Apricorn EZ Gig II User’s Guide
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Table of contents Table of Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 6 1.1 What is Apricorn EZ Gig II? ....................................................................................... 6 1.2 What is a disk image? ............................................................................................... 6 1.3 Software usage terms and conditions .................................................................
Contents 8.1.1 8.2 Selecting image for checking.................................................................................................... 38 Creating bootable media ......................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER 9. TROUBLESHOOTING......................................................................................... 40 9.1 Recovering Apricorn EZ Gig II ..................................................................................
Introduction Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 What is Apricorn EZ Gig II? Apricorn EZ Gig II solves all backup problems, ensuring the safety of all information on your PC. Using it, you'll be able to create exact hard disk images, including all operating systems, applications and configuration files, software updates, personal settings and all of your data.
Introduction By default, Apricorn EZ Gig II image files have a “.tib” extension and can contain images of several partitions or disks. Images of large partitions or several disks could be quite large. If so, they can be split into several files that together make an original image. A single image can also be split for burning to removable media. A single image that is split across multiple CDs is sometimes called a “spanned volume.
Installation and operation Chapter 2. Installation and operation 2.1 System requirements Apricorn EZ Gig II requires the following hardware: • Pentium or compatible PC • 32 MB RAM • floppy disk drive or CD-ROM drive • VGA monitor • mouse (recommended) • free hard disk space for image files A CD-ROM drive is required to install Apricorn EZ Gig II 2.2 Apricorn EZ Gig II installation To install Apricorn EZ Gig II: 1. Insert the installation CD into your drive. 2. Follow the instructions on the screen. 3.
Installation and operation 2.4 Removing the program To remove Apricorn EZ Gig II from your PC, select Apricorn →EZ Gig II → Remove Apricorn EZ Gig II in the Programs menu. You will see a dialog to confirm the program removal. Click Yes to confirm and Apricorn EZ Gig II will be completely removed. You may have to reboot your computer afterwards to complete the task.
General program information Chapter 3. General program information 3.1 Main program window The main program window contains the menu, toolbar and the Windows XP Explorer-like interface divided into two areas. The right area contains operation icons; the left one has corresponding action descriptions, typical actions and additional tools. The main program window The menu, toolbar and menu items in the left area duplicate themselves, providing more convenience.
General program information The New Disk Deployment group includes operations required when a new disk drive is installed: • Disk Clone – transfer operating system, applications and data from the old disk to the new one Program menu The program menu line contains the Operations, Tools, View and Help items. The Operations menu changes when either an operation icon or scheduled task is selected. In the first case, the menu contains only Start Now to execute the selected operation.
General program information Disk and partition information You can change disk schemes and data representation in all schemes you see in various wizards. To the right are three icons: Arrange Icons by, Choose Details and Display the properties of the selected item (also duplicated in the context menu invoked by double-clicking objects). To sort messages by a particular column, click the header (another click will switch the messages to the opposite order) or Arrange Icons by button and select the column.
Creating a partition (disk) image Chapter 4. Creating a partition (disk) image Disk (partition) image creation means backing up all data stored on your PC. With the image, you can restore your PC after failure and protect yourself from hard disk data losses. 4.1 Selecting partitions In the Select partitions for backup window, you will see the hard disk layout of your PC. Flag a partition to select it. Flag a whole disk to select all its partitions to image.
Creating a partition (disk) image Image location selection Select the image location in the disk tree. In the File name field, enter image file name.If there's already an image file with that name, Apricorn EZ Gig II will ask if you want to overwrite it. 4.3 Selecting image file size With this step, you can specify if the program should create a single file or split it into equal smaller images. If you select Automatic, Apricorn EZ Gig II will try to decide this for every case.
Creating a partition (disk) image Image file size selection If You work with removable media, the size of a file of an image is set automatically only. FAT16 and FAT32 file systems have a 4 GB limit for maximum file sizes. FAT32 is currently the most popular end user file system. At the same time, existing hard drives have capacities of 160GB and larger! Therefore, an image file might easily exceed this limit. In that case, Apricorn EZ Gig II will automatically split the image into several files.
Creating a partition (disk) image Image data compression level selection The optimal data compression level depends on disk (partition) file types and can only be understood empirically. Usually, it is recommended that you leave the switch in the Normal position. If you need to burn an image to removable media, you can select maximum compression. 4.5 Protecting images with passwords An archive file with a partition (disk) image can be protected with a password.
