigabyte mobo disk instlall the drivers on the disk for me?

[mulcyber]

This is all a matter of sata drivers for the sata disk drive. Wouldn't my gigabyte CD i got with my motherboard install them onto the drive?

 

If anyone has a gigabyte mobo can you answer this question for me?

And of coarse I always unhook my leo drive when mucking around with anything windows. Chameleon should pick up XP after install is complete. I should just be able to rehook my leo drive, hit a key to choose a drive, after a successful XP install. I can afford a floppy drive but I'm not wasting a dime on one.

 

Lets just say for petes sake that I just built a computer with a blank sata drive in it. No software at all. I have a Win XP disk that is before the SP2 update...wouldnt the gigabyte mobo disk instlall the drivers on the disk for me?

 

No.

All the mobos work the same way, you install the XP OS and then you run the vendor cd update.

No.

 

XP with SP3 I'm sure, maybe SP2 comes with the sata drivers. If you have drivers that are not included in the OS then you add them with F6. After you are done, you still run the vendor driver cd, chipset, lan etc.

Why do you think people are writing webpages about how to get around not having a floppy drive and having a copy of WinXP that was released before there was sata support included. Those newer XP install cds include dozens of other potentially needed drivers needed for installation.

 

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-029958.htm

 

Description:

 

I can't install the AHCI or RAID driver on Microsoft Windows XP* using the F6 installation procedure because my system does not have a floppy drive.

 

Solution:

There are two ways to resolve this issue.

Attach a USB floppy drive.

 

Create a bootable copy of the Microsoft Windows XP* setup disk that includes the RAID drivers. This is called slipstreaming. Then, re-run the setup with the slipstream version."

 

Besides RAID drivers, you can install any other drivers you need in the slipstreaming process. Don't get confused because it says RAID. I installed Windows XP with SP3 today and i saw a lot of drivers being loaded prior to the XP install and I don't have a RAID array, but I do have Sata and AHCI.

 

Hundreds of people ordered systems without a floppy drive and all of them with an old copy of Win XP were out of luck = no F6. That's why these either expensive or elaborate workarounds were invented. It wasn't because nobody could conceive of your idea, it's that computers don't work the way you are imagining. I think there are probably only 2 or 3 users out of every 500 on this forum who have ever completed a successful XP slipstream, most have never heard of it, so you are lucky a solution was found for you. Were you thinking that the drivers on the vendor cd were identical to the utility of the F6 drivers?

[jbolted]

No.

All the mobos work the same way, you install the XP OS and then you run the vendor cd update.

No.

 

XP with SP3 I'm sure, maybe SP2 comes with the sata drivers. If you have drivers that are not included in the OS then you add them with F6. After you are done, you still run the vendor driver cd, chipset, lan etc.

Why do you think people are writing webpages about how to get around not having a floppy drive and having a copy of WinXP that was released before there was sata support included. Those newer XP install cds include dozens of other potentially needed drivers needed for installation.

 

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-029958.htm

 

Description:

 

I can't install the AHCI or RAID driver on Microsoft Windows XP* using the F6 installation procedure because my system does not have a floppy drive.

 

Solution:

There are two ways to resolve this issue.

Attach a USB floppy drive.

 

Create a bootable copy of the Microsoft Windows XP* setup disk that includes the RAID drivers. This is called slipstreaming. Then, re-run the setup with the slipstream version."

 

Besides RAID drivers, you can install any other drivers you need in the slipstreaming process. Don't get confused because it says RAID. I installed Windows XP with SP3 today and i saw a lot of drivers being loaded prior to the XP install and I don't have a RAID array, but I do have Sata and AHCI.

 

Hundreds of people ordered systems without a floppy drive and all of them with an old copy of Win XP were out of luck = no F6. That's why these either expensive or elaborate workarounds were invented. It wasn't because nobody could conceive of your idea, it's that computers don't work the way you are imagining. I think there are probably only 2 or 3 users out of every 500 on this forum who have ever completed a successful XP slipstream, most have never heard of it, so you are lucky a solution was found for you. Were you thinking that the drivers on the vendor cd were identical to the utility of the F6 drivers?

