Another Disk Cloning Issue

From your description, it sounds like the 750 is configured same as 500 except for the expanded size.

One thing you might check would be to go into the BIOS and change the boot order so the first choice and only choice is the 750 hard drive without the 500 connected. I have seen some issues if the first choice was usb or cd, it would not boot into the hard drive. My thought is to make the hard drive the only choice. Also, you may have to make the 750 to be the boot drive choice if no choice made by the bios.

Another possibility would be to make a backup of the 100 MB partition on the 500 and restore the backup onto the 100mb on the 750. Maybe assign a drive letter to the old 100mb and run a
chkdsk x: /r (where x is a drive letter temp assigned to the old 100mb partition)
on the old 100mb partition before doing the backup. Don't forget to remove the temp drive letter from the old 100.

Hello Grover, thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, it looks to me that the 750 is configured the exact same. I compared the Disk Manager screens side by side; and I copied the Partition info in the post above; and the 100mb SRP has the exact same parameters.

The boot order in the BIOS has always been HD first, then CD/DVD and then USB. After the drive clone, I unplugged the external HD, and removed the CD; so the HD was the only option. Now, I haven't tried to delete the other two boot options from the Bios, but I don't think that would do anything since HD was always the first boot option.

I could try to do a backup, and restore; but if I go that route (which I had planned on anyway), I'm going to try to restore both partitions.

I'm hesitant to do anything to the original drive; as it's working fine - and there's a LOT more to this story. DiscWizard is actually the third backup technique I've tried that has failed. I've tried Win7 Backup/Restore, Ghost v15 Backup/Restore and Seagate DiscWizard clone now; and all of them failed. All of them fail in a different way though; for instance Ghost v15 goes to a black screen with BOOTMGR is missing. I think the Win7 was a OSLoader missing or error. The DiscWizard is the unmountable_boot_volume.

What this means, is I don't have any successful backup/recovery method right now (in my mind) so if anything happens to my primary HD, I'm totally hosed - and I work on my computer for a living, so I can't afford to screw up my main drive (which is currently working fine...)

You might consider trying one more thing.

Retry the clone onto a clean 750 and use the Manual "as is" mode. If successful and disk is bootable it would be very easy to expand the right partition to gain the additional 250GB in space. This could be done with a minimal amount of effort. First things first.

If the Disk wizard offers the "add disk"option, use that to delete the 750 partitions; otherwise, use diskpart to clean the 750 so he next clone starts out as all unallocated.

Edit Added:
If boot successful doing the "as is" clone, here is link on how to expand right partition boundary.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/34367#comment-106459

Thanks Grover. I will do that. In the meantime, I normally use an external drive to run VM's. I was planning on upgrading that drive too. What I did for the short term is that I used my 750GB drive to upgrade my working external drive (which hasn't been part of any of these attempts thus far.) What this allowed me to do is clear off 100GB worth of data off my existing C drive. (In another discussion, it was recommended that I free up some HD space.)

I've got two more 750GB drives on the way. (One was going to be the upgrade for my external drive, and one was going to be a new backup drive.) So, this means I'm currently stuck until I receive those two drives; as I used my 750GB drive for my new external upgrade.

My plan is, I will do an "as is" clone onto the first of those two 750 drives. Hopefully that works, and I'll use Partition Magic to expand the C partition.

I can then play with the second 750GB drive to test backup and restore for either Ghost and/or DiscWizard to verify I have a viable recovery solution for the future.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and expertise, and I'll let you know how it goes. (Hoping to have the drives soon, so I can attempt the clone over the weekend...)

brainwavesap,
If you are referring to the older "Partition Magic", I would avoid its use on the newer drives and use one of the newer partitioning tools--there are several good free ones.

Sorry, I was referring to the tool you linked to PartitionWizard. I had used a program called Partion Magic a long time ago, and just mis-typed...

