freddy333 Posted September 7, 2009 Report Share Posted September 7, 2009 I need to replace 2 Western Digital 40GB EIDE hard drives in a BSD server and I usually use Norton Ghost to image the data from each of the existing source drives over to the new target drives. However, I am having trouble finding inexpensive replacement EIDE drives, so I am considering upgrading to SATA. I can get a pair of 80GB SATA drives, but I am not sure if EIDE-to-SATA is compatible when using Ghost? So, before I buy the SATAs, does anyone have direct experience Ghosting from an EIDE source drive over to a SATA target drive in the same PC? TIA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbchubb Posted September 8, 2009 Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 I'm not using Ghost but Acronis True Image however I have cloned EIDE disks to SATA disks via an external USB to SATA connector. True Image was running from a bootable CD, the EIDE was inside the PC the new SATA connected via USB. I later added a PCI SATA controller card to the PC and switched the disks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 Thanks for the reply. I know a SATA controller card is needed to connect the SATA drives, but I am worried that the new card &/or change of drive types will end up causing booting problems since BSD was installed onto EIDE drives via the motherboard's built-in IDE controller. Whenever I have changed booting hardware in the past, I always end up with an unbootable system & the fix usually comes down to either of 2 options - reinstalling the original drives or rebuilding everything from scratch onto the new drive hardware, which is not an option this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted September 8, 2009 Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 As long as the PC BIOS can see the drives you should be fine with Norton Ghost. I no longer use Ghost. Instead I use, and have successfully cloned a 160 EIDE to 160 SATA using both: DriveImage XML - http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm and PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) - http://ping.windowsdream.com/ HTH, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted September 8, 2009 Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 One more thing since you are using BSD. You can simply use "dd" at the command line. Get "all" the drives showing up. dd if=/dev/hdx of=/dev/hdy That is an oversimplification, but Google DD and drive image as well. My vote is still for "PING" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 Thanks, Ronin. Unless 1 of the other utilities offer something substantial that Ghost does not offer, I might as well use Ghost since I already have & am familiar with it. While dd will theoretically do the job, I have always found drive swapping to be more efficient & safer when done from the cluster level vs the OS. Less chance of missing files (that may be in use or locked) or inadvertently having something modified that causes problems later. As long as the drives are compatible with Ghost & the motherboard, I have never had any problems using Ghost. Based on the responses, it sounds like my original plan (to image/swap the EIDEs over to SATAs via Ghost & the addition of a SATA controller) should work. Thanks for all your input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadtorrent Posted September 8, 2009 Report Share Posted September 8, 2009 I haven't used BSD...and have switched to Acronis these days rather than ghosting. I've successfully imaged and restored EIDE to EIDE and SATA (via USB) to EIDE and SATA (via USB) to EIDE with no problems. I'm using Windows XP...the only issue being that after restoring, having to reassign boot drive through the BIOS and removing the source drive from the connection so the boot sequence doesn't get screwed up and confused. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Update - I borrowed a copy of Acronis & was able to clone the old WD 40gig EIDE drive onto a new WD 160gig EIDE drive, but, now, BSD will not boot. When I cloned the existing 40gig drive (from a previous 20gig drive), the system restarted just fine. But, now, I get No /boot/loader >>FreeBSD/i386boot Default: 0:ad(0,a)/kernel boot: No /kernel Obviously, the boot loader is missing, but I do not understand why it did not get cloned along with everything else. Also, how do I get it installed without damaging or losing any of the existing data on the drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadtorrent Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Let me ask one of my support guys if they have experience with this. It should copy things directly as a byte-to-byte copy of the drive and not as a file to file so content should not be an issue. This is an older link, but may be of use. Acronis and BSD Boot Loader Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Yes, when I have cloned these drives in the past (using Norton Ghost), that is the way it worked - everything, including BSD's loader, got cloned to the new drive. That is why I am confused here. Obviously, the loader did not get cloned. I remember there is a manual way to install it, but it has been far too many years since I dabbled in BSD to remember how to do it. But it has not been so long that I can still remember the last time I tried to do something like that (when I was not sure of what I am doing) and ended up losing data or screwing up the complete install, which I cannot risk this time. So if you (or anyone else) know how to get the system started, please let me know (and thanks). