Backing up Boot camp partition with help of iPartition 3 (no WinClone)

Winclone has been the de facto tool for backing up a Boot camp partition. Its website says it's discontinued.

So... I went looking for an alternative way. Setting up Windows 7 (+ Security Essentials + Inventor 2011) is not such a pleasure I would voluntarily look for it (again). So I want to "image" the bootcamp partition somehow.

Ideally, the image would only carry the bytes actually used in the NTFS volume and not be a 1:1 copy of the raw device. So Linux-like bitwise device copy is ruled out.

I was surprised not to find a ready-made solution for this in the otherwise splendid Coriolis iPartition 3 software. But their customer support gave the following advice:

Hi Asko, Thank you for you comments :)

Actually, there is a simple way to do what I believe you wish to do using iPartition and Disk Utility. You can use Disk Utility to create a "sparse disk image" large enough to accommodate your windows partition.

Then, in iPartition, delete any partitions which may have been created in your new disk image then navigate to the windows partition that you wish to back up. Select this partition and chose "Clone..." from the Partition drop-down menu. Set the target disk to your new disk image and hit Go.

You can now unmount this disk image and you will see that the image (.sparseimage) file size is only the size of the files that Windows was using. This is because iPartition recognizes the free space in your partition when performing the clone operation.

We hope that you find this solution useful. If you need any further assistance or have any other issues then please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Kind regards, (person's name removed)

I'm doing that right now, and it seems to work (*knock knock*). I do wish they would build this procedure (or similar) and restoration of Boot camp partition from the backup such created, right into iPartition.

Autodesk Inventor would actually fit on 5 (almost 4) DVDs

Autodesk Inventor 2011 Pro comes in a nice, smallish package. Within the package there are 7 (!) installation DVDs and separate Vault Server and "Fusioin technology Preview" discs. This blog entry is about the 7 DVDs.

What is the cost of making a DVD?

- manufacturing
- managing (it's a part in Autodesk's storehouse, somewhere)
- packaging (actually placing those DVDs inside the enclosure + one extra "page" per each 2/3 DVDs)
- shipping
- landfill

This site says the carbon footprint of a DVD is 1.06 pounds (453gCO2). Maybe that includes the enclosure but that is irrelevant, here.

Why am I writing this?

I was *blown* by having a software install from *7* DVDs. Windows takes only 1 (well, two if you count both 32- and 64-bit versions). So I went to see what's inside the DVDs - or how densely they have been packed. Well, they aren't.

If Autodesk reorganized the way they store file on the DVDs, they would be able to fit everything on 5 DVDs (a 28.5% savings). Why not do that?

Here's the numbers (single-sided DVD capacity is 4.7GB):

Disk 1/7: 3.74 GB used
Disk 2/7: 2.38 GB used
Disk 3/7: 3.05 GB used
Disk 4/7: 1.92 GB used
Disk 5/7: 2.19 GB used
Disk 6/7: 3.44 GB used
Disk 7/7: 2.53 GB used

Total: 19.25 GB used (which makes 4.09 fully filled DVDs)

To Autodesk, this might not be much. Peanuts. And they're probably proud to have such a gigantic installation experience (though in practice it's enough to give 4 of the 7 disks - both 32- and 64-bit versions are included). But where this counts is example. If you can slim something down, it should. So I'm saying they give a baddish example.

What's the footprint of a bit - electrical delivery

What they would be keen to point out is that "subscription" customers get an electrical delivery (download service). Right. Where this is good is that the customers can download only the required pieces (those ca. 4 DVDs worth). That's around 12GB with their filling ratio. But also that has a carbon footprint. Let's see.

For this, we need to consider i.e. delivery from California to Finland (my case). There may be 3-4 (or more) network hops on the way. Some calculations I found only include the server electricity usage but that's wrong. The bits need power to move, even if they'd be sent over fiber optics. So the question becomes: "what is the carbon footprint of sending one bit half-way around the world"?

TBD. If you can find a measurable answer to the above question, pls. make a comment. I did not find it.

But I found this article about energy use of data transmissions, saying:

He notes that some large carriers have energy bills approaching $1 billion.

Clearly, there's a roof to how much bits it's "free of charge" to move around. Someone pays the electricity bills. Internet is not free (for the environement).

Use the cloud

What would be interesting if Autodesk wants to further develop the "subscription" model is to employ peer-to-peer technologies. What this helps with is:
- less burden on their own servers
- faster download speed for customers
- lesser carbon footprint (because data is found closer to where it's needed - i.e. a Finnish customer would get the data from others in Finland)

Maybe they already do something like this, buying cloud services from Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other providers. Good, if they do.

What to do?

In summary, I like the AI2011 offering. I do. And it doesn't feel bloated in use, at all. Which makes it even more essential to make also the installation less bloated. Because it can be. I.e. like this:

- One "joined" (both 32- and 64-bit disk) that is used for starting.
- 2 disks for 32-bit Windows version.
- 2 disks for 64-bit Windows version.

The customer would need to give three disks for any AI2011 install. Looking forward to a slim install in AI 2013. Or maybe a torrent. :)

- Asko Kauppi

Autodesk Inventor 2010 under VMWare Fusion 3.1.2

I'm going to do some work with Autodesk Inventor 2010 during this spring, and thought of documenting the installation experience here, for others to know of.

The full text will need to wait, but I thought to make a few notes of the important pieces, especially since I'm running it under an officially non-supported VMWare Fusion virtualisation. Here goes.

7 DVDs. Whoa. They must have an army building this stuff.

Those disks contain both 32- and 64-bit versions, which partly explains the size. But actually, installation apart, the software doesn't feel too heavy. It's snappy even under virtual machine (running on Mac Mini 2GHz, 4GB, with Windows 7 32-bit and 2GB memory allocated for the virtual machine).

One but. After install AI2011 has the "software graphics" option set. VMWare 3.1.2 can do DirectX9, which is enough for AI2011, so simply tick that option away. Faster. Looks better. Cool. :)

I've noticed sometimes AI2011 opts that switch back, by itself. Maybe it measures performance and as we know, virtual machines can have quirks in that, especially if the software is being running when suspended. So if things work slow, check that corner and untick the box.

Second but (not big, though).

I ordered a 3DConnexion SpaceExplorer "3D mouse" to help orientate within the drawings. The hardware's good and the demos and tutorials work swiftly under VMWare 3.1.2. However, using it under AI2011 is an absolute no-go. It takes a second or so for movements to be registered on screen. Maybe it's the SpaceExplorer AI "drivers" (rather adapters). Maybe it's something else. Clearly the "drivers" have been designed and only tested on rather fast 3D workstations. Makes sense.

Unfortunately the "driver" architecture of this thingy is such that I cannot run them native on OS X and have the device virtualized somehow (like a mouse) onto Windows. It all needs to run there. Maybe it has to do with USB performance. Go figure.

IF VMWare is looking into supporting Autodesk tools as I think they are, they should probably look at the speed issues with this hardware as well.







( One more thing. Untick "enable Mac OS mouse shortcut" boxes in VMWare Fusion Preferences - and use a two-button mouse. Makes Ctrl-clicking work in Windows. )

Addendum:

If you intend to use Inventor from both BootCamp (booting to Windows) and via VMWare Fusion, you will need a "network license" (and a license server somewhere on your network). The local license scheme gets confused by "hardware change". Discussion of this at Autodesk forum.