[padyakbud]

We just recently purchased a new DMG 635V with sinumerik cpu. Has anyone successfully backed up the hard drive?

Generally after the 1 year warranty of a brand new machine lapses, I take apart the hard drive from the cpu in order to make a backup for safekeeping. Our past machines were Mazaks and these were very straightforward to do since they were only running normal microsoft windows on 1 partition. Easily imaged via ghost on a windows computer.

However for the DMG 635V I notice upon bootup that it somewhat goes thru a linux bootstrap process before loading the software. Searching thru the internet, I also see references that it has multiple partitions (systems?).

My DMG 635V specs:
Siemens Ergoline control op019-532c
Sinumeric pcu50.3-c 1.5ghz 512mb 40gb

[underthetire]

yes. We use Polyquest to ghost all our drives.

[Al_The_Man]

I use Acronis True Image, works very well, also has a partition maker called Acronis OS which loads multiple operating systems on as many partions the HD will hold.
I have also heard that Norton Ghost is good.
Make sure you get a Verbatim copier, not just data back up.
Al.

[padyakbud]

Thank you underthetire and Al_The_Man for the replies. Now I know it can be backed up. However I still have questions since I am not familiar with the DMG and the bootstrap process.

1. Can my windows ghost backup program detect and copy the bootstrap partition? I am assuming it is linux and have no experience with this operating system. Are Acronis and Polyquest windows backup programs?

2. This is also my first time to image a multi partition drive. Is imaging the multiple partition a one image (or process) step? Or I have to image each partition one at a time?

3. Before I physically remove the hard drive from the DMG and connect it to my winXP computer, do I have to prepare or copy any configuration settings that may be lost or reset during the hard drive removal? Do I have to worry of any sort of siemens equipment security (e.g. request of password upon bootup after hard drive installation)? Or is it very straight forward and I should not expect any problems at all?

Al_The_Man, I would not need a verbatim copier since what I do is always buy a same capacity hard drive and image the original to that. I then re-install and use the copy on the machine while I safekeep the original hard drive.

[amishx64]

Thank you underthetire and Al_The_Man for the replies. Now I know it can be backed up. However I still have questions since I am not familiar with the DMG and the bootstrap process.

1. Can my windows ghost backup program detect and copy the bootstrap partition? I am assuming it is linux and have no experience with this operating system. Are Acronis and Polyquest windows backup programs?

2. This is also my first time to image a multi partition drive. Is imaging the multiple partition a one image (or process) step? Or I have to image each partition one at a time?

3. Before I physically remove the hard drive from the DMG and connect it to my winXP computer, do I have to prepare or copy any configuration settings that may be lost or reset during the hard drive removal? Do I have to worry of any sort of siemens equipment security (e.g. request of password upon bootup after hard drive installation)? Or is it very straight forward and I should not expect any problems at all?

Al_The_Man, I would not need a verbatim copier since what I do is always buy a same capacity hard drive and image the original to that. I then re-install and use the copy on the machine while I safekeep the original hard drive.

1. It is my best guess that any windows software will NOT see the other drive partitions, such as Linux partitions (prob. EXT3) for two reasons: The first is that there is no Windows support for these other partitions, and Two (more importantly), that Windows does not have privileges to see these partitions.

That is why you need another 'cloner' OS such as Ghost or Acronis that runs independently of the drive that you are trying to clone.

2. You don't want to back up your drive into images by partition. Bad idea. Many, many things may go wrong here. You will want to do an 'Entire (Full) Disk Clone'.

3. "Before I physically remove the hard drive from the DMG and connect it to my winXP computer, do I have to prepare or copy any configuration settings that may be lost or reset during the hard drive removal?"
No. You may need to change the BIOS config on your XP machine to boot off the CD, which has the imaging software (Ghost or Acronis) on it. No other changes should be made except that you unplug your XP hard drive to keep from wiping it. This is important.

"Do I have to worry of any sort of siemens equipment security (e.g. request of password upon bootup after hard drive installation)? Or is it very straight forward and I should not expect any problems at all?"
Everything is straightforward. The machine will act as if you just turned it off and restarted it. Whatever you normally do turning it on will be the same with the new clone. - Hence the name 'clone' or EXACT copy.

"Al_The_Man, I would not need a verbatim copier since what I do is always buy a same capacity hard drive and image the original to that."
Wrong. You can use the same size or larger hard drive. Never smaller. Besides, you are going to have a heck of a time finding a 40 GB HD for sale nowadays. Min size is around 80 GB.

I recommend Acronis over Ghost. Acronis has proven to me to be much more reliable.

[underthetire]

Thank you underthetire and Al_The_Man for the replies. Now I know it can be backed up. However I still have questions since I am not familiar with the DMG and the bootstrap process.

1. Can my windows ghost backup program detect and copy the bootstrap partition? I am assuming it is linux and have no experience with this operating system. Are Acronis and Polyquest windows backup programs?

2. This is also my first time to image a multi partition drive. Is imaging the multiple partition a one image (or process) step? Or I have to image each partition one at a time?

3. Before I physically remove the hard drive from the DMG and connect it to my winXP computer, do I have to prepare or copy any configuration settings that may be lost or reset during the hard drive removal? Do I have to worry of any sort of siemens equipment security (e.g. request of password upon bootup after hard drive installation)? Or is it very straight forward and I should not expect any problems at all?

Al_The_Man, I would not need a verbatim copier since what I do is always buy a same capacity hard drive and image the original to that. I then re-install and use the copy on the machine while I safekeep the original hard drive.

The polyquest will just ghost the drive. I don't think it even runs in windows, its a DOS based program. We have used it on the seimens840DI, Delta Tau, Hurco, and a Flowjet computer among a few others.

[padyakbud]

Thanks amishx64 and everyone for the replies. Now im confident of doing this and will schedule the actual backup ... 8-)

[thedave]

I will start out saying I know nothing about these CNC systems or how the drives are set up. I am a network admin and have worked with several systems that use hard drives with propriety software loads. I have used a Disk Jockey to make block for block clones of drives. The last one I used was to dupe a HP fax sender drive to replace a failed drive in a second unit. I could not get the drive to mount on any of our systems. The Disk Jockey is a stand alone solution. They even have a forensics version that write protects the master so no changes can be made to the master drive. The Disk Jockey Pro is $ 499.00

http://www.diskology.com/

[Al_The_Man]

The Acronis cost me $36.00!.
Al.

[amishx64]

"Thanks amishx64 and everyone for the replies. Now im confident of doing this and will schedule the actual backup ... 8-)"
Welcome. If you have any other questions, I'd be glad to help.

"The Disk Jockey Pro is $ 499.00"
I don't really think I could justify spending half a grand on software to do a simple HD to HD clone job... (nuts)

[padyakbud]

I would like to update and thank everyone on the inputs on my topic. Today I have succesfully backed up the hard drive of my CNC DMG635V machine using Ghost v.11. Everthing went smoothly as long as I followed the advise to image the whole HDD and not every partition.

Thanks everyone and topic closed.

[segengineering]

Hi,
I have a 710VMC from XYZ in the UK, with 810D shopmill.
My machine came with a full back up of all the software on CD inside the machine where you would normally find any manuals.
So I would assume that you should have a copy too, siemens must give this out with there control to the machine builder.

Hope this helps