Creating a partition (disk) image Image password protection If you try to restore data from a password-protected image, Apricorn EZ Gig II will ask for the password in a special window, allowing access only to authorized users. 4.6 Providing comments On the Image Archive Comments wizard page, you’ll be able to provide an archive file with comments about the PC and its user, the hard disk, partition data, image creation time, and any peculiarities and conditions.
Creating a partition (disk) image The more details you provide in the comments, the better. If you don’t provide comments, you might mistake images and restore the wrong system partition, for example. 4.7 Image creation script In the next window, you will see a disk or partition image creation script containing a list of operations to be performed. Image creation script All operations of a partition (disk) image creation in an archive file are delayed in Apricorn EZ Gig II.
Creating a partition (disk) image If you are to burn an image to several removable media, be sure to number them, since you will have to insert them in order during the restoration. 4.8 Selecting image creation priority After image creation is started, an icon appears in the System Tray (see section 3.1 of this Guide). Clicking this indicator you invoke the menu of image creation priority selection: Low, Normal or High. Normal is selected by default.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image Chapter 5. Restoring a disk (partition) from an image As mentioned above (see "Running Apricorn EZ Gig II"), Apricorn EZ Gig II can be run in several ways. However, disk restoration is always performed just one way. We recommend that you restore disks using Windows, only using other methods if Windows doesn’t load. The boot disk (e.g. a CD) from which you loaded the program does not keep you from using other CDs with images.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image If you are to restore an image from removable media, e.g. CD, first insert the last CD and then follow instructions of the Restore Image Wizard. If you provided a comment to the image, it will help you know if you selected the right image to restore. The comment is displayed in the right part of the window. Note that the comment can be seen without entering a password for a protected image. However, the contents of such an image will still require a password.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image Select a partition to restore During a single session, you can restore several partitions or disks, one by one, by selecting one disk and setting its parameters first and then repeating these actions for every partition or disk to be restored. Select the necessary partition and click Next. 5.4 Selecting a location to restore to As a rule, you should restore an image to the same partition from which that the image was created.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image Select partition to restore image to All the data stored on the restored partition will be replaced by the image data, so be careful and watch for non-backed-up data that you might need. 5.5 Selecting partition type When restoring a partition, you can change its type, though it’s not required in most cases. To explain why you might need to do this, let’s imagine that both OS and data were stored on the same primary partition on the damaged disk.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image If you need only the data, you do not have to create another primary partition. In this case, you can restore the partition as a logical partition to access the data only. But if you are to restore a system partition, you should select the Primary type for it. Finally, if you want to load an operating system from it, select Active as well. Selecting Active for a partition without an installed operating system could prevent your PC from booting. 5.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image But you must also keep in mind that not all operating systems support FAT32. MSDOS, Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.x, 4.x do not support FAT32 and will not be operable after you restore a partition and change its file system. These can be normally restored on a FAT16 partition only. However, you can easily convert a FAT16 partition with newer OS into FAT32. The operating systems summary is provided in Appendix A. 5.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image You might need to resize and relocate a partition in order to redistribute the disk space between existing partitions. In this case, you will have to restore the partition to be reduced first. These changes might be useful if you are to clone a hard disk by creating its image and restoring it to a new disk with larger partitions. Such cloning is used if it is impossible to connect the second hard disk to the PC. 5.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image Checking file system integrity after restoration This is disabled by default in Apricorn EZ Gig II. Only FAT16/32 and NTFS file systems integrity can be checked. 5.10 Restoring several partitions at once You can restore several partitions during a single session. To do this, select Yes, I want to restore another partition or hard disk drive in the Next Selection window and click Next.
Restoring a disk (partition) from an image You can restore another partition during this operation After this, you will see the partition selection window again and will have to repeat the actions mentioned above. If you want to restore only one disk (partition) or have already selected all of the partitions you need, don’t set this switch and click Next. 5.11 Restoration script In the next window, you will see a disk or partition image restoration script containing a list of operations to be performed.
Browsing and restoring individual files Chapter 6. Browsing and restoring individual files To browse and restore individual files, Apricorn EZ Gig II can connect images as virtual drives, thus letting you access them as though they were a physical drive.
Browsing and restoring individual files If the selected image file is not protected by a password, you will immediately see the image comment along with the list of stored partitions. If the file is protected by a password, you will see only the comment. 6.1.2 Selecting partitions to connect and letter assignment You must select a partition to connect as a virtual disk. Note that you can’t connect the entire disk.