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Oh, your disk name will have changed. Damn. It's probably change from ad0 to sa0 if memory serves, as BSD uses a SCSI driver to handle SATA disks. Off the top of my head, I can't remember the boot commands to manually load the kernel, but it's doable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Thanks, Pug. But both discs are EIDE, so the drive assignments should be exactly the same. The only hitch is that the original 2 40gig EIDE drives were configured as a mirrored RAID & I cloned each of the 2 40gigers to a new 160gig EIDE drive while disconnected from the RAID card. But, again, this is the exact procedure I used when I cloned the existing 40gigers from the previous 20gigers, so it ought to have worked. Not sure why it did not? (Originally, I was switching over to SATA drives, but when I 1st ran into the booting problem, I figured it had to do with the differing drive assignments, so I returned the SATA drives & swapped them for the current 160 EIDEs to, theoretically, make things easy.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Thanks, Pug. But both discs are EIDE, so the drive assignments should be exactly the same. The only hitch is that the original 2 40gig EIDE drives were configured as a mirrored RAID & I cloned each of the 2 40gigers to a new 160gig EIDE drive while disconnected from the RAID card. But, again, this is the exact procedure I used when I cloned the existing 40gigers from the previous 20gigers, so it ought to have worked. Not sure why it did not? So the drive is a copy of a working drive, in the same slot as the working drive booted from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Exactly. Everything is the same & in the same physical & logical locations. The only things that differ are the new drives' physical sizes & drive serial numbers, neither of which should cause BSD to be unable to lose the boot loader. It does not make any sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HaloArchive Posted September 20, 2009 Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 There is an option in Acronis on how to copy the files over; either by chunks or byte for byte. Also, it is best to set the speed of the copy to as slow as possible so the drive does not accidentally skip over any data. I do not remember what it is called; plug around in the help files. Norton Ghost would have worked though because it uses older EIDE/SATA protocols and nothing would have been lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 If I recall correctly, the choices in Acronis were copying by clusters (which I selected) or by files. I only tried Acronis after Ghost (which always worked before) failed to clone bootable drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted September 20, 2009 Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 Hmm, coming in late, sounds like you are past the issue by going back to EIDE, but I am guessing the bootloader needed adjusted from: ad(0,a) or hd(0,a) to -> sd(0,a). Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader SATA: 0:sd(0,a)/boot/loader Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 Thanks, Ronin, but I am actually back with EIDEs. Same error, same problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted September 21, 2009 Report Share Posted September 21, 2009 Wow, so if I have this straight even the new EIDE are causing the same issue. ??? Question: Is this, or was it ever part of a dual-boot system. (i.e. Grub/LiLo or Windows MBR)? Since you are dealing with a *nix operating system, if you have time to kill, you might want to try a *nix based imager like PING. PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) - http://ping.windowsdream.com/ I have never had an issue using this to image drives and move specifically to larger drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2009 I have always used Ghost (successfully) to clone the drives (the present 40 gig drives were the 3rd such set cloned using Ghost) in this machine. After running into this booting issue, I tried Acronis, but with the same issue. So I do not think it is the cloning utility, but I will give ping (which I have used before) a try & report back if anything changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted September 22, 2009 Report Share Posted September 22, 2009 Understood. Ok, out of curiosity, could this be as simple as a jumper issue on the physical drives. CS vs Master vs Slave. I have had drives set to CS do some ODD things. Other than that, like you, I am scratching my head... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted September 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2009 No, not jumpers. It is obviously related to the cloning process, but having gotten similar results with 3 different approaches, I am still stumped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadtorrent Posted September 22, 2009 Report Share Posted September 22, 2009 No news on my end. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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