Cloning HDD

Hiya all. Ive been having a problem cloning a HDD.

I have a 200gig hdd split up into 10gig / 10gig / * gig.

I wish to clone it to a 250gig HDD split into 25gig / 25gig / * gig

ive cloned both the storage partitions fine, however the OS partition will
not clone correctly. All the files seem to be there, but the OS wont boot.
Ive used Ghost v9, DrvclonerXP and XXcopy, neither worked for the OS...
which is strange.

The drives a
200gig Maxtor, NCQ enabled, SATAI
250gig Maxtor, NCQ disabled, SATAII

any ideas how to clone the OS to the new drive?

thanks :-(

--
From Overlag - Adam Webb

I've done this okay, just recently, cloning to a new
bigger HD, with Acronis True Image 9.0. That's what
I use these days for backup images as well. It does a
sector by sector image of the HD, and it can do the
backup images directly from Windows without any
rebooting, though the cloning feature will require a
reboot, and then another reboot or two to install
and switch the hard drives.

"Adam Webb" wrote in message
...
Hiya all. Ive been having a problem cloning a HDD.

I have a 200gig hdd split up into 10gig / 10gig / * gig.

I wish to clone it to a 250gig HDD split into 25gig / 25gig / * gig

ive cloned both the storage partitions fine, however the OS partition will
not clone correctly. All the files seem to be there, but the OS wont boot.
Ive used Ghost v9, DrvclonerXP and XXcopy, neither worked for the OS...
which is strange.

The drives a
200gig Maxtor, NCQ enabled, SATAI
250gig Maxtor, NCQ disabled, SATAII

any ideas how to clone the OS to the new drive?

thanks :-(

--
From Overlag - Adam Webb

BTW, they have a free trial version, 15 days I believe,
which you can download and try out. So if you're just
doing a clone, you probably don't even need to buy it.
I recommend buying it though, if you need it for backups.
I like their sofware, and if you check around you'll find
it very highly rated.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...oad/trueimage/

"Adam Webb" wrote in message
...
Hiya all. Ive been having a problem cloning a HDD.

I have a 200gig hdd split up into 10gig / 10gig / * gig.

I wish to clone it to a 250gig HDD split into 25gig / 25gig / * gig

ive cloned both the storage partitions fine, however the OS partition will
not clone correctly. All the files seem to be there, but the OS wont boot.
Ive used Ghost v9, DrvclonerXP and XXcopy, neither worked for the OS...
which is strange.

The drives a
200gig Maxtor, NCQ enabled, SATAI
250gig Maxtor, NCQ disabled, SATAII

any ideas how to clone the OS to the new drive?

thanks :-(

--
From Overlag - Adam Webb

BTW, they have a free trial version, 15 days I believe,
which you can download and try out. So if you're just
doing a clone, you probably don't even need to buy it.
I recommend buying it though, if you need it for backups.
I like their sofware, and if you check around you'll find
it very highly rated.

yeah i downloaded that program, was going to try it next

--
From Overlag - Adam Webb

Adam Webb wrote:
Hiya all. Ive been having a problem cloning a HDD.

I have a 200gig hdd split up into 10gig / 10gig / * gig.

I wish to clone it to a 250gig HDD split into 25gig / 25gig / * gig

ive cloned both the storage partitions fine, however the OS partition will
not clone correctly. All the files seem to be there, but the OS wont boot.
Ive used Ghost v9, DrvclonerXP and XXcopy, neither worked for the OS...
which is strange.

What does "wont boot" mean? How far does it get and what is the error?

Since you say you cloned partitions, just off hand I'd guess you haven't
written a boot sector to it.

Whether it will then reassign the new partitions so that the existing
boot.ini points to the new O.S. partition I'm not sure because it depends
on just how boot.ini was originally set up but if it's looking for
partition 'x' on disk 'y' then it'll probably be ok, but if it's looking
for a partition signature you might have to modify it.

The drives a
200gig Maxtor, NCQ enabled, SATAI
250gig Maxtor, NCQ disabled, SATAII

any ideas how to clone the OS to the new drive?

thanks :-(

What does "wont boot" mean? How far does it get and what is the error?

Since you say you cloned partitions, just off hand I'd guess you haven't
written a boot sector to it.

Whether it will then reassign the new partitions so that the existing
boot.ini points to the new O.S. partition I'm not sure because it depends
on just how boot.ini was originally set up but if it's looking for
partition 'x' on disk 'y' then it'll probably be ok, but if it's looking
for a partition signature you might have to modify it.


i did take a picture of it, however i didnt realise the memorycard in the
phone was full so it didnt save (and didnt tell me either)

the message was something along the lines of "unable to load OS" and wasnt
the "standard" XP loading error messages ive seen before, nor could i get
safe mode or anything

ghost, had aparently copied MBR, and with the drive im primary position i
was expecting it to pick up C: D: and E: as its drive letters but maybe
formating the drive in windows XP has caused it to always be G: H: K:??? i
dunno!!!

im going to try and find a ghost floppy (my version wont allow me to create
a ghost floppy?!?!?) or im going to try HDclone next. Might totaly format
the new drive again and try from then onwards.