Transferring the system to a new disk Chapter 7. Transferring the system to a new disk 7.1 General information Sooner or later, many PC users find that their hard disk is too small. If you just don’t have space for more data, you can add another disk just for data storage as described in the following chapter. However, you might find that your hard disk does not have enough space for the operating system and installed applications, preventing you from updating your software.
Transferring the system to a new disk • leave partitions (and data!) on the old disk • remove all information from the old disk • Create new partitions on the old disk (and remove all the older information) On all screenshots below, damaged partitions are marked with a red circle and a white cross inside in the upper left corner. Before you start cloning, you should check such disks for errors using corresponding operating system tools. 7.
Transferring the system to a new disk We recommend using automatic mode in most cases. The manual mode can be useful if you need to change the disk partition layout. If the program finds two disks, one partitioned and another unpartitioned, it will automatically recognize the source disk as the partitioned disk and the destination disk as the unpartitioned disk, so the next two steps will be bypassed. 7.3.
Transferring the system to a new disk The previously selected source becomes grayed-out and disabled for selection. If either disk is unpartitioned, the program will automatically recognize it as destination and bypass this step. 7.3.4 Partitioned destination disk At this point, the program checks to see if the destination disk is free. If not, you will be prompted by the Partitioned destination disk window stating that the destination disk contains partitions, perhaps with data.
Transferring the system to a new disk -You can continue once existing partitions are deleted You will have to select between: • Delete partitions on the destination hard disk – all existing partitions will be deleted during cloning and all their data will be lost. • No, I do not want to delete partitions – no existing partition will be deleted, discontinuing the cloning operation. You will only be able to cancel this operation and return to select another disk.
Transferring the system to a new disk 7.3.6 Cloning script In the next window, you will see the disk cloning script containing a list of briefly described operations to be performed on the partitions. Disk partitioning script After you click Proceed, Apricorn EZ Gig II will start cloning the old disk to the new disk, indicating the progress in the special window. You can stop this procedure by clicking Cancel.
Transferring the system to a new disk To resize either partition, check the Proceed Relayout box. If you are satisfied with the partition layout shown, uncheck this box (if checked). Clicking Next, you will proceed to the cloning script window. Be careful! Clicking Back in this window will reset all size and location changes that you've selected, so you will have to specify them again. First, select a partition to resize. It will be underlined in red. Resize and relocate it on the next step.
Other operations Chapter 8. Other operations 8.1 Checking images To be assured that your images are not damaged, you can check their integrity. To do this, select Check Image in the Tools group (expand it if it's not) or click Check Image on the toolbar. You will see the first wizard window. Click Next to continue. 8.1.1 Selecting image for checking In this window, you will see the complete list of connected storage devices, including hard disks and other drives.
Other operations You can create bootable media during or after the installation. For this, you will need a CD-R/RW blank, five formatted diskettes (or two for the safe variant), or any other media your PC can boot from, such as a Zip drive. Click Create Rescue Media on the toolbar or in the left part of the main window, or select Create Rescue Media from the Tools menu.
Troubleshooting Chapter 9. Troubleshooting 9.1 Recovering Apricorn EZ Gig II If Apricorn EZ Gig II ceases running or produces errors, its files might be corrupted. To fix it, you will have to recover the program. To do this, run the installer again. It will detect Apricorn EZ Gig II on your PC and will ask you if you want to recover (update) or remove it. Click Recover and click Proceed. 9.
Troubleshooting Can Easy CD Creator 4.x–5.0 impede Apricorn EZ Gig II? Easy CD Creator 4.x and 5.0 automatically installs an old version of Take Two® backup utility that is no longer supported by its manufacturer, Roxio. If Apricorn EZ Gig II detects this utility, it shows you the following message in the beginning of image creation: "Can’t create the image of the logical disk, as it’s already used by a running application. Please close all other applications and try again.
Troubleshooting I received the "Can’t create image of disk D:, because it’s already used by applications or contains bad sectors" error message, where D: stands for my logical disk, when I tried to create an image under Windows. Your logical disk might contain bad sectors. We recommend that you run a complete disk surface test. Under Windows 98/Me, run scandisk and perform the complete disk check. Under Windows NT/2000/XP, type “chkdsk /R D:” in the command line and reboot.
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Appendix A Partitions and file systems Appendix A. A.1 Partitions and file systems Hard disk partitions The mechanism that allows you to install several operating systems on a single PC or to carve up a single physical disk drive into multiple “logical” disk drives is called partitioning. Partitioning is performed by special applications. In MS-DOS and Windows, these are FDISK and Disk Administrator.
