What are these BESRS utilities??

[Ken_Mahren]

Doesn't seem to be any info on what these utilities installed with BESRS are, what they do, and when to use them.
They are:
PartInNT.exe
PqBoot32.exe
PtEdit.exe
SeaST.exe
SmeDump.exe

You can find them in the Utilities dir of BESRS install.

Anyone know what they are for?

[Michael_Thomp3]

PartInNT.exe - Allows you to view NTFS partitions
PqBoot32.exe - allows you to set a partition as a bootable partition
PtEdit.exe - Allows you to edit the partition table
SeaST.exe - another support utility, which Im not quite sure what it does yet
SmeDump.exe - is a support utility that dumps information/configuration into a nfo/txt file

[Ken_Mahren]

Thanks Michael,

When would you need these utilities?

When would I need/want to view the NTFS partition in conjunction with BESRS?
Should a restore of an image make the boot partition bootable, or whould one have to also have to run the utility?
Dito on PtEdit

Do you know of any info on the Symantec site that goes through these utilities and when to use them.

BTW, I'm on hold to Symantec Support to find out how to download a later version of BESRS. I'm on 6.5.0 17171 which is what I got when I dl'ed the program from their website last week. I see others mentioning later versions and an upcoming ver 7.

And if Symantec does not improve it's tech support, I seriously doubt I will purchase any more of their products.

Yours...

[Michael_Thomp3]

Symantec support is a big pitfall for the company, as you can see this forum is not even moderated.

I dont know much about version 7, as I posted yesterday asking for any links to the changes/new features, but no response on that thread yet. I believe the product is in Beta still.

6.5.0 17171 is the build I have installed and no updates available through live update, I can imagine symantec having later builds to fix issues and not making them public for no apparent reason.

Primary reason you'd need to use those utilities is if the hardware you are restoring an image to is different than the image hardware. For example, your original image is stored on an 18GB partition, however the new hardware is a 72GB drive, if you want to utilize the remaining portition of the drive, you'd have to use the utilities. I presume you have tried to boot from the CD at least to see the wizard/utilities?

I believe it also uses the utilties indirectly by using the restore wizard as well.

Im no expert on this product especially since we just started to play around with it a few weeks ago, but those are my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

[Bill_Felt]

I'll take a stab at this, but Michael's done a good job already.

PartInNT.exe
This utility displays partition info about your local disks and partitions (as well as any errors or inconsistencies found in them), and allows this info to be saved to a file. Partition table errors can give BESR headaches, and this tool can be used by Symantec support to resolve these errors. The output of this utility can look pretty cryptic.

PqBoot32.exe
As Michael said, this utility allows you to choose what partition you want to be active (meaning, the partition that the system will try to boot from).

PtEdit.exe
As Michael said, this utility allows you to directly edit the partition table of a local drive.

SeaST.exe
This utility does several different things. The most common use for this tool is the button that gathers information for technical support. This means that it scours the local system for log, debug, history, job, and other files and puts them in one of your BESR program folders (so the files can be provided to technical support).

SmeDump.exe
This utility dumps a lot of information to a file, as Michael said. I believe this is another support tool.

Thanks.