InvisiBill
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,608
Note that none of this is really anything new. I just thought I'd throw together a bit of info about what I did to get my current stuff onto my new X25-M G2 with properly aligned partitions.
I currently use XP x64 with four partitions on my drive. I have an unattended install setup that puts the main system files on C:, my profiles and other user data on D:, and Program Files and other apps on E:. F: is the remainder of the drive and acts as generic file storage. On a disk, this partitioning can have a minor negative impact, as you're forcing data to different sections of the drive. Even if C: and D: aren't full, you still have to go beyond them to get apps on E:. I mitigate this by having very small C: and D: partitions, while gaining the benefit of easy backups and rebuilds.
At least for now, I decided that I wanted to put my C: and D: partitions to the new SSD and mount the remaining space as a folder on my E: drive for apps that I wanted to speed up. The basic plan was to copy the existing partitions, hide the old ones, and put the SSD on the first SATA port and move the disk down to the second one.
I started by plugging the SSD into the eSATA port on the existing system. I initialized the SSD as MBR in the standard Windows Disk Management console. I ran diskpar (see this OCZ thread) and created a 10GB partition with a starting offset of 1024 sectors to align the partition with a block boundary.
I then used techspec6's partition alignment spreadsheet and W1zzard's Online SSD Alignment Calculator to verify that the partition really was properly aligned.
Next I created the second partition back in the Windows Disk Management console. I pulled up its info, and the alignment calculator told me that it was not correct so I deleted the partition. Since diskpar only works on clean disks, I needed to find a different way to create the remaining partitions that would allow for proper alignment.
I booted up PartedMagic 4.6. I saw the first partition created by diskpar. I created a second partition with the GUI. It's designed like Parition Magic, and is somewhat similar to the Disk Management console's interface. It simply asks for a partition size and how much free space to have before it. I put in the same 0 and 50GB that I previously entered in Windows. I also made sure to uncheck the option to round it to a sector size. I then made a third partition out of the remaining space. I had PartedMagic apply the changes and I rebooted to Windows to double-check the partition details with diskpar.
Diskpar showed that PartedMagic without rounding had maintained the alignment and started the new partitions on block boundaries. I now had properly aligned partitions of approximately the correct size created on the SSD. Because the start and end points were arranged slightly differently, the new partitions were not exactly the same size as the originals. I wasn't sure if my tools would properly align the partitions simply by copying them, so the minor size mismatch didn't really bother me.
I used BartPE and Drive SnapShot to actually copy the data. These aren't necessarily the best tools for the job, but I'm very familiar with them. The basic BartPE build plus your SATA drivers should be enough to access the drives. I used Drive SnapShot's backup function to make copies of my original C: and D: partitions to free space on the disk. It does compress the backups and only backs up the actual used space, but you will need some temp space other than the SSD to do it this way. After the backups were made, I restored them to the partitions on the SSD. Drive SnapShot copied the data to the new partitions with no issues, despite the minor size differences. To keep things simple, raise the default backup file size in the advanced options so that a single file can hold the entire partition backup. Disabling hashing should speed things up since this is just a temporary backup copy rather than part of an actual backup solution.
Once the data was on the new partitions, I booted back into PartedMagic. I changed the flags on the partitions to make the new C: on the SSD bootable, and changed the old C: and D: partitions to hidden. I then rebooted and was able to start Windows as usual, but from the SSD this time. Once inside Windows, I was able to map the third SSD partition to an empty folder on my E: drive by essentially following the second half of this guide (since the partition already exists, you don't need or want to recreate it with Windows).
I was left with my main OS files running off the SSD, plus some space for other apps I want to speed up. I was able to do this without having to reinstall or alter my current partitioning scheme.
Note that I was learning during this process and ended up doing a lot of booting back and forth. It's very possible that some of these steps could be consolidated. Also, I'm not extremely proficient with Linux, so it's also possible that some of these steps could be done right from PartedMagic rather than needing to boot back into Windows for something minor. FYI, PartedMagic shows partition details in sectors - multiply those values by 512 (at least for this drive) to get the values in bytes for entering into the alignment calculators.
I currently use XP x64 with four partitions on my drive. I have an unattended install setup that puts the main system files on C:, my profiles and other user data on D:, and Program Files and other apps on E:. F: is the remainder of the drive and acts as generic file storage. On a disk, this partitioning can have a minor negative impact, as you're forcing data to different sections of the drive. Even if C: and D: aren't full, you still have to go beyond them to get apps on E:. I mitigate this by having very small C: and D: partitions, while gaining the benefit of easy backups and rebuilds.