Appendix A Partitions and file systems A.2.1 FAT16 The FAT16 file system is widely used by DOS (DR-DOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, PTS-DOS and other), Windows 98/Me, and Windows NT/2000/XP operating systems and is supported by most other systems. Main features of FAT16 are the file allocation table (FAT) and clusters. FAT is the core of the file system. To increase data safety, it is possible to have several copies of the FAT (there are usually two of them) on a single disk.
Appendix A Partitions and file systems Like FAT, NTFS uses clusters to store files, but cluster size does not depend on partition size. NTFS is a 64-bit file system. It uses unicode to store file names. It is also a journaling (failure-protected) file system, and supports compression and encryption. Files in folders are indexed to speed up file search. A.2.4 Linux Ext2 Ext2 is one of the main file systems for the Linux operating system. Ext2 is a 32-bit system. Its maximum size is 16TB.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup Appendix B. Hard disks and BIOS setup The appendices below provide you with extra information on the hard disk organization, how information is stored on disks, how disks should be installed in the computer and plugged into the motherboard, configuring disks with BIOS, partitions and file systems, and how operating systems interact with disks. B.1 B.1.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup 10. After finishing the work, turn off the computer, set the jumper on the disk to the master position if you want to make the disk bootable (or leave it in slave position if the disk is installed as additional data storage). B.1.2 Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable There are two slots on the motherboard to which the hard disks can be connected: primary IDE and secondary IDE.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup B.1.3 Installation modes, jumpers 1. A hard disk can be installed in a computer as master or as slave. The mode of hard disk installation is defined by the position of special connectors (called jumpers) on the hard disk. The jumpers are either located on the electronic board of the hard disk or a special socket that provides for the connection of the hard disk and the motherboard. There is usually a sticker on the drive that explains the markings.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup B.2 BIOS When you turn on your computer, you often see a number of short text messages before you see the splash screen of your operating system. These messages are from the POST (power-on self test) program that belongs to BIOS and is executed by the processor. BIOS, or the basic input/output system, is a program that resides in the permanent memory chip (ROM or flash BIOS) on the motherboard of your computer and is its key element.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup Parameter Type Value Purpose 1-47, Not Installed, Auto Type 0 or Not Installed is used when there is no hard disk installed (to uninstall it). Type 47 is reserved for user-defined parameters or for parameters detected by the IDE Auto detection utility. Auto value allows for automatic detection of IDE disk parameters during the boot sequence. Cylinder (Cyl) 1-65535 The number of cylinders on a hard disk. For IDE disks, a logical number of cylinders is specified.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup Translation mode is how sector addresses are translated. This parameter appeared because in BIOS versions, there were limitations to the maximum address capacity of disks, which is 504 MB (1024 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors x 512 bytes).
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup The BIOS numbers disks according to the order in which they are connected to IDE controllers (primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave); next go the SCSI hard disks. This order is broken if you change the boot sequence in BIOS setup. If, for example, you specify that booting has to be done from hard disk E:, numbering starts with the hard disk that would be the third in usual circumstances (it is usually the secondary master).
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup AwardBIOS Setup Utility Main Primary Master [Auto] Type [Auto] Item Specific Help: to select the type of the IDE drive. [User Type HDD] allows you to set each entry on your own. Warning: Ultra DMA Mode 3/4/5 can be enabled only when BIOS detects Shielded 80-pin cable.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup Enter the values of Translation Mode, Cylinders, Head and Sector parameters (you can find them on the case of the hard disk) to finish the initial configuring of the hard disk with BIOS. Translation Mode parameter can have the following values: LBA Large Normal Match Partition Table Manual New versions of AwardBIOS menu have the Boot item.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup Select an item of the list with the Up or Down keys and move the device up the list or down it with help of + or - keys. This will change the boot sequence. For example, you can select the boot sequence as the one shown below: AwardBIOS Setup Utility Main Advanced Power Boot Exit 1. Removable Device 2. ATAPI CD-ROM [Legacy Floppy] [None] Boot Sequence: 3. IDE Hard Drive 4.
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup The Type parameter can have Auto, Not Installed or User Defined values. In the latter case, you have to specify the values of other parameters manually (except MODE) according to the information on the case of the hard disk. The purpose of the MODE and LANDZ parameters is described in the note above. The PRECOMP parameter is the so-called precompensation parameter and is important only for the older hard disks (MFM and RLL). IDE disks ignore this parameter.
