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#21
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best cloning method?
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#22
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best cloning method?
Maybe just give us some technical details about your system:
-motherboard model number -devices, you have hooked up on your IDE ribbons -BIOS settings relevant to boot/IDE devices -exact error messages at critical moments of your cloning experiment |
#23
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best cloning method?
wrote:
I tried again with True Image - this time I disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the the new disc would not boot. OK, that takes care of the Clone's First Bootup precaution. Same error that there was no boot disk. Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive) which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP configuration. I think I give up on True Image. It sure sounds like the MBR isn't being copied over. But since True Image is supposed to do that automatically when cloning, I can't imagine why. As far as Casper goes. My statement that it won't partition the extra space comes from the manufacturer's website, although I have to admit that your use of the word 'spurious' let everyone know that you meant business! And I quote - "While fully operational, this trial version does not provide support for volume resizing. For example, using the trial version of Casper XP to copy a 10GB drive to a new 100GB hard disk will result in a 10GB copy being created on the 100GB hard disk; the additional 90GB of space on the new hard disk will remain unpartitioned space." This makes the free version perfectly useless to me and I don't feel like dishing out $50 just to clone a damn drive. OK, now I see that you meant that the partition that you're copying is only 28GB and that the clone will be the that same size, not that Casper XP won't copy more than that much. It may be possible to create the larger partition using Disk Management and then use the free trial Casper XP to copy into that pre-existing partition. It may be worth a try since it won't hurt anything if it doesn't work. *TimDaniels* |
#24
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best cloning method?
Timothy Daniels wrote
wrote I tried again with True Image - this time I disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the the new disc would not boot. OK, that takes care of the Clone's First Bootup precaution. Same error that there was no boot disk. Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive) which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP configuration. I think I give up on True Image. It sure sounds like the MBR isn't being copied over. Nope, because it boots fine with the old drive still connected. But since True Image is supposed to do that automatically when cloning, I can't imagine why. Because the bios wont boot the new drive with the old drive disconnected, either because it cant see the new drive with the old drive disconnected because of the jumpering on the new drive, or because it needs to have the new drive specified in the bios to boot from with the old drive disconnected. As far as Casper goes. My statement that it won't partition the extra space comes from the manufacturer's website, although I have to admit that your use of the word 'spurious' let everyone know that you meant business! And I quote - "While fully operational, this trial version does not provide support for volume resizing. For example, using the trial version of Casper XP to copy a 10GB drive to a new 100GB hard disk will result in a 10GB copy being created on the 100GB hard disk; the additional 90GB of space on the new hard disk will remain unpartitioned space." This makes the free version perfectly useless to me and I don't feel like dishing out $50 just to clone a damn drive. OK, now I see that you meant that the partition that you're copying is only 28GB and that the clone will be the that same size, not that Casper XP won't copy more than that much. It may be possible to create the larger partition using Disk Management and then use the free trial Casper XP to copy into that pre-existing partition. It may be worth a try since it won't hurt anything if it doesn't work. Makes a lot more sense to fix what prevents the new drive from being booted when the old drives is disconnected, after having done the clone with True Image. |
#25
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best cloning method?