Okay, so I got my new drives, and I just tried to do an "As Is" clone. Unfortunately, just after selecting the "As Is" option on the move page, I get an error: "Failed to move the selected data. Make sure that your new HD is not smaller than your old one and your partitions do not contain errors. You can check for the errors and correct them using a special utility."

I tried both my new HD's (both 750GB's, and both of them gave the same error.) Note: The source is 500gb. I did some online searching, and it looks like this person had the same problem (and it looks like they are using the exact same two hard drives as me (trying to copy from a 500 to 750GB; even looks like same model number hard drives.)
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/DiscWizard-and-MaxBlast/Problem-cloning-ne…

Note: The new drives weren't even partitioned yet, so doubtful they had errors (very unlikely that both of them do.) My old drive has been chkdsk'ed, so that doesn't have errors. And finally, my new drives are 750GB which is definitely bigger than my old source drive which is 500GB.

Any thoughts?

In the meantime, I'm trying a sector-by-sector backup (using the backup functionality on DiscWizard instead of the Clone functionality); and I'll try a restore when that is completed...

Thanks for any info!

Are you booted into the TI bootable Media? If not, do so.

Did you use the "add disk" option to on the disks before attempting the restore. If not , do so from the TI bootable media.

Examine the label on the 750 and see if these are the AF (Advanced format) drives?

Additional help can be found here.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/29618

A sector by sector backup is usually not required. A normal full disk option backup should suffice.

Yes, I booted from the TI bootable media. The destination 750 GB was installed IN my laptop, and I pulled the source 500 out of the laptop, and had it in an external enclosure.

I did not do an "add disk" option. I don't know what that is. (This is from memory, but I think there was something about adding a large HD; but I thought that was only for 2tb or greater.)

I did look on the label of the HD, and there is an AF logo on the label, so I would assume yes, it's an Advanced Format drive. What does that mean? Is that why the drive clone is failing?

The link you provided has quite a bit of info. Was there something in particular you wanted me to look at? (I've looked at your replacing with a larger disk, about restoring one partition at a time. Seems like quite the hassle. I'll go there if I need to.)

I did a sector-by-sector backup (as I figured it might be a good thing, and I didn't get your reply before I started it.) However, since the restore was to a bigger drive; it didn't let me select my destination drive if I clicked on a sector-by-sector restore. However, if I unchecked the sector-by-sector restore, it allowed me to select my (then still uninitialized) 750GB drive. The restore completed successfully, and it looks like the new drive is working fine so far; and it even expanded the C drive partition for me. I've done a little bit of testing, and all is executing good. The Disk Management console looks good, and I've run a utility and compared the starting/ending sectors of my original drive and this one; and it looks good (system partition is same sectors on both drives. New C drive starts at same position as the old, but goes to the end of the drive.)

So, my only question, is do you have any concerns with me doing a sector-by-sector backup, and restoring without sector-by-sector? Seemed to have worked, and I made sure to turn on the optional verify image setting on both the backup and the restore (by clicking on the options settings). I'm assuming since those verify's seemed to work, and the restore seemed to work (i.e. my image is working fine so far), that I should be all set...

Thanks again for your info!

No concerns. The important thing is that it seems to have worked. The new AF drives are changing some of the procedures we have successfully used in the past so we are learning more about what works (or does not work) with these new AF drives.

Do recall whether you selected the "Recover disk signature" option. This would have been in the bottom left corner of the same screen where you selected the 750 as the target. The purpose of this option is to help identify the disk as being the same disk as was used for identification of some programs. TI, Adobe and others use this. Depending upon your software, this may or may not be an issue. If you have program which require the re-input of serial numbers, etc in order to work, let us know.

The links were provided so you would be successful each time you need to do a restore of the type covered by the guides. When restoring a backup to the 750, you will be using either #2 or #3--most likely so do take the time to read those in detail. Very unfortunately, there is a posting on the forum whereby the user restore his Drive C backup onto what he thought was drive C in the restore procedure. He overlayed the wrong partition with no backup of the overlayed partition. A user mistake. Do take the time to label your drive C if it does not have a label. I like to include the drive letter as part of the volume name such as
Win7__C

If I understood correctly, you used the free Seagate disk wizard to restore your drive?

