Re: Xpress Recovery2 -The Saga nearly ended!


"Anna" <myname@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Mickey Mouse" <somewherein@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Multi-partitioned system.

Ok, here's the last part, this time I'm going to use the same
hypothetical system as last time.
I'll create two partitions C:300Gb & D:430 and install XR2.
If your system has two physical drives then make sure that the drive
which will hold the system files C: is drive (0).
Mb or Gb numbers I show here are fitional, but close enough and doesn't
matter, they won't impact on this installation.

Make sure the bios is set up to boot from CD.

1 Insert the XP installation disk and power down.
2 Power up and boot from CD, when asked.
3. At the XP Setup Screen delete any and all partitions.
4. Unpartitioned space will be shown, press <C> to create a partition.
5. Enter the size in MB how large you want C: to be; here 300000Mb and
press <Enter>.
6 You will then see on the next screen the C: is 300000Mb & the rest
'Unpartitoned Space'.

You could now create a D: partition but we won't. Just press Enter on
the highlighted C: partition to install Windows.

7. On the next screen, format the partition. "Quick" if you want to
save some time.
XP will continue to install, let it install completely.
8. When XP is installed load and install your drivers including your VGA
driver if it comes on a seperate cd.
9. Remove the cd from the cdrom and reboot.
You now have an installed Windows XP system.

A look at the Disk Manager will show, C: Drive(0), appx. 300Gb Healthy
(system) and appx. 450Gb of unallocated space.

10. Insert your mobo disk and power down.
11. Power up and press F9 at the appropriate time to install XR2

The Xpress Recovery2 Screen will appear giving you the options to
'Backup','Restore', 'Remove' or 'Boot' or similar.
Do not 'Remove' - Press Backup! and it might ask to 'Overwrite the
Existing Image' - Say YES.
When you say YES you will see 'BACKUP NOW' on the screen. It is now
creating the image, and creating it's own
protected partition. When the image is created, (of your C: partition
including the system files) and saved into it's own partition
it will then reboot your system back to XP.
At this point you may remove your mobo disk and store it.
What you have done so far is created a C: partition, formatted it,
installed Win XP and installed Xpress recover2.
If this is your first time, then congratulations.

Now we need to create our D: partition.

In Windows go to the Disk manager: Start> right click 'My
computer' > manage > Disk management

You will see that Drive(0) is C: appx 300Gb and an amout of unallocated
space appx 446Gb. and another new partition of appx. 4Gb. This is your
image partition.
What we need to do now is to take some of that unallocated space and
turn it into D:, but leaving enough unallocated for XR2
to utilize when making further backups (to add to the already made
image). Having trouble? Read slower.

Ok, so we are in disk Management.

12. Left Click on the unallocated section and digonal lines will appear.
13. Now Right click it and select "New Partition" and "The Partition"
Wizard will appear.
14. Click 'Next', A screen 'Specify Partition Size' will appear.

"Remember now that XR2 requires some of the unallocated space, so leave
some of the unallocatted space after creating the D: partition.

Now our existing backup partition is appx 4 Gb, leave enough
unallocated space, say, 16Gb (16000Mb) after creating D: for XR2 to
use. This gives XR2 16Gb + the already used 4Gb to play with (20Gb).
I my opinion, that's more than plenty."

In step 14 above we specify 430000Mb (430Gb), Press Next
15. Assign it the next available drive letter (which depending on your
system may not be 'D' but doesn't matter). Press Next
16. 'Format Partition' Don't change anything here except select,
'Perform Quick Format' and Press Next
17. Click 'Finish' on the 'Partition Wizard'
Now look again at the Disk Manager. You will have two partitions for
your use, some unallocated space and finally, the backup partition.

If you've made an error calculating the size of your 'New Partiton' and
haven't left enough unallocated space, then you can select the 'New
Partition' and delete it. This will put all the unallocated space back
together and you can start over from step 12.

This has been as much a learning experiance for me as I hope it's been
for you and hope you find it helpful.
It's wriiten with the newbie in mind.
Thanks to all those who inputed in this thread. I feel I've made some
good friends, for that, thankyou.

Mickey


"Edward W. Thompson" <thomeduk1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Are you implying that XPR2 can only be installed on a new installation?
In my case I am just about to 'upgrade my existing setup using a new
Gigabyte board. I intend to simply install the new hardware and plug in
the existing SATA HDDs (3) all loaded, run WINXP repair and with luck all
should be well (load all appropriate new software of course). Now if I
want to use or try XPR2, what do I do?