wrote in message oups.com... (SNIP)... This leaves me with the possibility of Ghost- I actually have a copy of 2003 that I just installed, but have no idea how to use it yet. I am still looking for the simple way to clone a hd and have the damn thing boot up and have all the programs work on it. Believe me - I'm still listening with both ears if anyone has any other suggestions. I'll post back about how Ghost works out. If anyone has any tips for using Ghost I'd love to hear that as well. Thanks all for the continued help in this nightmare. Here, in slightly edited form, are some step-by-step instructions for using the Ghost 2003 program that I prepared in response to a request I received from a local computer club... Before I provide you (and others who may be interested) with the detailed instructions involved, let me make the following points. 1. This is *not* complicated business. Using the Ghost 2003 program in an XP environment in the manner in which I will set forth is a relatively simple & straightforward process. 2. It (nearly) goes without saying, that in order for the cloning process to be successful, both the source disk (the drive you're cloning from) and the destination disk (the drive you're cloning to) must be non-defective and properly connected/configured in your system. 3. The OS that you're cloning must be free from system files corruption. ("If you clone garbage, garbage is what you'll get"). And that's it. The precise steps to directly clone the contents from one HD to another HD using the Ghost 2003 program are simple & effective. But before I get to the actual step-by-step instructions, I want to make the following points so that you (and others who might be interested in a disk imaging program) understand how I use this program to achieve our desired objective which is to *directly* clone the contents of one HD to another HD... 1. We use the Ghost 2003 program for one purpose, and only one purpose - to *directly* clone the contents of one hard drive to another hard drive. We are not interested in "incremental or scheduled backups", nor are we interested in creating "disk images" on removable media, e.g., DVDs. Our sole interest & objective is to create & maintain a near-failsafe backup system for restoration purposes. 2. It is *vital* that you work with the latest version of the Ghost 2003 program. That's the Ghost 2003.793 build. Should you have an earlier version, you can use Symantec's LiveUpdate feature available in the Ghost program to download & automatically install that latest update. 3. We prefer to work with the Ghost 2003 program rather than its successor Ghost 9 & Ghost 10 programs. For our purposes, we find the 2003 version more straightforward in design, simpler to use, faster in carrying out its function than the newer versions. And, I might add, just as effective for the purposes indicated. Again, I emphasize that we use the program solely for the *direct* cloning of the contents of one HD to another HD. 4. In using the Ghost 2003 program, our preference is to work with the Ghost 2003 bootable floppy disk (or on occasion the Ghost 2003 bootable CD). We find that media simpler to use in comparison with the Windows GUI and we enjoy the portability aspects of using that media. So, here are step-by-step instructions for using the Ghost 2003 program (using a Ghost 2003 bootable floppy disk or bootable CD) to directly clone the contents of one HD to another HD... Creating the bootable Ghost floppy disk: 1. Install the Ghost 2003 program on your computer. Make sure you're using the latest "build" - Ghost 2003.793. If not, use Ghost's LiveUpdate feature to automatically download the latest version. It's important that you be using this latest "build". 2. Insert a blank floppy disk (it need not be formatted) and access your Ghost program. 3. Click on Ghost Utilities. 4. Click on Norton Ghost Boot Wizard. 5. Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk. A dialog box will appear. a. Select the USB 2.0 Support option (assuming you have that capability). b. Select the Assign DOS drive letters option and click Next. 6. Select the Use PC-DOS option. 7. Complete the process following the screen prompts. 8. Remove floppy and label accordingly. That's it. Now you have a Ghost bootable floppy disk which you can use to undertake your cloning operations now and in the future. Now when you want to clone the contents of one HD to another HD you simply insert the Ghost bootable floppy disk in your floppy drive and boot up with both drives connected. After creating the Ghost bootable floppy disk, you can, should you desire, create a Ghost bootable CD from it using the Roxio or Nero CD burning programs, or most other CD burning programs that allow you to create a bootable CD from a floppy disk. Here's how to perform the cloning operation... 1. With both drives connected, boot up with the Ghost bootable floppy (or Ghost bootable CD). You'll get an initial screen that displays "License agreement warning". Right-arrow (or tab) over to the "Continue without marking drives" button and press Enter. 2. The "About Norton Ghost" screen appears. Click OK. 3. Right-arrow twice over to the "To Disk" button and press Enter. 