While it seems to have worked; I'm getting some weird behaviors with Windows on the new drive. Have been able to fix some of them. The first thing that happened was that I got a popup message saying it couldn't install drivers for an unknown device. I checked device manager, and there isn't any unknown devices, and it looked fine.

Then, I couldn't access something, and traced it back to Windows Update not being able to read the log file. (Can't remember the specific issue I had.) Found a post on the internet; saying to rename the log file as admin, and then reboot. Did that, and got Windows Update checking things again (didn't find any updates as I was already up to date.) (I think this came about as I was checking the event logs.)

Today, I just had another issue where I couldn't connect to the internet. Traced it to permissions issues with firewall and it's associated services. Tried a couple things until I found an article which added admin privileges to LocalService and NetworkService. That seemed to have worked, as my network started working again.

Then, just about an hour ago, the system locked up while playing a youtube video (sound continued as just a straight tone, and no response; even to ctl-alt-del.) Had to hard power down the system.

All this has me a bit concerned about the future stability of the system (and whether the copy really worked okay.)

As for your other points:

Yes, I did check the "Recover Disk Signature" option.

Yes, I used the free Seagate DiscWizard program. Got the latest one from the Seagate Website, which I think was labeled 14387.

These problems are usually a result of cloning a standard sector size drive (512 bytes/sector) to an AFD advanced format drive (4KB /sector). (Your 500GB Momentous drive could be either, but your results suggest a standard format drive.)
Your system uses an intel chipset and controller. You need to run the Intel chipset update utility and install the Intel RST (if needed, but try to install anyway) on your system while the old hard drive is in place. Also you need to run a hotfix from Microsoft on the system as well (before cloning).
This is documented in another post.
Intel chipset update utility: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/20775/eng/infinst_autol.exe
Intel RST driver/utility: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/21730/eng/iata_enu.exe
Microsoft Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018 (please download and run the appropriate one for your system (32bit / 64bit)

Additional info from previous post: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28776

Thanks James.

So both of the intel utilities and the hotfix need to be done on the old drive BEFORE the clone? That could be an issue; as now I've been running for around a week; so now my system has new info and data files. Will be a royal pain to merge it. If you think that's what I need to do, then I guess I need to figure it out (backup my folders to an external drive, put in the old drive, run the utilities, do a new backup, restore to the 750GB again, and then maybe try to figure out what files have changed in the past week (there will be many, as I work from home) and copy them to the new clone.

What a pain. Makes sense why I was having so many issues with other copy/cloning programs though...

Let me know your thoughts...

You can install all three items after the fact, but you may still need to do some additional work to get Windows back in order. Namely the search index rebuild (mentioned in the post linked above), and possibly the Windows Software Distribution Data Store. See this for help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058#LetMeFixItMyselfAlways

The issues/problems with standard format to AFD format drive cloning/restores is not specific to Acronis. Proper planning and knowledge ahead of the cloning/restore operation is best. Since this is a fairly recent change to hard drives, it is becomming more commonplace for these issues to arise.

After installing the iata_enu.exe, my system no longer boots. I tried to do this on my new system, as it was important for me to try to fix it as I don't really know all the files I updated over the past week. It gets to the starting windows screen, and then reboots. This royally sucks, as now I lost all the work and the e-mails I did this past week; and I'll have another almost sleepless night trying to recover from this...

Boot your system up and press F8 to get to the Windows startup options screen, select last good known configuration, and reboot. Windows should boot up fine. Did you install the chipset update utility first?

Yes, I updated the chipset utility first.

I tried F8, and tried the last known configuration. It didn't work. Went to the starting windows screen, then just blacked out; never booted.

I tried F8, and tried booting up into safe mode, and get a blue screen with unmountable boot volume error.

Trying to do a windows recovery now, from my recovery CD.

I'm REALLY hesitant to attempt these utilities on my 500GB drive now, as if I lose that, I won't have any way to do work...

