[atramos]

I had been running Bootcamp + Windows XP for a while on my Mac Mini.

Then I decided to upgrade the original 5400RPM drive to a zippier 7200 RPM...

I'm glad to report that:

1. The new drive, a 7200RPM Hitachi 7K100 (100GB version), is a whopping 4x faster than the original Matsushita 5400RPM 80GB that came with the Mini. (26 MB/s versus 6.5 MB/s, according to free "Cosbi OSMark" benchmark).

2. Thanks to this forum, I found out about BartPE and Drive Image XML and was able to successfuly clone the Windows XP partition from the old drive (which I attached via a USB enclosure) to the new drive, and EVERYTHING worked! All Windows XP applications, settings, and device drivers fully restored as if nothing ever happened.

A couple of lessons learned:


1. XP's own "Backup" utility is the most useless backup scheme ever created. Although it has this fancy Volume Shadow Copy feature which allows it to backup system files while they're in use, it has no such functionality on the RESTORE side of the house... So all those system files that were neatly and cleanly backed up CANNOT be restored to their original locations on the system drive, after you've managed to boot up with a barebones install, because all of those same files are locked by the barebones system on which you're trying to run the restore.


2. Attempts to use Ghost 9.0 to clone the partition failed with a mysterious error message about cylinder alignment, about which no further information could be found at the Symantec website. I suspect something in the MacOS's overall drive partitioning scheme confuses this obviously obsolete piece of software.

[Tomchu]

Throw that benchmark away. There's no way that the drives themselves would score 6.5 MB/s vs. 26 MB/s. My MacBook Pro's 80 GB/5400 RPM/SATA drive can do a sustained 33 MB/s read. I would peg both your drives at at least around 30 MB/s.

In any case, excellent work. I've been tempted to upgrade my MBP to a 7200 RPM drive, but they're still quite pricey.

[ghporter]

Congratulations on your hard drive upgrade. Your "transplant" is remarkable-most people consider it a success if they can simply start Windows, let alone have any programs move across and work.

The Backup utility expects you to recover system files from the Recovery Console (boot XP, hold F8 for boot options-if you installed RC, or boot from the install CD and select RC during the install's startup sequence). Of course it's not going to do what you're talking about because Microsoft figured if you could get it to boot, you don't need those files!

Ghost expects a standard Windows partition table-which your Mac does NOT have. Ghost is, unfortunately, useless here.

CarbonCopy Cloner should make an exact image of any partition on your Mac's drive, even if it's a Windows partition. Go with that.