ghosting my original dell drive

I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive 1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

On Apr 19, 1:49*am, "yirg.kenya" wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition *to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive *I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive *1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

Ghost is usually referred to as an image...I believe you want a
"clone" of your C-drive. A clone is a sector for sector copy.

yirg.kenya wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive 1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

Some drive manufacturers provide a free "clone" utility (or limited
version of Acronis) to clone the old drive to the new drive. Check
online at the drive maker's site.

Frank

sounds like you forgot to set the active partition on the new drive

yirg.kenya wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive 1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

On Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:49:40 -0700 (PDT), "yirg.kenya"
wrote:

I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive 1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

The easiest solution is to copy the entire contents of your old drive
to the new drive, including all partitions. Any drive copying utility
will do, but it must preserve the order of the partitions on the new
drive. A suitable free utility is CopyWipe from Terabyte.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

On Apr 19, 3:04*pm, Tom Cole wrote:
On Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:49:40 -0700 (PDT), "yirg.kenya"



wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition *to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive *I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive *1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

The easiest solution is to copy the entire contents of your old drive
to the new drive, including all partitions. Any drive copying utility
will do, but it must preserve the order of the partitions on the new
drive. A suitable free utility is CopyWipe from Terabyte.http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

Thanks! Tried this last. It's very slow using the windows interface.
I'll try with straight dos tonight from a CD.

However, it reported read errors on the SOURCE drive. So, I went into
safe mode with the command prompt and tried again with the same
result. It asked if I wanted to continue and I said no. I'm going to
run a disk surface verification test tonight to see what's going on.

On Apr 19, 7:25*am, JayB wrote:
sounds like you forgot to set the active partition on the new drive

yirg.kenya wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.

However, after ghosting the C partition *to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive *I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.

Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.

I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.

My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive *1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.

Any help most appreciated!

So if I set the active partition it will work even though only one of
the three partitions and the MBR was copied to the new drive (the C
partition. I didn't copy the two dell hidden partitions.

I'm not very knowledgeable about all this. Re booting does the MBR
care only about what the active partition is?

its best to copy all partitions up to the operating system partition.
mainly because the boot.ini file will be pointing to boot off a specific
partition number. if you change the order of the partition, then you
must also change the boot.ini
setting the active partition is to tell which partition gets booted.
it is never optional.
a lot of copy utilities do these steps for the user and most dont know
what's going on behind the scenes.

i always copy the small utility partition, and then the operating
system, esp when just going up to a larger hard drive. that is a no brainer.
the utilities that come with the new hard drive usually work well in
that case.


yirg.kenya wrote:
On Apr 19, 7:25 am, JayB wrote:
sounds like you forgot to set the active partition on the new drive

yirg.kenya wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.
However, after ghosting the C partition to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.
Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.
I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.
My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive 1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.
Any help most appreciated!

So if I set the active partition it will work even though only one of
the three partitions and the MBR was copied to the new drive (the C
partition. I didn't copy the two dell hidden partitions.

I'm not very knowledgeable about all this. Re booting does the MBR
care only about what the active partition is?

On Apr 20, 5:15*pm, JayB wrote:
its best to copy all partitions up to the operating system partition.
mainly because the boot.ini file will be pointing to boot off a specific
partition number. *if you change the order of the partition, then you
must also change the boot.ini
setting the active partition is to tell which partition gets booted.
it is never optional.
a lot of copy utilities do these steps for the user and most dont know
what's going on behind the scenes.

i always copy the small utility partition, and then the operating
system, esp when just going up to a larger hard drive. that is a no brainer.
the utilities that come with the new hard drive usually work well in
that case.

yirg.kenya wrote:
On Apr 19, 7:25 am, JayB wrote:
sounds like you forgot to set the active partition on the new drive

yirg.kenya wrote:
I want to ghost my original 160GB hard drive from my Dimension E510 to
a new 1 TB drive which came with a "free" SATA-USB external adapter,
and to use this as my internal C drive, the old drive becoming a semi-
portable one.
However, after ghosting the C partition *to the new drive, and asking
that the MBR also be copied, the new drive won't boot either as a USB
drive or when I open the case and use it (swapping sata and power
supply cables) instead of the old drive. When not trying to boot from
the new drive *I can see the entire contents of my old C on it w/o
problem.
Looking some more I see in fact that my original drive had 3
partitions: 1: dell utility, 2: C:, 3: Dell Restore.
I'm wondering if the problem was that I have to ghost at least 1 and 2
or all three, otherwise the MBR will be incorrect on the new drive.
My next thought was that if this were the case then maybe I should
ghost my entire drive *1:1 to the new one and, once I'm able to boot
from it, resize the partitions.
Any help most appreciated!

So if I set the active partition it will work even though only one of
the three partitions and the MBR was copied to the new drive (the C
partition. I didn't copy the two dell hidden partitions.

I'm not very knowledgeable about all this. Re booting *does the MBR
care only about what the active partition is?

Thanks. Looks like I blew it then because the first thing I did to do
a complete (full) format of my new drive, obviously wiping out
anything that was there. Maybe I can get them from the manufacturer
(samsung).

no, i always do a full format too. just to test the hard drive and make
sure it is working.
then i clone the small diag partition from the original hard drive.
then i copy the operating system partition.

the mfg does not have the dell diagnostic partition.


yirg.kenya wrote:

Thanks. Looks like I blew it then because the first thing I did to do
a complete (full) format of my new drive, obviously wiping out
anything that was there. Maybe I can get them from the manufacturer
(samsung).