Two other things, I don't know if it makes any difference at this point. I tried to use the intel detect link from your instruction post; and it came up with "unknown device" messages for all (display, chipset, etc.) I looked at the Device manager, and it IS an Intel Graphics and CPU; so I just wrote that off that it wasn't working correctly (and I was hoping running the utilities would fix it.)

Second, you say to install the Intel RST (I think that is the iata file) if needed. If I have the old drive in there (without AF), then will it be "needed"? Wouldn't that have to be installed after you are on the new drive?

I'm sorry you are having problems with this. I have used the same procedure dozens of times on systems like yours, and others, and have never run into the problems you are experiencing. I am especially surprised that the F8 last known configuration did not help. I hope the Windows 7 recovery CD can get you started again.

The Intel RST is a driver/utility program that supplies the newest correct drivers for the Intel controllers. It may not be necessary on your system, but usually will not even install if not needed. Like any other driver software, you should be able to update it at any time. The reason that the RST driver is normally installed is to have the latest drivers on your system. The older drivers for RST (Matrix Storage Driver) did not support AFD drives properly. When performing a clone/restore it is best to have the current RST version for your chipset installed ahead of time, along with chipset updates, graphic card updates, etc. The one file that definitely should be installed before cloning is the MS update for AFD drive support.
Do not install anything on the old hard drive, unless you have a full backup that you can restore from. Based on your issues, a backup and restore procedure would be best, not a clone, if you have an additional hard drive to work with.

Okay, here's where I'm at.

I could not recover my most recent 750gb drive from the windows bootup issue. However, I WAS able to connect it externally to my second computer (the one I'm using to type this) and it looks like I'll be able to get the data off that way. I'll just have to try to remember which files I modified since 8/23; or maybe there some sort of search that will tell me that. Hmm. Need to research. The only file I'm concerned about is my e-mail. I'm going to try to copy my whole outlook .pst file, but I'm worried there might be some corruption as the file is 4gb. I'm going to look for a scan utility to verify the contents; and will keep my old .pst file as well, until I verify the new one is good.

The nice thing is that I have another 750GB drive to play with; so I can keep that (now bad) 750GB drive around for a bit.

I put in my original 500GB drive. When I made my original backups of my 500gb drive on 8/23, I had made both a ghost backup, and a seagate discwizard backup. I believe both of those are still good (but both of those went to a new WD 2TB drive; so those might be AF drives as well - so I'm concerned a little that I have a recoverable backup.) At this point, even though I think it's because of the AF issues, I don't really have a tried and true backup.

My plan is that I was going to assume the two backups that I already have are good, install the Windows hotfix you specified, then install the two intel drivers. However, upon doing research on the hotfix, it looks like there was a Win 7 SP1 which wasn't installed on my system. (Based on my computer properties.) I was debating installing it, but when I tried multiple things, and couldn't get it to show up in my Window's Update - I figured I'd just leave it alone as I don't want to break things since now I'm working back on my original 500 and I don't have a verified backup of that...

I tried to just install the hotfix, from the link you gave; and it had me download a Windows Genuine Validation tool. Upon running that tool, I got a message saying that tool was not valid - to either download the latest version from Microsoft (which is what I just did), or fix my system clock (which was set correctly.) After poking around a bit and coming up blank, I did a bigger search on Windows Update, and the hotfix was under the optional updates. I installed the KB982018 hotfix, and it installed successfully (thankfully.)

I didn't know my plan anymore, as after the windows issue (not being able to find SP1 in Windows Update), I didn't want to install those drivers and possibly screw up my main 500gb drive. So I just started a full virus scan last night and it's finishing now.

I think I'm going to try to get another backup of my 500gb drive, prior to installing those two intel drivers, and then getting another 500gb backup afterwards - and I'm going to try to do both of those onto non-new non-AF drives. The only issue is that to do so, I will need to do it over USB; which is much slower - and I'm in a time crunch, as I need to do my work today.