I have ample free 'space' on the HDD on which XP is installed (haven't
checked yet whether it is Drive (0)) but the drive is fully partitioned.
I assume I need to shuffle data around and create some 'unallocated'
space on that drive and proceed as you described. Does the unallocated
space need to be adjacent to the C: partition where WINXP resides or
doesn't it matter?


Edward (and Mickey if he's tuned in)...
As you may have seen from this continuing "saga", I indicated to Mickey
that I was planning to build a desktop machine this week using one of the
newer Gigabyte motherboards. So I would take the opportunity to install
and work with their Xpress Recovery2 program. Actually I've installed
scores of Gigabyte system boards but I never installed nor worked with
that XR2 program. Primarily because (as I mentioned to Mickey when we were
discussing the Acronis & Casper programs) that I'm simply not comfortable
with the idea installing a backup-type program on the *same* physical HDD
a user would be planning to restore should that be necessary. The obvious
question being "What if the HDD involved becomes defective? What then?"
Obviously there would be no way to access the backed-up contents, right?

But setting that scenario aside, Mickey makes the point that the XR2
program would be particularly valuable for a user who has no use, i.e.,
"desire", to maintain a third-party backup system. That all they want is a
simple one-click operation (the "magic dust" solution) that will restore
their system to a bootable, functional state in the event of a corrupted
OS that results in an unbootable or otherwise dysfunctional system. So
perhaps Mickey is on to something here and this XR2 could prove useful to
those types of users (who I readily admit are plentiful!). This, even
though I did my best to convince Mickey of the simplicity of the Casper 5
disk-cloning program.

Anyway, for what it's worth here's my experience with the XR2 program (at
least based upon "playing around" with the program for the first time...

1. As Mickey (and Gigabyte) recommend, when fresh-installing the XP OS the
user would set aside on his or her HDD 10 GB of unallocated disk space.
Should the XP OS been previously installed and the disk contains no
unallocated disk space (or considerably less than 10 GB of unallocated
space), the user could use a partition management tool such as Partition
Manager or that (freebie) EASEUS Partition Manager program to free-up the
suggested 10 GB of unallocated disk space.

2. Upon the next boot the user would then install/access the XR2 program
by simply pressing the F9 key during bootup and then click on the Backup
button. The program will then go through the process of backing up the OS.

3. Just to test the program, after fresh-installing the OS and adding a
few programs & other data to the HDD - the total data contents on the HDD
came to about 6.5 GB.

4. When the user desires to backup the OS at some later date, the user
could again press the F9 key to access the program and backup the current
OS. It took the XR2 program about 42 minutes to backup 5.6 GB of data
(apparently the OS files). Not exactly a speed demon! Keep in mind I was
working with a system with a high-end Gigabyte board, an Intel Quad-Core
processor, and four GB of RAM.

5. I deliberately corrupted and/or deleted a number of system files so
that the system could not boot.

6. To restore the system the user presses the F9 button and then selects
the Restore process. The restore process (in our example) took
considerably less time to complete compared with the backup operation -
about 24 minutes -, but we're not normally concerned with that time. The
crucial point, of course, is whether the restore process will be
successful in returning the system to a bootable, functional state.

7. After verifying that the system was indeed unbootable, I rebooted and
pressed the F9 key. Sure enough the system was returned to a bootable,
functional state and as far as I could tell all programs, data, etc. were
returned intact.

I tried the above twice, and both times experienced no problems with the
backup/restore operations (aside from the inordinate amount of time the
program needed to backup the OS).

Assuming the program is reliable, it may be the kind of backup program
that will prove useful to some users who desire only a simple backup
program (as Mickey has pointed out) to return their system to a bootable,
functional state when the OS becomes corrupted for one reason or another.
Presumably those users are uninterested in working with a more
comprehensive backup system that would be used with some degree of
frequency. Or the program may hold some allure for users who also want a
secondary backup system involving their OS. Since only a relatively few
gigabytes are needed for the XR2 program this could be a consideration.
Anna

Thanks Anna, especially the info on time to backup and restore using XR2.
While I am somewhat paranoid over backup, I think life is simply to short to
bother with XR2 when alternatives such as Acronis and others are so simple
and quick and provide better security, that is backing up to external and
other internal HDDs.
I appreciate the possible attraction to XR2 by those who are 'software
illiterate' but XR2 is only a part of the 'solution' if it is confined to
creating backups to the same drive to which the OS is installed.
Thanks to all contributors for a very interesting thread.


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