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Win7, disk imaging, vmware

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4wd:
Next, for the disk imaging applications... I followed  the link to the Paragon Drive Backup site and registered for a license code. There was no download there, so I though I was supposed to grab the trial. Looked nice, features were good etc, but no place to enter the license code, and thus I couldn't test the backup functionality. Considered whether I had to grab the files from #2 site in 4wd's first reply (which doesn't feel 100% right since it's not Paragon's own site), but I only got ~20kb/s from there, so I uninstalled and rebooted... and then my system was hosed, because the uninstaller for some reason had removed the 32bit MS VC++ runtimes from my system, wtf? Fortunately I was still able to use explorer.exe to locate some random application that had decided to bundle the runtimes in it's own install folder and copy to %WINDIR%\SysWow64... phew.-f0dder (May 13, 2009, 06:39 PM)
--- End quote ---

Must have been just the trial that does that because I've uninstalled the full PE version at least twice over the last 2 weeks, (trying to find whatever new program that hosed my NIC), and both times the system still kept booting fine afterwards, (oh, and it was some stupid network thing I installed for a look-see that hosed my NIC not DB9).

Now that I think about it, I believe I got DB9PE through GiveAwayOfTheDay, sorry my error.

4wd:
OK, the results of restoring Win7 from a VM to a completely different real hardware configuration are: [Drum roll]..............Complete failure

I finally managed to get a full restore done after doing another backup in VPC using no compression.  The restore operation on the Acer took over 2hrs for some reason, (going from a VPC with a 2.7GHz Athlon7750BE to a laptop with a P4 2.4GHz), but it did fully work.  Although it would've have been faster to install from scratch.
I've got no idea why the earlier restores kept failing at the same file since the amount I was restoring is only about 1/8 the size of the backup/restore operations I was doing earlier in the week on a real PC.

Unfortunately, when I tried to boot the Acer into Win7 it complained of software/hardware changes and recommended inserting the installation disc and doing a Repair - which I did.
The repair searched for existing installations and found there was a problem with the Startup and offered to fix them - OK, I said.

After that, it just kept saying there was problems with starting Windows due to possible software/hardware changes whenever I tried to boot.

At that point I decided it didn't work.

So, as the nun said to the priest, "Bummer!"

Maybe the hardware config was too radically different for Win7 to cope with because there's bound to be the limit of how many hardware items you can change before copy protection kicks in.

Then again, I could get a completely new computer with that much money ;D
-Lashiec (May 13, 2009, 06:19 PM)
--- End quote ---

For that much money I could build two decent computers  8)

patthecat:
For the disk imaging part, try the offerings from  Terabyte Unlimited (www.terabyteunlimited.com) which I have been using for several years now.

Image for Windows (which includes Image for Dos/Linux createable bootable media if you buy IFW) is reasonably priced compared to other imaging programs, not bloated, and can also be installed on server OS.  Support forums are pretty active.  I know versions from the past few months introduced support for VM.


patrick

4wd:
And just in time to help in this endeavour:

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite -

Adaptive Restore - A powerful and unique technology that allows you to restore Windows Vista to completely different types of hardware or even to virtual machines.

Shades:
@4wd:
Probably a year ago I downloaded and used a free tool from VMware that is able to take a normal PC and turn it into a virtual machine for VMware. The wizard that comes with this software really works. Would you be able to tell me which are the possibilities of conversion from the Paragon suite?

Since my experience with Virtual PC's is not that extensive and most of that knowledge is based on the (free) VMware server product, I cannot say if the VMware alternatives also supply a similar product or that these alternatives can convert/read a VM created by a different VM manufacturer (although I keep hearing good stories from VirtualBox).

[rant]
By the way, do not try the free VMware server 2.x, I did and besides losing 150MByte of RAM just to run the web-based server interface (thanks to Java's http server: Tomcat) it also states that if you change existing VM's to a higher version, rendering these VM's useless on anything lower than VMware server 2.x!  Although this VM "upgrade" is not required, it is recommended by the software.

None of my 8 perfectly functioning VM's (in VMware server 1.x) was able to initiate using VMware server 2.x. [/rant]

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