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Subject: Little Angel Tutorial 1B - Quick Best Start [Print This Page]

Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 16:14 Subject: Little Angel Tutorial 1B - Quick Best Start

If vshadow service is not able to run successfully in your computer or you have not downloaded the vshadow sample code from Microsoft website, then you can use Still Copy or Still SysBack to make a bootable .dsk image file.

To use Still Copy or Still SysBack to achieve more or less the same results of using Live Copy or Live SysBack, you need to have already made a registry backup using erunt either during running the setup.exe inside the g4dimdiskerunt.zip package or any time before you use Still Copy or Still SysBack to make the bootable .dsk image file.

Still Copy or Still SysBack cannot copy the live registry files and some other files. So the .dsk image file made by Still Copy or Still SysBack is not bootable if you do not copy the registry backup made by erunt to the .dsk image file at the same time. Those some other files mentioned above not copied by Still Copy and Still SysBack are not essential for making a bootable .dsk image file and they can be added later to make the bootable .dsk image file more complete. Such files include those of the folder of:

Documents and Settings

So Still Copy or Still SysBack + erunt registry backup files = a bootable .dsk image file

Still Copy or Still SysBack + erunt registry backup files + Documents and Settings = a more complete bootable .dsk image file

So the following steps will describe how a good bootable .dsk image file could be made with ease:

1. Run la.exe (Little Angel) to setup Diskless Angel & Little Angel as described in Little Angel Tutorial 1 (This step must be done before Step 2a below.)

2a. Run setup.exe inside the g4dimdiskerunt.zip package.

The setup.exe will set up for you to use with your system in the following order:

a. grub4dos
b. imdisk
c. erunt

When erunt is setup, it will ask you if you like to make a registry backup at the same time.

You can simply click ok ok ok and yes yes yes to complete the whole process as the following screens show:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 16:47

This will make a registry backup for your running system at the default location at:

\WINDOWS\ERDNT\xxxx-xx-xx

where xxxx-xx-xx is the date when you make the registry backup.

So later when asked to select the folder containing the registry backup to be copied into the .dsk image file, you have to select this folder so that Still Copy or Still SysBack can copy the registry backup to the .dsk image file to make it bootable.

2b. Before making any .dsk image file, you have to run erunt again to make a fresh backup of the registry so that any changes to the registry can be saved to the registry backup to be copied into the .dsk image file. You can run erunt by clicking its icon on the desktop or browse to its setup directory, the default being at \Program Files\ERUNT, and double click ERUNT.EXE to start the registry backup

3. Run la.exe again to start Little Angel

If you press the Live Copy or the Live SysBack button and if you have not downloaded the vshadow sample code from the Microsoft Website, you will be asked if you want to do Still Copy or Still SysBack instead as follows:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 16:58

So you could click yes to do the Still Copy or Still SysBack imaging or no to do it later by selecting the respective button yourself.

By doing so in either way, the Still Copy or Still SysBack will calculate the size of .dsk image file that is needed for you if the Image Size field is blank.

Or you could specify an appropriate Image Size yourself.

Please make sure that the system drive letter is specified in the source field. In this case, it is c:

Then you could press the Still Copy or Still SysBack again.

Using StillCopy (Still SysBack is the same), this will take you to the following screens:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:15

then

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:16

then

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:17

then

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:24

After pressing save, some or most system files (if Still Copy or Still SysBack is used) of the system image at c: drive are copied to the .dsk image specified.

Then you will be asked if you want to copy the registry backup into the .dsk image file.

If you want to make it bootable, then you choose yes. Otherwise, you choose no.

Choosing no will make Little Angel to close the .dsk image file and return you to the main screen.

We however now choose yes to make the .dsk image bootable as the following screens show:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:25

After pressing yes, it prompts you to select the folder where the registry backup is found:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:26

So you browse to C:WINDOWSERDNT2008-05-22 as follows:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:28

After pressing OK, you just select ok ok ok and yes yes yes to the following screens:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:29

then

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:32

After that you are informed that the registry backup is restored and copied and the .dsk image file is closed.

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:35

After pressing OK, you are returned to the Little Angel main screen and you can then click close to exit Little Angel:

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:39

4. Run bootimage.exe inside the g4dimdiskerunt.zip package to specify the .dsk image file just made for booting

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:44

After pressing select disk image, you will be allowed to browse the .dsk image you want to add to the grub4dos menu for booting. And after selecting the .dsk image by pressing open, then the bootimage.exe will put the appropriate mbr and bootsector code to the selected .dsk image file and add its titles for booting in menu.lst, the grub4dos menu file. bootimage.exe will then exit afterwards.

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Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:51

Then you can reboot and go to the grub4dos menu and select the .dsk image file for booting.

4 titles are added into the grub4dos menu.

2 titles use map --mem command to boot it, one hide the system partition the other not.

2 titles use memdisk raw to boot it, one hide the system partition the other not.

Most machines will work using memdisk raw.

map --mem command titles are put there for your selection if found appropriate.