 

Yes that was my exact question. I thought the utility CD from the mobo would put the drivers on the disk before i installed my version of WinXP before the SP2. So you answered my question, it won't. Thank you for understanding my dilemma. Your original advice was a good one ... To get Win 7 and forget about XP. As for now I am going to look for a topic on using time machine, with the other drive. That would cover me in case of a disastrous apple software update right?

[mulcyber]

Yes that was my exact question. I thought the utility CD from the mobo would put the drivers on the disk before i installed my version of WinXP before the SP2. So you answered my question, it won't. Thank you for understanding my dilemma. Your original advice was a good one ... To get Win 7 and forget about XP. As for now I am going to look for a topic on using time machine, with the other drive. That would cover me in case of a disastrous apple software update right?

 

If you're going to sometime have more than 4GB of ram, then get Win x64, because Win x32 only can use 4GB.

 

I use free Carbon Copy Cloner instead of time machine because it seemed like more people recommended it.

All the backups for OS X work better with a disk formatted to the same format as Hackintosh, HFS+

The upgrade to 10.6.7 is supposed to be safe, if you apply usbrollback before rebooting. I talked to somebody

today that didn't have a backup of 10.6.6 and upgraded to 10.6.7 , and now his screen resolution is lousy.

[jbolted]

If you're going to sometime have more than 4GB of ram, then get Win x64, because Win x32 only can use 4GB.

 

I use free Carbon Copy Cloner instead of time machine because it seemed like more people recommended it.

All the backups for OS X work better with a disk formatted to the same format as Hackintosh, HFS+

The upgrade to 10.6.7 is supposed to be safe, if you apply usbrollback before rebooting. I talked to somebody

today that didn't have a backup of 10.6.6 and upgraded to 10.6.7 , and now his screen resolution is lousy.

 

I reformatted the drive I was going to use for windows, to GUID partition same as the one I'm on, and I did a Carbon Copy Clone of the drive to the source drive. The only thing it don't copy over is the boot partition. So I'm guessing if an update goes bad on this drive, I should be able to hit a key during chameleon booting and boot off of the cloned drive? Yes or No? I apologize, if I went off topic here. If I move the topic will you look for it so we can continue to chat?

[mulcyber]

I reformatted the drive I was going to use for windows, to GUID partition same as the one I'm on, and I did a Carbon Copy Clone of the drive to the source drive. The only thing it don't copy over is the boot partition. So I'm guessing if an update goes bad on this drive, I should be able to hit a key during chameleon booting and boot off of the cloned drive? Yes or No? I apologize, if I went off topic here. If I move the topic will you look for it so we can continue to chat?

 

It depends, I use the backup everything method. A person should test a backup, to see if it's good.

You will need a /boot on your cloned drive which Chameleon installs. I think the /boot can be copied

from your currently working drive. Also boot1h should be on your root partition /. You might have to

turn on showhiddenfiles. I'm not sure that the drive needs to be marked as active. I'm best at answering

questions about dual-booting, so I think you would be better served starting a new topic and see if you

get some answers from better qualified Hacksters. Backups have to tested, I know that. Good luck. I

suppose your target drive was smaller than your source drive, which rules out the block method I guess.

[jbolted]

It depends, I use the backup everything method. A person should test a backup, to see if it's good.

You will need a /boot on your cloned drive which Chameleon installs. I think the /boot can be copied

from your currently working drive. Also boot1h should be on your root partition /. You might have to

turn on showhiddenfiles. I'm not sure that the drive needs to be marked as active. I'm best at answering

questions about dual-booting, so I think you would be better served starting a new topic and see if you

get some answers from better qualified Hacksters. Backups have to tested, I know that. Good luck. I

suppose your target drive was smaller than your source drive, which rules out the block method I guess.

