Maybe we are using different definitions for a bare metal recovery
.
Example of what I call "bare metal" recovery
- You have a PC with only one hard disk that contains (usually) a single primary partition that is BOTH the "boot" and "system" partiion, booting XP
- You connect to it (as an example through a USB to Sata adapter) an "external" hard disk
- You - while booted in the XP - use the Shadow copy subsystem to make a Shadow copy of the running system and you capture it with ImageX, storing the resulting .wim in the external hard disk
- The internal hard disk of the PC fails/breaks/bricks itself
- You procure a new similar hard disk (or get a spare one that has been wiped with a single 00 pass) and replace the failed disk
- You boot from an external media (a PE of some kind from a CD/DVD or from USB stick), once booted you connect the external hard disk on which you stored the .wim
- Insert here what you do (seemingly partition the "new" internal hard disk and possibly make on it a single primary NTFS partition)
- You apply the .wim from the external hard disk to the newly created partition
- You disconnect all external devices and/ore remove media from the CD/DVD drive and
- You boot from the internal hard disk, exactly as if the original hard disk was not replaced. (You actually won't have a chance to recover deleted or partially overwritten files as you had on the "original" disk, but apart from this, the "recovered" disk is IDENTICAL to the "original")
What I am telling you is that #10 won't happen unless *something* in the procedure you follow (around steps #3 and #7) manages to replicate the Disk Signature of the failed disk drive and/or *something else* changes the relevant Registry entries.
As said it is perfectly possible that something in the imaging/applying process removes those keys from the Registry or on first attempt to boot the XP finds not the "old" disk signature and since it can only find a single partition "decides" that it is the "boot" and "system" partition and that it is "drive C:" and changes those Registry entries.
But still, if this latter "self-healing" is what happens, the "new disk" won't be "the same" as the old one and what can happen on a multi-disk/multi-partitions setup is to be seen
.
If you prefer, open the Registry of the booted XP at the time you are imaging it, check the hive:
http://www.911cd.net...opic=19663&st=1HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Find in it the key \DosDevices\C
and write down it's contents.
Check that there is also another key, similar to \\?\Volume{83092730-6bfc-11df-b90c-806d6172696f}\ with the same contents as the \DosDervices\C
You can find the exact key name by opening a command prompt and running:
mountvol.exe | more
which will list volume ID's coupled with drive letters.
Proceed with the "Bare Metal Recovery" and once you will have booted from the imaged/applied XP on the "brand new" disk
, check if those keys are in the Registry and have the same content (or if they have been automagically updated to reflect the new Disk Signature and start of the partition).
Wonko