4. The next screen will list both your drives - the Drive 1 (source disk) and Drive 2 (destination disk). MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Drive 1 IS INDEED YOUR SOURCE DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING *FROM*! Drive 1 will be highlighted. Press Enter. 5. The next screen will have Drive 2 (destination disk) highlighted. AGAIN, ENSURE THAT Drive 2 IS YOUR DESTINATION DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING *TO*! Press Enter. 6. The next screen is the "Destination Drive Details" window, and reflects your ultimate destination disk, i.e., your current Drive 2. Press your Tab key to highlight the OK button and press Enter. 7. The "Proceed with disk clone?" dialog box will open. Left-arrow over to the Yes button and press Enter. 8. The cloning process will begin. The data transfer speed will vary depending upon the speed of your processor and the HDs involved. Should you be cloning internal HDs, on a medium to high-powered system you should get transfer speeds ranging from about 800 MB/min to about 1.5 GB/min (and perhaps slightly higher). It will be considerably slower if you're cloning to a USB external HD. 9. After you get the "Clone Completed Successfully" message, left-arrow over to the Continue button and press Enter. 10. Down-arrow to Quit and press Enter. 11. Click Yes at the "Are you sure you want to quit?" message. 12. Remove the Ghost floppy and shut down the computer. 13. Disconnect your source disk and boot up with the cloned drive. In most cases (but not always), a Windows "Found New Hardware" message will appear in the Desktop's Notification Area followed by a "System Settings Change" message window informing you that new hardware has been found and asks "Do you want to restart your computer now?" Click Yes. 14. BTW, the reboot of the newly-cloned drive usually takes a longer time than usual, so one must be patient. On rare occasions the system will fail to reboot - the system will hang before reaching the Windows XP Welcome screen. It's a rare occurrence, but you may experience it from time-to-time. If that does occur, simply use the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys to reboot. Assuming you've cloned the contents of your working drive to your second internal drive, that second drive will be bootable (after disconnecting your primary one, of course) as indicated above. You also have the option of cloning your working drive to a USB external hard drive. In that case the USB EHD is *not* bootable, but you could clone the contents back to your internal drive for restoration purposes should the need arise. Just one other point I wish to emphasize with respect to the cloning operation involving internal drives. Immediately following the cloning operation and the shutdown of your machine, disconnect your source drive and boot ONLY to the newly-cloned drive (as indicated in step 13. above). DO NOT BOOT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLONING OPERATION WITH BOTH DRIVES CONNECTED. Doing so is likely to cause future boot problems with the cloned drive. Obviously there is no problem in this area should a USBEHD be involved in the cloning process since that device is not bootable in an XP environment. I should add that the Ghost 2003 program can just as easily clone individual partitions on one HD to another HD as cloning the entire contents of one HD to another HD. In our case we rarely have need to clone individual partitions, usually preferring to clone the contents of the entire drive instead, but that capability is there should you need it. And it's no more difficult than cloning the entire contents of one drive to another. I trust the above will be of use to you and others who might be thinking about using the Ghost 2003 program for a routine backup system. Anna |
#26
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best cloning method?
wrote:this time I
[.....] disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the the new disc would not boot. Same error that there was no boot disk. It probably says no boot files - no ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com. That may be because the OS was copied to an Extended partition or that the Primary partition it's in is not marked "active" and the boot sector can't find the partition where ntldr is supposed to be. Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive) which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP configuration. It's time to tell all: 1) How do you know which OS is running? IOW, what distinguishes one from the other for you? I put a folder on the Desktop with a distinguishing name so that I can tell at a glance which clone is running. 2) Is the partition marked "active" on the new HD the one with ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com at the root of the file structure of that partition? Disk Management will show which partition is marked "active". Rt-clk the graphic of the disk space and see if "Mark Partition as Active" is grayed out - which means it's "active". 3) Please list for us the contents of the boot.ini files on both HDs. 4) You've written "the new drive is a Maxtor 80g ata133 7200rpm (the old is a 28g Western Digital.) These are jumpered differently. Are you jumpering each of them correctly when there is only one HD in the system? *TimDaniels* |
#27
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best cloning method?