So, I'm going to use my computer today, try to remember any files that I modify today (and copy them to an external USB key, just in case), and then run a backup to a non-AF drive tonight. Those backups usually take 10 hours, so I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything else. I'll then work again tomorrow, and save my files to an external USB again. Then tomorrow night, I try to install the Intel drivers, and then take a final backup and an Outlook export. I'll then try to restore that latest backup (with the Hotfix and two Intel drivers) to my new 750GB drive and hopefully things work well. If so, I install the files from the USB key, install the PST file from the corrupted 750GB, then install the export of Outlook. That should get me as close as I can be to a salvaged system. Do you see any issues with this plan? (Aside from the obvious ones of me having to work on my 500GB drive without a verified backup...)

As far as backup image files (not clones) being stored on AF drives, that is not the issue. It is the recovery to, or clone of, non-AF drives to AF drives. I would think that the Windows hotfix for AF drives should be enough on its own to allow a succesful backup/restore or clone. I would definitely do a new full disk based backup before applying the Windows 7 SP1 (or any other driver updates) , but would recommend doing so if not installed (you can check for SP1 by clicking on the start button and typing "winver" and pressing enter. It will show as Windows 7 ver 6.1 build 7601 Service Pack 1), as it contains numerous fixes and updates to Windows 7 core functionality. There will also be more updates from Microsoft after the SP1 install. As far as the Intel drivers, there are two versions of the RST driver/utility. The one I suggested (which I assume(d) to be correct), and an older one that provides support for a few more older Intel chipsets (but not some of the newer ones). Please take a look at device manager (under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers) and post your findings before attempting to install the RST drivers again. The chipset update utility should not be an issue. We need to be sure that the current RST driver includes support for your controller /chipset. If not, the older version will have to be used.
Because you have installed the 750GB drive that is not bootable and have access to it under Windows, you can edit the registry of the Windows installation on that drive and remove the RST drivers manually if you are comfortable doing so. This could allow booting back up on that drive.

Glad that the backup images I have should be okay.

I did a WinVer, and it's saying v6.1(Build 7600); so SP1 isn't on there. This confirms what I had seen (found an article that said click start, right click computer and select properties. That shows no SP1 as well. I don't know why SP1 isn't showing up in Windows Update; but I'm not going to worry about it right now.

I'm assuming for the Device Manager, we are looking at the devices on my laptop; which should be regardless of the drive I have installed. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, I have ATA Channels 0,1,4,5, then a Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller - 3B2F (which shows it's an intel driver from 6/4/2009 v7.0.0.1013) and then there is a Ricoh PCIe SD/MMC Host Controller.

Not really comfortable rolling back the Win installation on that drive.

I've already made it through most of the Advanced Search by date, and have copied off most of the files I modified since 8/23. Will be working on verifying those files are okay, and moving them back to my 500gb system (so they are picked up with the next backup tonight...)

Thanks for all your help.

Oh, and in case it helps, for Processors, I have four Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU's M520 @ 2.40Ghz (Microsoft Driver, 6/21/2006, v6.1.7600.16385)
Display Driver is Intel(R) HD Graphics (Intel Driver, 3/31/2010, v8.15.10.2104)
It's a Dell E6410 laptop
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-Bit

(Note that these versions are the ones that are currently on my working 500GB drive.)

Thanks for the updates. From the Intel readme for the current version of the RST driver/utility:
AHCI Controllers:
- Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 5 Series 4 Port SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 5 Series 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) ICH10D/DO SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA AHCI Controller
As you can see this is the correct RST driver for your system. My concern was if you had an ICH8x series controller.

Looks like you are heading in the right direction. Hope things go a little smoother with your next efforts.

I hope so too. So it seems you are on board with my plan (work, backup, install Intel Drivers, work, backup, restore, pray. ;)

I actually think I already found all the changes on the corrupted 750GB drive; and I've installed them on my 500gb drive. So hopefully, I won't have to do any other restoring of files after the actual system restore; as they should be contained on the upcoming backups (assuming I don't get any errors when I try to use them; as there were two outlook files and a OneNote file which were all pretty big. I will test each of them (and still have the old file as a backup...)