At least for now, I decided that I wanted to put my C: and D: partitions to the new SSD and mount the remaining space as a folder on my E: drive for apps that I wanted to speed up. The basic plan was to copy the existing partitions, hide the old ones, and put the SSD on the first SATA port and move the disk down to the second one.
I started by plugging the SSD into the eSATA port on the existing system. I initialized the SSD as MBR in the standard Windows Disk Management console. I ran diskpar (see this OCZ thread) and created a 10GB partition with a starting offset of 1024 sectors to align the partition with a block boundary.
I then used techspec6's partition alignment spreadsheet and W1zzard's Online SSD Alignment Calculator to verify that the partition really was properly aligned.
Next I created the second partition back in the Windows Disk Management console. I pulled up its info, and the alignment calculator told me that it was not correct so I deleted the partition. Since diskpar only works on clean disks, I needed to find a different way to create the remaining partitions that would allow for proper alignment.
I booted up PartedMagic 4.6. I saw the first partition created by diskpar. I created a second partition with the GUI. It's designed like Parition Magic, and is somewhat similar to the Disk Management console's interface. It simply asks for a partition size and how much free space to have before it. I put in the same 0 and 50GB that I previously entered in Windows. I also made sure to uncheck the option to round it to a sector size. I then made a third partition out of the remaining space. I had PartedMagic apply the changes and I rebooted to Windows to double-check the partition details with diskpar.
Diskpar showed that PartedMagic without rounding had maintained the alignment and started the new partitions on block boundaries. I now had properly aligned partitions of approximately the correct size created on the SSD. Because the start and end points were arranged slightly differently, the new partitions were not exactly the same size as the originals. I wasn't sure if my tools would properly align the partitions simply by copying them, so the minor size mismatch didn't really bother me.
I used BartPE and Drive SnapShot to actually copy the data. These aren't necessarily the best tools for the job, but I'm very familiar with them. The basic BartPE build plus your SATA drivers should be enough to access the drives. I used Drive SnapShot's backup function to make copies of my original C: and D: partitions to free space on the disk. It does compress the backups and only backs up the actual used space, but you will need some temp space other than the SSD to do it this way. After the backups were made, I restored them to the partitions on the SSD. Drive SnapShot copied the data to the new partitions with no issues, despite the minor size differences. To keep things simple, raise the default backup file size in the advanced options so that a single file can hold the entire partition backup. Disabling hashing should speed things up since this is just a temporary backup copy rather than part of an actual backup solution.
Once the data was on the new partitions, I booted back into PartedMagic. I changed the flags on the partitions to make the new C: on the SSD bootable, and changed the old C: and D: partitions to hidden. I then rebooted and was able to start Windows as usual, but from the SSD this time. Once inside Windows, I was able to map the third SSD partition to an empty folder on my E: drive by essentially following the second half of this guide (since the partition already exists, you don't need or want to recreate it with Windows).
I was left with my main OS files running off the SSD, plus some space for other apps I want to speed up. I was able to do this without having to reinstall or alter my current partitioning scheme.
Code:
---- Drive 1 Geometry Infomation ----
Cylinders = 9729
TracksPerCylinder = 255
SectorsPerTrack = 63
BytesPerSector = 512
DiskSize = 80023749120 (Bytes) = 76316 (MB)
---- Drive Partition 0 Infomation ----
StatringOffset = 524288
PartitionLength = 10485760000
HiddenSectors = 1024
PartitionNumber = 1
PartitionType = 7
---- Drive Partition 1 Infomation ----
StatringOffset = 10486284288
PartitionLength = 52428800000
HiddenSectors = 20481024
PartitionNumber = 2
PartitionType = 7
---- Drive Partition 2 Infomation ----
StatringOffset = 62915084288
PartitionLength = 17108664832
HiddenSectors = 122881024
PartitionNumber = 3
PartitionType = 83
End of partition information. Total existing partitions: 3
Note that I was learning during this process and ended up doing a lot of booting back and forth. It's very possible that some of these steps could be consolidated. Also, I'm not extremely proficient with Linux, so it's also possible that some of these steps could be done right from PartedMagic rather than needing to boot back into Windows for something minor. FYI, PartedMagic shows partition details in sectors - multiply those values by 512 (at least for this drive) to get the values in bytes for entering into the alignment calculators.