how to determine boot drive

[mact37]

W10 64 bit most recent update

Multiple drives in desktop (Sandy Bridge era, old but still very useful. I am not a gamer.).
Using a backup tool (ShadowMaker) to make an external USB "clone" of system disc. ASUS Z77mobo (UEFI). (F8 select boot device).

I can get it to reboot in supposedly the external USB drive, but it happens much faster than I expect: the "real" boot drive is a Kingston AHCI "M2" drive in a pci-e slot which is very fast. The boot from USB does not seem slower, and thus suspicious. Even though the led on the external housing flickers like it is being read.

Am working towards a disaster recovery solution. System drive corrupted and cannot even access a recovery mode. In which case a useful clone of system drive/partition can reformat and repopulate the corrupted system drive without jumping thru lots of hoops. At least that's what the script I wrote says.<G>

How can I tell what drive the system has actually booted from? Have looked in Device Manager, System Configuration, and other places with no joy.

 

[USAFRet]

How to tell?
Power off.
Physically disconnect all other drives
Power up.

Did it boot properly?


Personally, I'm not a fan of a full clone as a backup situation. I much prefer Images. Full, and then a series of Incremental or Differential images.
Much finer grained backups, in the same space as a full "clone".

 

[mact37]

How to tell?
Power off.
Physically disconnect all other drives
Power up.

Did it boot properly?


Personally, I'm not a fan of a full clone as a backup situation. I much prefer Images. Full, and then a series of Incremental or Differential images.
Much finer grained backups, in the same space as a full "clone".

 

[mact37]

Well, I DID NOT want to tear the box apart. It's in an awkward place and clumsy to grab and relocate. And all the dang cables and…well, you know!<G> But you are right, of course<sigh>

I have found the cloning thing to be enormously helpful in configuring and reconfiguring my two old(er) macs. (yes, I know...think "different" sometimes called "effed-up", but in this case pretty nice<G>)

I have had a system drive completely die on me, and it was quite a scramble to get something that could reboot, and sort out the matter without cancelling out lots of old software that is difficult to reinstall.

I was hoping for a "different" solution.<G>

 

[USAFRet]

Well, I DID NOT want to tear the box apart. It's in an awkward place and clumsy to grab and relocate. And all the dang cables and…well, you know!<G> But you are right, of course<sigh>

I have found the cloning thing to be enormously helpful in configuring and reconfiguring my two old(er) macs. (yes, I know...think "different" sometimes called "effed-up", but in this case pretty nice<G>)

I have had a system drive completely die on me, and it was quite a scramble to get something that could reboot, and sort out the matter without cancelling out lots of old software that is difficult to reinstall.

I was hoping for a "different" solution.<G>

Physical disconnection is the only real way to know, especially with actual full clones.
A pain yes, but otherwise, you'll never really know if your backup solution actually works.

For a solution that is different than full clones, read here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

For instance, my system has 5 drives, all SSD, total about 2TB.
A full clone of each is simply a waste of space.
I have Full images, and 14 days worth of Incremental images, and it takes up about 2.4TB for all 5 drives.
A clone gets you exactly one day.

 

[karenjoly]

W10 64 bit most recent update

Multiple drives in desktop (Sandy Bridge era, old but still very useful. I am not a gamer.).
Using a backup tool (ShadowMaker) to make an external USB "clone" of system disc. ASUS Z77mobo (UEFI). (F8 select boot device).

I can get it to reboot in supposedly the external USB drive, but it happens much faster than I expect: the "real" boot drive is a Kingston AHCI "M2" drive in a pci-e slot which is very fast. The boot from USB does not seem slower, and thus suspicious. Even though the led on the external housing flickers like it is being read.

Am working towards a disaster recovery solution. System drive corrupted and cannot even access a recovery mode. In which case a useful clone of system drive/partition can reformat and repopulate the corrupted system drive without jumping thru lots of hoops. At least that's what the script I wrote says.<G>

How can I tell what drive the system has actually booted from? Have looked in Device Manager, System Configuration, and other places with no joy.

There is an easy way, no need to pull plugs. Look at Disk Management. It identifies the C drive.
Also, it has been possible with recent UEFI that one need not pull disk wires any more to isolate drives ports.. All sata and usb ports can be disabled in UEFI .
I'm a cloner myself. U can schedule regular clones to catch recent additions/deletions.

 

[Colif]

If OP had multiple hdd in PC when they installed, there is no guarantee that C is the boot drive without a screen shot from disk management. Windows has a nasty habit of putting its boot partition on any other drive in PC that has free space. If PC has more than 1 active partition, it becomes difficult to guess which is boot drive. 1st hdd in machine isn't automatically the boot drive either, not if they are formatted as GPT.