--
From Overlag - Adam Webb

It is further alleged that on or about Sun, 5 Mar 2006 01:48:40 -0000,
in alt.comp.hardware.overclocking, the queezy keyboard of "Adam Webb"
spewed the following:

| What does "wont boot" mean? How far does it get and what is the error?
|
| Since you say you cloned partitions, just off hand I'd guess you haven't
| written a boot sector to it.
|
| Whether it will then reassign the new partitions so that the existing
| boot.ini points to the new O.S. partition I'm not sure because it depends
| on just how boot.ini was originally set up but if it's looking for
| partition 'x' on disk 'y' then it'll probably be ok, but if it's looking
| for a partition signature you might have to modify it.
|
|
|i did take a picture of it, however i didnt realise the memorycard in the
|phone was full so it didnt save (and didnt tell me either)
|
|the message was something along the lines of "unable to load OS" and wasnt
|the "standard" XP loading error messages ive seen before, nor could i get
|safe mode or anything
|
|ghost, had aparently copied MBR, and with the drive im primary position i
|was expecting it to pick up C: D: and E: as its drive letters but maybe
|formating the drive in windows XP has caused it to always be G: H: K:??? i
|dunno!!!
|
|im going to try and find a ghost floppy (my version wont allow me to create
|a ghost floppy?!?!?) or im going to try HDclone next. Might totaly format
|the new drive again and try from then onwards.

Just do a repair install of XP.
--

-nos1eep

Adam Webb wrote:

What does "wont boot" mean? How far does it get and what is the error?

Since you say you cloned partitions, just off hand I'd guess you haven't
written a boot sector to it.

Whether it will then reassign the new partitions so that the existing
boot.ini points to the new O.S. partition I'm not sure because it depends
on just how boot.ini was originally set up but if it's looking for
partition 'x' on disk 'y' then it'll probably be ok, but if it's looking
for a partition signature you might have to modify it.



i did take a picture of it, however i didnt realise the memorycard in the
phone was full so it didnt save (and didnt tell me either)

the message was something along the lines of "unable to load OS"

Sounds like it couldn't find the partition.

and wasnt
the "standard" XP loading error messages ive seen before, nor could i get
safe mode or anything

ghost, had aparently copied MBR, and with the drive im primary position i
was expecting it to pick up C: D: and E: as its drive letters but maybe
formating the drive in windows XP

Alarm bell. You made and formatted the new partitions on the new drive
while running off the old drive in XP?

If so, there's your problem. When a partition first appears to XP it
serializes it making a 'permanent' identification. So, if you simply copied
the partition data into them then they still have the drive assignments
made because the O.S. partition you copied has the knowledge of what those
assignments are since it's an exact copy of the O.S. that made them.

has caused it to always be G: H: K:???

Yep. And there isn't any C (or whatever boot.ini says is the system
partition) to load the O.S. from hence "unable to load OS."

i
dunno!!!

im going to try and find a ghost floppy (my version wont allow me to create
a ghost floppy?!?!?) or im going to try HDclone next. Might totaly format
the new drive again and try from then onwards.

Yes, you need to remove the partition information and make new ones, NOT in
XP, so XP no longer knows what they are. Then, when the new 'unknown'
partitions are found on the first boot of the cloned drive it'll assign
drive letters to them and, hopefully, in the same order it did with the
original drive so that C magically appears as the right partition.

Now, if you don't mind the system drive not being C, or it doesn't come out
as C even after wiping the drive, you can edit the boot.ini file to point
to the correct drive/partition (not a drive letter at that point, btw).

David Maynard wrote:
Adam Webb wrote:
ghost, had aparently copied MBR, and with the drive im primary
position i was expecting it to pick up C: D: and E: as its drive
letters but maybe formating the drive in windows XP

Alarm bell. You made and formatted the new partitions on the new drive
while running off the old drive in XP?

If so, there's your problem. When a partition first appears to XP it
serializes it making a 'permanent' identification. So, if you simply
copied the partition data into them then they still have the drive
assignments made because the O.S. partition you copied has the
knowledge of what those assignments are since it's an exact copy of
the O.S. that made them.
has caused it to always be G: H: K:???

Yep. And there isn't any C (or whatever boot.ini says is the system
partition) to load the O.S. from hence "unable to load OS."

I have to disagree David, much as it pains me. I did something very similar
to this recently and, after Ghost re-started into XP, still with the old
drive in place, and XP assigned the partitions on the new drive letters I
right-clicked My Compuert, hit 'Manage', then Disk Management. Right-click
the partitions on the new drive, click "Change drive letter or path", then
click remove.

Then swap the drives around and XP finds the boot partition and assigns
letters to the new drive on boot-up. The boot partition becones C: and you
can change the others to suit using Disk Management if Windows "numbers"
them wrong.

Worked for me a couple weeks ago using Ghost.
--
~misfit~

~misfit~ wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

Adam Webb wrote:

ghost, had aparently copied MBR, and with the drive im primary
position i was expecting it to pick up C: D: and E: as its drive
letters but maybe formating the drive in windows XP

Alarm bell. You made and formatted the new partitions on the new drive
while running off the old drive in XP?

If so, there's your problem. When a partition first appears to XP it
serializes it making a 'permanent' identification. So, if you simply
copied the partition data into them then they still have the drive
assignments made because the O.S. partition you copied has the
knowledge of what those assignments are since it's an exact copy of
the O.S. that made them.

has caused it to always be G: H: K:???

Yep. And there isn't any C (or whatever boot.ini says is the system
partition) to load the O.S. from hence "unable to load OS."


I have to disagree David, much as it pains me. I did something very similar
to this recently and, after Ghost re-started into XP, still with the old
drive in place, and XP assigned the partitions on the new drive letters I
right-clicked My Compuert, hit 'Manage', then Disk Management. Right-click
the partitions on the new drive, click "Change drive letter or path", then
click remove.

Then swap the drives around and XP finds the boot partition and assigns
letters to the new drive on boot-up. The boot partition becones C: and you
can change the others to suit using Disk Management if Windows "numbers"
them wrong.

Worked for me a couple weeks ago using Ghost.

Disagree with what?

You added the step of removing the drive letter assignments before removing
the old drive and booting on the new, something he didn't do, and, yes,
that should work.