 

In answer to your last question: No the drives are of identical size 500GB each. I was informed a while back that, it is a tricky swap of the boot sectors. Do it wrong and your mucked. But CCC will only copy over the files on your hard drive. The boot sector is not, even visible to CCC. It is a seperate partition.

[mulcyber]

In answer to your last question: No the drives are of identical size 500GB each. I was informed a while back that, it is a tricky swap of the boot sectors. Do it wrong and your mucked. But CCC will only copy over the files on your hard drive. The boot sector is not, even visible to CCC. It is a seperate partition.

 

http://www.bombich.com/software/docs/CCC/e...lore/clone.html The CCC webpage.

The developer writes:

"Cloning an entire volume to another volume can be achieved in two ways: 1) Copying every file individually from one volume to the other or 2) Copying the underlying blocks from one volume to the other. ... In block-copy mode, CCC omits absolutely nothing from the backup task. In fact, it isn't even possible to omit files from a block-level copy."

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_Cloning

 

Cloning an entire hard disk

"From physical disk /dev/sda to physical disk /dev/sdb

 

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

This will clone the entire drive, including MBR (and therefore bootloader), all partitions and data."

[Dellmantt]

http://www.bombich.com/software/docs/CCC/e...lore/clone.html The CCC webpage.

The developer writes:

"Cloning an entire volume to another volume can be achieved in two ways: 1) Copying every file individually from one volume to the other or 2) Copying the underlying blocks from one volume to the other. ... In block-copy mode, CCC omits absolutely nothing from the backup task. In fact, it isn't even possible to omit files from a block-level copy."

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_Cloning

 

Cloning an entire hard disk

"From physical disk /dev/sda to physical disk /dev/sdb

 

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

This will clone the entire drive, including MBR (and therefore bootloader), all partitions and data."

 

The pertinent point here is that you must be booted from aTHIRD drive

 

" benefit from a block-level copy for a volume-to-volume clone, the following criteria must be met:

 

You must choose to "Delete items from the target that don't exist on the source" during the clone.

You must be able to unmount both volumes (there cannot be any open files on either volume and you cannot be booted from either volume)."

[mulcyber]

The pertinent point here is that you must be booted from aTHIRD drive

 

" benefit from a block-level copy for a volume-to-volume clone, the following criteria must be met:

 

You must choose to "Delete items from the target that don't exist on the source" during the clone.

You must be able to unmount both volumes (there cannot be any open files on either volume and you cannot be booted from either volume)."

 

No, that was not the pertinent point. JBolted wrote, and tried to make this point:

"But CCC will only copy over the files on your hard drive.

The boot sector is not, even visible to CCC. It is a seperate partition."

 

I was not giving instructions, but refuting his claim, so that my point which I underlined was,

"This will clone the entire drive, including MBR (and therefore bootloader), all partitions and data."

 

Your statement is true, and I already provided a link to the CCC documentation where it was

written and I had stated that the block-level method was the method under discussion.

 

I think all the complete and total clones work from a third device, even if its a floppy/cd/dvd. But

I don't see how that makes JBolted's claim even remotely truer, and that claim was yet again,

 

"But CCC will only copy over the files on your hard drive.

The boot sector is not, even visible to CCC. It is a seperate partition."

 

Because a source drive is being cloned to a target drive, and that adds up to two drives,

and for the block-method you need a 3rd device, what does that have to do with, or how

does it make it true that "CCC will only copy over files on your hard drive"? CCC is a utility

that provides two methods, file or block, and block was the focus, because it will be bootable.

 

Do you know how to change the order of appearance of the boot icons in the Chameleon GUI

display of available partitions? A B C D=default and I want A C D B=default choice.

[Dellmantt]

Without getting into an argument OK..What you said is what the documentation at CCC site does say. And you did quote the link and some of the text, not what I would consider a very important point which is what I highlighted.

Anyway I tried and it and failed. Would be interested if you or anyone else has success copying the boot loader over with this method.

 

Chameleon..Never changed the boot order..just hidden partitions (some time ago).