Thanks again for your help!

Okay, status update.

I was able to find the files (most, if not (hopefully) all) that I modified by doing a search by date and looking through the entire corrupt 750gb drive. There were a LOT of files displaying as OS files all get touched, and I had installed Java to do the intel verify attempt. Regardless, I think I got the majority of the updated files, and copied them to a USB key, just in case I again need to go to my original 8/23 backup to restore.

I also installed those files onto my working 500gb drive, including the (verified) outlook pst mail files (one for work and home), and onenote notebooks. Thus, I think my 500gb drive is now up to date (and I've used it for a couple days of work.) I then installed the Microsoft hotfix KB982018 for AF drives; and I was going to do a backup prior to installing more OS patches, and the intel drivers. (I always install the "urgent" MS OS updates, but there are a bunch (50-ish) of "recommended" but optional fixes for MS OS/Office that I didn't install; so I figured I'd install those, and see if SP1 pops up as an option to install after that. Since the AF one was only "recommended", I want to make sure I get the other "recommended" ones in too, in case any of those are important as well...)

What I found, is that after the AF update, the drive I/O is incredibly slow. I tried to do another DiscWizard image, after putting in the AF Hotfix (and prior to putting in more OS patches and the Intel Driver updates), and the backup is now taking over 15 hours, even on eSata (used to be 11 hours on USB and 5 hours on eSata.)

I had to cancel the backup that had been running on eSata overnight (as I needed my computer to do work during the day yesterday.) I started another backup attempt last night, this time over USB; and it's been running for 17 hours now, but it's almost finished - verify process is showing 1 hour left.

Assuming this backup finishes successfully (and says it was verified), my plan is to then finish installing all the "recommended" OS patches through Windows Update, and seeing if SP1 comes up as an option. If so, I'll install that too. After that, I'm planning on installing the Intel Drivers (chipset first, then disk controller.) Hopefully that all goes well, then I'm going to run another backup onto an external 500gb drive over eSata (hopefully the new drivers will speed up the backup/recovery time.)

However, I don't understand this, as the Windows stuff shouldn't have had any effect on the backup times, should they? Since I'm backing up from the DiscWizard bootable CD, those drivers shouldn't even come into play; so I don't understand why the backup times went up so significantly... Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Secondly, for Grover. I took a look at what you suggested (#2, which is the Disk Option restore - but that points me to #1), and #3 which is the restore drive C only doc - but that doesn't look like it applies to me.) So, instead I looked at your #1 doc of restore a tih2012 backup to a larger or smaller disk. I see that you restore the partitions, one at a time, and in order; followed by the final restore of track 0/MBR with disk signature checked.

My question is, do you think I really need to do that? My thoughts are, the full disk backup and full restore seemed to have worked last time (based on the sector info of the HD and Disk Manager screen comparisons), but then windows slowly fell apart (which I'm thinking was related to the AF Hotfix that James brought up.) I'm thinking that now, since I have the AF hotfix and will have the new Intel Drivers in, I should be able to do the same full backup and manual restore process that I did last time; and hopefully it will work again, but it won't fall apart due to the OS fixes and Intel drivers? Do you guys agree? Or do you think I need to restore one partition at a time? (or do anything else differently.)

Thanks for any info!

Also note, the drive I'm going to be doing the restore on is a brand new 750GB drive, so I don't need to do the "Add Disk" option to clear off any partitions. I'll verify that the drive shows clean prior to restoring; as I always have. (I've previously used diskpart and clean to wipe out the drive...) But this time, I'll use the Add Disk screen to verify it's clean as well...

Is your AF disk aligned upon restoring? To check this, you can use msinfo32.exe, components, storage , disks. The offset of each partition needs to be divisible by 4096. An alignment problem could explain the performance issue.

