Duplicate system drives

[emulator]

Hi All...

 

We have been investigating using Retrospect to migrate data from Windows system drives that are filling up to larger drives. Normally, we would use a program such as Norton Ghost to clone the smaller drive to its larger replacement. Using Retrospect seemed like a good idea, as the user can continue using the the affected computer while the Retrospect copy is underway. We simply hook up the larger drive to another computer running the Retrospect client or to the Retrospect server itself via a USB enclosure.

 

However, there is one caveat that we found when using Retrospect in this way: Retrospect does NOT set the destination volume as "active". This means that this volume will not allow a computer to boot into Windows. To correct this, we performed the following steps.

 

Note: the steps outlined below should be performed on the destination drive.

 

1. Once the duplicate operation is complete, go into Windows Disk Management.

 

• Right click "My Computer" and select "Manage".
• Expand "Storage", and click "Disk Management".

 

2. On the right side of the console, right-click the destination drive (the drive onto which Retrospect duplicated the smaller drive) and click "Mark Partition as Active". This will tell the system that this drive is now bootable.

 

3. Install the new drive and boot.

 

On a side note, is there any way to tell Retrospect to make the target drive "Active"?

 

Thanks!

[Mayoff]

Retrospect can not change the drive to "active". Retrospect only copies the data, it can't change settings on the disk or in the data itself.