Badger Posted January 23, 2004 Report Share Posted January 23, 2004 hello, Can anyone enligtnen me please.? I have 7.4 GB on my C drive. I made an image using No compression and have ended up with 6.8 Gb in the image. (3 files -two 2Gb and one 1.8) imaged to second HDD. Using DI 2002. OS XP Home.I seemed to think that I should have 7.4GB Is my thinking wrong? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvw Posted January 23, 2004 Report Share Posted January 23, 2004 Just tried exactly the same with mine.5.42GB copied with no compression to 3 files, 1.99GB+1.99GB+170MB.We both think the same :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 23, 2004 Report Share Posted January 23, 2004 Not sure of the detail but remember you have made an "image" which is different to a "copy".A copy would (should) be exactly the same in every detail as the original, an image is, how shall we say, a reflection in its own DI file system with potentially some details missing.Can I ask why you made an image with no compression? DriveImage does recommend that compressed images are made and this is the way I do them - never had a failure (yet ;) ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted January 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2004 Hello POPS. in answer to your question,I made the image with no compression becasue I have 40Gb of space on my new HDD. Imaging is quicker.they gave me the option, and I was unaware that DI recoomends using compression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djohn Posted January 23, 2004 Report Share Posted January 23, 2004 Yep! did mine today with DI7. Confused me too as to why the backup was smaller than the original, So I did a quick format of the store drive and went through the wizard again. This time I noticed that the default setting, [Recommended] was compressed slightly. That'll teach me to read before clicking yes all the time! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 24, 2004 Report Share Posted January 24, 2004 Remember also, as I said previously, an image is not a copy. The file system and extension of an image is not the same as the original whereas in a copy you are transferring information in exact datail to another location. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted January 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2004 I am using DI 2002,and there does not seem to be a recommended compression setting. I had cleaned up most of my comp. and also the system restore,leaving only one.I do not really understand Pops theory. I thought,but obviously I am wrong,that it would restore the whole drive to its original state,if,for instance,you had to format the imaged drive. So, I thought as pops says, you were transferring information in exact detail.I shall try later today to do a compressed image and see if that makes the drifference.In the meantime thanks for your helpI have just looked again at DI to see if I had missed the recommended compression setting,I cannot find anything ,but I did find that on my drive which is 7.42GB. It says :- Estimated Image size. (1) Compression None- 7692Mb (2) Low - 4615 (3) High - 3846. Interesting.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 24, 2004 Report Share Posted January 24, 2004 The magic word you have used is RESTORE. Drive image will indeed RESTORE the drive to its original state but the image it makes and stores is just that- an image in its own file system, not a copy of your hard drive whether compressed or not.With a DriveImage file you can only use it in conjunction with the boot disks you have prepared before you use DI (or the CD in the case of DI7). With Drive Copy the copied drive can be a replacement for the drive it is copied from without any alterations.Sorry I'm not making myself clear :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted January 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2004 Thank you Pops for your help,I sort of understand. It still does not explain why I get an estimated Image size of 7692Mb with no compression,but I only 5.8Gb in the image files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 24, 2004 Report Share Posted January 24, 2004 Not sure how to explain further. Windows is notoriously wasteful of file space for one thing and perhaps DI saves on some of that but if we use an analogy of a graphics file. TIFF pictures are very large - perhaps 1MB for quite a modest size picture. If that is converted to, say, a GIF file the image will appear, for all intents and purposes, the same but be smaller in size. If we further convert to an entirely new system, say JPEG, the file size may be reduced to 100KB (one tenth the size) or less but at a casual look, seems to be just the same and have the same visual information as the TIFF.Note that what I've put is an illustration only and not completely true as to what happens but remember in DI we are changing all windows files to PQI (PowerQuest Image) format which, as you are remarking, are smaller than the originals, even with no compression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted January 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 Thank you for your reply- pops- an your further explanation. I cannot say I follow your reasoning completly.I have made an image using 40% compression (Low) and I have an image size of 4.180GB. Which is still not 60% of my C Drive, but as you say, it will depend on many things,so I must be satisfied that all is well. I have verified the image.I am a bit of a doubting Thomas. Thanks all for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 You're welcome and I appreciate that it can be a difficult concept to grasp.The most important thing is that you have made your image and tested (verified it) to know it works. Let's hope you never have to use it - you most likely will have to at some point so make sure you prepare regular full system backups and perhaps files and data ones as well if you keep important information in your machine.I have been away from here part of the morning because my machine gave me a message that Windows had encountered an error and was closing to protect the computer. Rather than mess about investigating the problem in Windows, I did a re-installation from the full system backup that I made on Friday last and a files and data restore from the daily backup I made yesterday. I was up and running gain in less than an hour with an absolute minimum of data loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 Not sure of the detail but remember you have made an "image" which is different to a "copy".A copy would (should) be exactly the same in every detail as the original, an image is, how shall we say, a reflection in its own DI file system with potentially some details missing.Can I ask why you made an image with no compression? DriveImage does recommend that compressed images are made and this is the way I do them - never had a failure (yet ;) )Actually Powerquest refer to the image as a copy :o Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 An image made by the Drive image is a different file format to the original. We don't need to get involved with semantics or pedantics, the gist of my writing gives an idea of what is going on and tries to explain why the DI file in the PowerQuest format is smaller than the file it is an image of, even with "no compression".As the format of the file is different to that of the original, Powerquest's use of "copy" is very loose and incorrect ;) Still, they are American - a place where the English language has been, and continues to be, slowly destroyed ever since the landings of the Pilgrim Fathers :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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