Why am I not using a .iso to clone C: drives?
December 21, 2024 4:48 PM Subscribe
I am aware the answer to this question is "Because Windows" but I'm curious why I shouldn't just make an .iso of the C: on machine A and use it to write over C: on machine B.
Feel free to use Lovecraftian metaphors but please keep the explanation relatively simple. I've wasted a large part of the last week trying to clone Windows installations using various tools. I'd like to understand why the hammer doesn't work.
Feel free to use Lovecraftian metaphors but please keep the explanation relatively simple. I've wasted a large part of the last week trying to clone Windows installations using various tools. I'd like to understand why the hammer doesn't work.
The ISO filesystem does not preserve NTFS ACLs. All your files would have wrong ownership/permissions. You'd have to use something like icacls with a save/restore batch script which is a giant PITA. Use proper disk imaging tools.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:27 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 5:27 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]
ISOs are a CDROM image format, and CDs were made with a specific file system that plays to what they were - write once, no adjustments, no clever things like ACLs or any sort of access control, really. Even storing long file names is an afterthought.
A better way of putting it is 'can I copy a raw disk image from A to B' and the answer is definitely yes. There are many ways of doing that. But specifically if you are trying to turn your second machine into a perfect image of the first the fact is the hardware has changed and it won't look the same to the operating system, which knows about the foibles of the old system as stated above.
What can work is copying the HD to a portable drive with imaging tools, and then plugging that in. The personality of the new machine will have changed, and it won't have any of the same settings, but the files from the old machine will still be available and you can move the files you care about onto the new disk in the new system.
If you really want to transfer all of you care about, though - the users, the settings and so on - you need an imaging tool that copies over the bits from the old drive that you care about while leaving other bits on the new OS alone, so you end up with your files and settings overlaid onto a disk that properly belongs in the new system.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:37 AM on December 22, 2024 [1 favorite]
A better way of putting it is 'can I copy a raw disk image from A to B' and the answer is definitely yes. There are many ways of doing that. But specifically if you are trying to turn your second machine into a perfect image of the first the fact is the hardware has changed and it won't look the same to the operating system, which knows about the foibles of the old system as stated above.
What can work is copying the HD to a portable drive with imaging tools, and then plugging that in. The personality of the new machine will have changed, and it won't have any of the same settings, but the files from the old machine will still be available and you can move the files you care about onto the new disk in the new system.
If you really want to transfer all of you care about, though - the users, the settings and so on - you need an imaging tool that copies over the bits from the old drive that you care about while leaving other bits on the new OS alone, so you end up with your files and settings overlaid onto a disk that properly belongs in the new system.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:37 AM on December 22, 2024 [1 favorite]
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posted by taz (staff) at 1:01 AM on December 22, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:01 AM on December 22, 2024 [4 favorites]
Old story.... Back before Windows did such horrible things to make it hard... Our university had a special contract with Dell so that all of our lab machines had identical hardware configurations. This was not the norm, you would normally buy a machine and have different but equivalent hardware depending on supply and cost and whatnot. You got your blah blah with blah size HD, blah networking, blah video, blah etc. but you did get a machine with the same specs as it were, just maybe not the same stuff that was in your other machine.
We use IIRC "Ghost" or something and a token single machine to create the the installation image. Then there was a server that used Multicast IP to serve up the image. Every once in a while the user room operator would put a floppy in a machine, reboot and press a key to start that machine re-imaging itself. Then they would move to another machine and do the same. Repeat as needed. The special magic of Ghost and Multicast was that once the first machine started downloading, the next would just subscribe to the current stream and start from wherever, and the stream would loop back to the beginning as long as there were subscribers. So one could re-image a whole room of scores of machines at the same time while the server only needed to stream the image twice or maybe thrice. A machine that started in the middle of the stream would image the remainder, stay subscribed, the stream would loop, the machine would re-image from the beginning up until the point that it had started, then unsubscribe and reboot into a fresh installation.
Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam.... scores of freshly installed machines running the same image. Easy Peasy. Sadly things got more complicated and I have no real idea how they changed things to cope.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:42 PM on December 22, 2024
We use IIRC "Ghost" or something and a token single machine to create the the installation image. Then there was a server that used Multicast IP to serve up the image. Every once in a while the user room operator would put a floppy in a machine, reboot and press a key to start that machine re-imaging itself. Then they would move to another machine and do the same. Repeat as needed. The special magic of Ghost and Multicast was that once the first machine started downloading, the next would just subscribe to the current stream and start from wherever, and the stream would loop back to the beginning as long as there were subscribers. So one could re-image a whole room of scores of machines at the same time while the server only needed to stream the image twice or maybe thrice. A machine that started in the middle of the stream would image the remainder, stay subscribed, the stream would loop, the machine would re-image from the beginning up until the point that it had started, then unsubscribe and reboot into a fresh installation.
Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam.... scores of freshly installed machines running the same image. Easy Peasy. Sadly things got more complicated and I have no real idea how they changed things to cope.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:42 PM on December 22, 2024
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Hardware-specific drivers that are bound to the exact components of Machine A
- A unique machine SID (Security Identifier) that's generated at installation
- Various hardware-dependent registry entries
When you attempt to transplant this consciousness to a different vessel (Machine B), even if the hardware is similar, Windows will find itself in a body it doesn't recognize. This can lead to:- Boot failures (as if the stars are no longer aligned)
- Driver conflicts (like tentacles trying to grasp unfamiliar objects)
- License activation issues (the elder gods demand proper tribute)
- Networking problems (the machine's identity crisis manifests)
This is why tools like Sysprep exist - they perform a ritual of purification that strips away these machine-specific bindings before creating an image, allowing the operating system to regenerate itself properly in its new home.posted by gregr at 4:58 PM on December 21, 2024 [29 favorites]