Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

[seniortech]

My customer has two KM C6501 printers each connected to a Fiery PRO80 running command workstation 5.0.1.12. Because of his workflow he has 50 differently configured virtual printers (the same on both Fierys). Earlier this week the hard disc failed on one controller, unfortunately the controller had not been backed up so all of the virtual printers on one of the machines has been lost.


The controller has been rebuilt; system software, patches etc., but it will take someone hours if not a wholenday to manually set up and then test all the virtual printers on the machine.


Is there any way to copy the 50 virtual printers and all of the settings from Fiery A (that is working) and to reload them onto Fiery B (that is not).


A collegue recommended a tool called Microsoft Printer Migration Tool. I did try this, I run this utility on the working machine and it saw and copied all the virtual printers to a file that I could save on a USB pen, I then tried installing it on the non working machine and it did appear to work, if you looked in the windows printer folder you could see all of the printers, correctly configured, however when you open command workstation 5 and look in devices and virtual printers you can only see the default queues Hold, Print and Direct, but none of the virtual printers.


Does EFI or anyone produce a utility or know of a way to copy virtual printers and settings from one Fiery to another? Any help or advice will be really helpful (and save me hours of frustration in the process).


Thanks

[Synaux]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

Its not as easy as an application, but I guess you could take the hhd out of Fiery A and mirror it to the hdd from Fiery B (and maybe another spare drive as a precaution). This of course would only be viable to identical Fierys.

[Tonerbomb]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

EFI does make a Fiery Clone tool for the newer Fiery devices. Check the EFI web site.

[seniortech]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

EFI does make a Fiery Clone tool for the newer Fiery devices. Check the EFI web site.

I have thought of the clone tool but it looks if the image can only be restored back to the controller that it was taken from. can someone confirm if this is indeed the case.

[seniortech]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

I have thought of the clone tool but it looks if the image can only be restored back to the controller that it was taken from. can someone confirm if this is indeed the case.

I spent ages trying again today and as I thought the image can only be restored back to the controller from which it was taken, It seems absolutely crazy that there is no way to replicate the same virtual printers across multiple controllers...

[emujo]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

I'm sorry, but this seems a little out of the scope of "copier repair". It sounds like once you've repaired the MFP the rest should be handled by the customers IT department. I personally would be presenting a bill for any of this stuff. Correct me and set me on the right path if I'm wrong...Emujo

[seniortech]

We have a contract with this customer to fully support the Fiery controllers in their two systems. If only passing the call on was that simple...

[Synaux]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

I spent ages trying again today and as I thought the image can only be restored back to the controller from which it was taken, It seems absolutely crazy that there is no way to replicate the same virtual printers across multiple controllers...

While emujo certainly has a very valid point, I am almost certain--in theory--if you can put the Fiery HDD in another computer and locate the directory/file responsible for storing the virtual printers, copy it, then transfer it to the other Fiery you will be successful.
This being said, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes--it seems like a lot of work taking those things apart and investigative work simply finding the relevant files. (I guess remaking the virtual printers by scratch might be preferable.)
You can still try mirroring the drives with a cheapo spare HDD if you have one to try (you would have to rerun the setup again of course).

There is a Fiery forum that might have harbor some helpful eggheads.

Lastly, have you tried the clone tool?

[seniortech]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

I tried 'cloning' the good Fiery that still has all the virtual printers, but was unable to restore it back onto the Fiery that has problems, It simply refused to work saying that the cloned image did not come from the fiery that I was trying to restore the image onto. There seems no way to cheat the system and without knowing the exact specifics of exactly what information is contained within the clone to verify from which Fiery it came and being unable to open the cloned image to view, and with no way of easily cheating the system I have to admit defeat. I also posted this problem on EFI Forums but as yet no one there has replied.

The very long process of individually recreating all of the virtual printers has now started...

[Synaux]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

I tried 'cloning' the good Fiery that still has all the virtual printers, but was unable to restore it back onto the Fiery that has problems, It simply refused to work saying that the cloned image did not come from the fiery that I was trying to restore the image onto. There seems no way to cheat the system and without knowing the exact specifics of exactly what information is contained within the clone to verify from which Fiery it came and being unable to open the cloned image to view, and with no way of easily cheating the system I have to admit defeat. I also posted this problem on EFI Forums but as yet no one there has replied.

The very long process of individually recreating all of the virtual printers has now started...

Not cool...what file format is the cloned image? Have you tried extracting it manually with winrar?

[dljorg]

Re: Copying Virtual Printers and Settings From One Fiery To Another

Clone tool is great but it will make an image that can ONLY be put back on the same machine - looks at a code number in the BIOS I think. CANNOT be used for copying one machine to another.

Side Note - you can restore a crashed Fiery in 20 minutes with the clone tool. Re-install by disk is 2 hours minimum. You are crazy not to have all of them cloned.

Virtual printers can be copied from one Fiery to another by using the Backup and Restore tool in CWS5. Its a snap, backup on machine one to a USB drive ....restore to machine 2.