You should find it here.

Chameleon bootloader documentation:

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/board,1.0.html

[mulcyber]

Without getting into an argument OK..What you said is what the documentation at CCC site does say. And you did quote the link and some of the text, not what I would consider a very important point which is what I highlighted.

Anyway I tried and it and failed. Would be interested if you or anyone else has success copying the boot loader over with this method.

 

Chameleon..Never changed the boot order..just hidden partitions (some time ago).

You should find it here.

Chameleon bootloader documentation:

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/board,1.0.html

 

I never used that particular command, dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror before, but I think it will work. Because I've seen at least a dozen utilities that will backup your mbr and then restore it. And it has a dd command line for 512 bytes, which I then output to a linux.bin and put into Windows XP boot.ini so I could boot Linux from WinXP.

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186590 they call it bit-bit here and vouch for the dd command. In school they called it sector-by-sector.

 

Anyway, I've done a complete clone several times. Western Digital had one for WD drives which worked really quickly. I've used Acronis with success, my tech friend uses Ghost, I used to use DriveImage which was made by the same company as Partition Magic before Norton ruined them. I remember vaguely I once had a problem with UUID which was involved. Bootit NG is the best program I know of for working on MBRs.

 

Thanks for the link. I looked around there first and I've tried Default Partition in both /Extra com.apple.Boot.plist and there is another one in SystemConfiguration with no luck. Well, it will give me something to do. I think that dd command will work for you. I'll bet you a coffee on it.

Make sure the target drive is equal or larger and wipe everything including the mbr, in case you have ever used the drive before. I use Pinguy for a live linux cd. I think Gparted might work.

After this weekend I have to buy another hard drive and can't test it myself yet. Another thing, is to unhook the source drive when you are done and just test the target drive. One can also clone a partition to another partition, but if it's on the same disk, maybe it causes a UUID problem, I can't remember anymore. Are you sure that you used the block-by-block CCC method and not the file way?

 

You say boot loader. Do you mean that 200mb EFI partition. Chameleon is the boot loader, two files on the drive at / and boot0 goes to the MBR.

 

"Backing up the MBR

The MBR is stored in the the first 512 bytes of the disk. It consist of 3 parts:

The first 446 bytes contain the boot loader.

The next 64 bytes contain the partition table (4 entries of 16 bytes each, one entry for each primary partition).

The last 2 bytes contain an identifier

To save the MBR into the file "mbr.img":

# dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img bs=512 count=1

To restore (be careful : this could destroy your existing partition table and with it access to all data on the disk):

# dd if=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img of=/dev/hda

If you only want to restore the boot loader, but not the primary partition table entries, just restore the first 446 bytes of the MBR:

# dd if=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1.

To restore only the partition table, one must use

# dd if=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img of=/dev/hda bs=1 skip=446 count=64".

You can also get the MBR from a full dd disk image.

#dd if=/path/to/disk.img of=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img bs=512 count=1 "

 

That is another way of knowing that the MBR gets captured in the identical full drive clone.

One can extract the mbr from that disk image.

[Dellmantt]

I know all that. Including how to be careful backing up. Belts & braces etc including a bootable backup off site.

 

I don't use MBR, I use GUID (yes for Windows too)

 

The EASY way on a Hack is to use CCC (because it gives more choices than TM or DU) then install Chameleon. And as you said earlier, TEST.

[mulcyber]

I know all that. Including how to be careful backing up. Belts & braces etc including a bootable backup off site.

 

I don't use MBR, I use GUID (yes for Windows too)

 

The EASY way on a Hack is to use CCC (because it gives more choices than TM or DU) then install Chameleon. And as you said earlier, TEST.

 

I found a really ugly workaround for my Chameleon default boot partition menu.

 

Rememer I said something about cloning and UUID and also testing? If you are interested

in geeky solutions (other than leaving the drive unhooked), I found the issue explained here,

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=678629

The last two posts, 8 & 9, by Tact were insightful.