For some machines where map --mem works, as Little Angel Tutorial 2 -- the Best Scenario describes, you can choose Title 2 or Title 3 to boot the system partition to ram to boot.

memdisk raw however can work only with a .dsk image file and cannot be used to load a hard disk system partition up for booting.

So you are fortunate if your machine works with the native map --mem command that comes with grub4dos.

After booting the .dsk image file, you will be returned to the boot.ini menu, and you have to select booting into Microsoft Windows rather than selecting going into grub4dos menu again.

After booting into Microsoft Windows, if you are using language versions other than English version or Simplified Chinese, you may come across a black screen indicating that a file in the \WINDOWS\system32\ folder ending in .nls is missing. This is the language file required for your language version. Please reboot to start the hard disk system again and use imdisk to mount up your .dsk image file and copy the .nls file into the \WINDOWS\system32\ folder inside the mounted up drive for the .dsk image file.

You may also edit the wdlst.cfg file to include this .nls filename so that when building .dsk image file later using LA, it automatically copies such file into the .dsk image file thus made. For building xp sp3, there may be other files missing upon boot-up, you can jot down those filenames with their paths and copy them into the .dsk image file as well as to edit the wdlst.cfg file to include them likewise.

You may also edit wdlst.cfg to include other files you consider necessary, such as bootfont.bin, to be included into the every .dsk image you build when you select the add system option.

Author: windrv Time: 22-5-2008 17:58

5. Copy the folder of Documents and Settings to the bootable .dsk image file thus made

To be more complete, after booting up the .dsk image file into ram, you can mount up the .dsk image file on the hard disk by imdisk, specifying 32256 as the offset or run up Little Angel to mount it by:

a. specifying mount_dsk_file.cfg in the User Option File field

b. pressing Help button

Then you can browse to select the .dsk image file you want to open.

After mounting the .dsk image file, you can you My Computer to copy the folder Documents and Settings of the hard disk system drive to the .dsk image file, which is made from the hard disk system drive in the process described earlier.

The bootable .dsk image file thus made is more complete. And you can then reboot and use this more complete bootable .dsk image file.

After running it up to ram, you could also run a Still SysBack against your system drive on the hard disk. This time you need not copy the registry backup made by erunt as described before. The Still SysBack .dsk image file made from the system drive on the hard disk this time is the best and bootable as you make it using the ramdisk system. Your system drive on the hard disk is in fact not a live running system image but a still system image. So all the system files in this Still System Image on the hard disk can be copied. And the bootable .dsk image file thus made by running Still SysBack is the best and most complete.

The above steps describe the best approach to making a good bootable .dsk image file for use, the best backup of your system drive.

The backup procedure presented above seldom fails on condition that you have sufficient disk space for saving the .dsk image file and your hard disk surface is good for use and that there is no virus infection that affects your system.

This is the same as that could be created by running Live SysBack of Little Angel or by running Copy Volume of Diskless Angel if vshadow sample code is downloaded for use from Microsoft website.

For some obscure reasons vshadow services do not always work nor are vshadow components files present in the system drive of your system. And you also have to take the trouble to download the sample code from Microsoft website for use. So vshadow services are not a good option that you can always rely on.

Author: windrv Time: 23-7-2008 09:51

6. Fast Incremental Backup of your system image running on the DA virtual memory disk for re-use

Any changes to your system image running on the DA virtual memory disk in ram, if not saved back into the .disk image file on the hard disk, will be lost upon rebooting. If you want to preserve such changes, there is now a quick way for you to do this as follows:

a. run up LA

b. in the User Option File field, select incremental_backup.cfg in the dala folder

c. in the Source Field, select your system drive C: (the DA virtual memory disk in ram)

d. press Still SysBack button

(this assumes that the Microsoft vshadow code does not work for system drive in ram, so you could not use Live SysBack for backing up the DA virtual memory disk in ram.)

e. it then calcuates the size of the image, you just press Yes

f. and then after the size of the image is estimated, you press Still SysBack button again

g. when prompted for the Target, select the .dsk image file on the hard disk you just booted up to run in ram

h. when asked if you want to use the existing file, you answer Yes

i. after a while for backing up the files from the DA virtual memory disk to the .dsk image file on the hard disk, you will be asked if you want to copy the ERUNT backup registry files into the .dsk image file again, you answer Yes

j. close LA after you are told that the copying is finished and the .dsk image file is closed

The changes thus made to your system drive running in ram are now saved into the .dsk image file on the hard disk you use to boot up to run in ram.

So you better make 2 copies of the .dsk image file, one serving for daily use that incorporates all changes you want to backup every day. The other copy serves as the master backup that is good for use in case your daily copy is damaged or you wrongly backup the system drive running in ram that is infected with viruses.

The master backup copy however can be stored in the form of a bootable DVD or USB thumb drive that, when booted up, could boot and load your master backup copy into ram for use. This serves as an ultimate restoration tool or for emergency use when your hard disk is infected with viruses or has hardware failures.

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