Hey Pat,

Thanks for the thought. However, the performance issue is happening on my internal 500gb drive, which is not AF. I'm installing all the windows updates and such, prepping it to hopefully work for the next attempt to backup/restore to the 750gb drive.

For those keeping score, I was able to put in the Windows AF hotfix (KB982018), and get a successful backup (tho it took a while; it verified, so I think I'm good.) I also downloaded all the recommended and even many of the optional patches to get windows up to date (thinking one of them might be a pre-requisite to Win 7 SP1. However, still no SP1. Did some research and found a KB article giving reasons why SP1 wouldn't show up in Windows Update, and believe it or not, one of them was a video driver - and mine was in the range they said was an issue.

So, I then downloaded the new video and disk drivers from intel; but when it did, it gave a warning saying those are generic drivers - to check the manufacturer's website. So, I went to Dell, downloaded and installed all the most recent drivers for my laptop (which wasn't as current as Intel, but the video, chipset, audio, storage and more were newer than the versions I had.) I installed all the Dell drivers, and then more Windows updates showed up, including SP1. I've installed all the Windows updates, and most things are now looking pretty good.

So I'm prepping for doing the next test of re-image and restore. The only couple of questions I had is I found this:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/555/DriverDetails/DriverFileF…
Essentially, Dell has a firmware update, for the exact drive that I'm trying to install/use: ST9750420AS. I called Dell, and they said to install the firmware on the new drive (booting from USB, to install the firmware, prior to doing the restore), and then re-install the storage drivers after the restore image is done.

Dell's re-imaging doc also mentions a sector alignment tool. However, when I go to that tool on Dell's website, it doesn't say it's compatible with E6410's; so I asked Dell, and they recommended I contact Seagate. Out of curiosity, I went on Seagate's website, and it said that there was no newer firmware updates for my drive. I called Seagate, and they said to absolutely NOT install Dell's firmware (as it's not a Dell OEM drive) and that no alignment software is necessary.

So, I'm going to go forward with just doing a backup and restore and see what happens...

If anyone has thoughts/comments, feel free to chime in.

Oh, and as far as the I/O performance, my curiosity is if it's the actual drive that's slow on I/O - as that drive seemed to be around the same backup time whether using USB or eSATA. I'm trying a different drive for my current backup process. Will see...

Very interesting information from Dell. I wouldn't update the new drive with Dell's firmware. They may have purchased a batch of drives from Seagate that had issues and it may only pertain to the drives they purchased. Seagate uses firmware (Seagate SmartAlign) in their drives to correct/prevent sector alignmet issues. You can still run alignment software on Seagate drives, but it may not change the drive performance.

So the drive performance thing looks like it turned out to be the combination of two things. The first is drive performance. That older drive is just not performing well (it's the one that took 17 hours.) However, I put in a new(er) WD Black, and it cut the estimated time down to 9 hours. This was still much longer than the previous Ghost and DiscWizard times through eSata though. However, I figured it out. The DiscWizard backup I did the first time was sector by sector; so by default there was no compression.

I was told by Seagate specifically to NOT use sector by sector copy (as well as Grover said it wasn't necessary too, but that was after I already had done it.) When you do not check sector by sector copy; the default is to do compression, which is what caused the time elongation (or at least that's what it's looking like right now.) After I selected the No Compression setting, my estimated times are back down to around 4 hours with eSata.

I plan on doing some drive speed testing to verify afterwards, but right now, I'm concentrating on hopefully getting my system up and running...

Thanks again guys!

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let you know that it looks like things are all working well now. I was able to get all up to date on all Dell Drivers as well as Windows Updates - including SP1 (and did NOT install the Dell Firmware for my HD.) I then did a backup and restore, and initial tests are working out well. Had an issue with my mouse scrollwheel not working, and a spinning process, and traced it to be Microsoft's Mouse and Keyboard Center. I uninstalled that, and everything is looking good now.

Just wanted to say thank you again to everyone; especially Grover and James for all the info! Much appreciated!

Take care,
A.J.

I'm glad this worked out for you.