Timothy Daniels wrote
wrote This is not going well. I tried again with True Image - this time I disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the the new disc would not boot. Same error that there was no boot disk. It probably says no boot files - no ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com. Or its the normal bios non system disk error message. That may be because the OS was copied to an Extended partition Not even possible with True Image with a clone. or that the Primary partition it's in is not marked "active" Wont happen with a clone. and the boot sector can't find the partition where ntldr is supposed to be. You dont even know that its even being loaded by the bios at all. Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive) which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP configuration. It's time to tell all: Nope. 1) How do you know which OS is running? IOW, what distinguishes one from the other for you? I put a folder on the Desktop with a distinguishing name so that I can tell at a glance which clone is running. Waste of time when we know what happens when you boot a clone with the original still visible on the first boot of the clone. 2) Is the partition marked "active" on the new HD the one with ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com at the root of the file structure of that partition? We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine. Disk Management will show which partition is marked "active". Rt-clk the graphic of the disk space and see if "Mark Partition as Active" is grayed out - which means it's "active". We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine. 3) Please list for us the contents of the boot.ini files on both HDs. We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine. 4) You've written "the new drive is a Maxtor 80g ata133 7200rpm (the old is a 28g Western Digital.) These are jumpered differently. Are you jumpering each of them correctly when there is only one HD in the system? Finally, the one thing its likely to be, after someone else has pointed that out. Effective debugging is all about concentrating on what can produce the symptoms seen, child. |
#28
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best cloning method?
Hope I'm not going off topic here but - I'd recommend using VMware
Server (formerly known as GSX). It's now free! I haven't used it yet but I did use VMware Player for a bit and there was no problem. Using a virtual machine is more convenient than cloning the hard disk. If your PC motherboard fails, the cloned hard disk is unlikely to be bootable on different hardware. A virtual machine isolates you from that. You can stop the virtual machine, copy out the image files, and that's your complete portable system backup that you can run on any new hardware, even with a different PC brand. Best if you're setting up a machine for the first time. Install some free Linux to save on license costs, install VMware Server, boot a virtual machine install from CD (Windows or Linux, whatever, your actual running OS). Details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware |
#29
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best cloning method?
"Rod Speed" wrote in message ... Anna wrote Timothy Daniels wrote asled Is there a nice simple DOS program that I can run that will format the new drive, copy the old to the new, and make the new drive bootable? Yes! And it's free for 30 days. It's called Casper XP. www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp. I've used half a dozen other cloning utilities, and for cloning (as opposed to image files and incrmental backups) it's the best and the easiest to use. It will copy the MBR to the new drive, it will mark the new paritition "active" (if only one partition is being cloned), and the new partition will be as bootable as the one cloned. Casper can be made to clone in either of 2 modes - the entirety of one HD can be cloned to the entirety of another HD, or just one partition can be cloned to another HD which may or may not already have other partitions on it. (True Image cannot do the latter.) As with all cloning, disconnect the old drive before starting up the clone OS for the first time. The clone may be *seen* by the old OS before the clone is first started up, but the clone must not see the old OS until after it has undergone its first startup. Thereafter, at subsequent startups, the clone may see its "parent" OS without problems. Sorry, Casper XP does not run under DOS, but that matters not a whit - it will copy everything while running under WinXP, including the wretched Symantec anti-virus software with all its settings and its subscription life span. Just disconnect the PC from the internet and disable the AV off before cloning to be sure. wrote Thanks for the reply. I'm trying True Image right now, but don't know how to make a bootable CD with the utilites in linux. I saw a part of the program for making bootable recovery cd/dvd's but I'm sure that's different. Can you point me in the right direction? Steve: We're talking *direct* disk-to-disk cloning here, right? In addition to Tim's recommendation re the Casper XP program, let me offer the following... If you're primarily interested in using a disk cloning program with either a bootable floppy disk or bootable CD as the media to carry out the cloning operation, you may be interested in Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 program. True Image makes a lot more sense. Ghost 2003 is way past its useby date now. Bull****. |
#30
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Cloned but FUBAR, help!!!
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