Windows XP cloning problem

[DonVito]

I know there are alot of threads on this, I read through several but I'm still not sure what to do.


I just built my new computer, I took the HD (IBM Deskstar 40gb, IDE) out of my old computer that had Windows XP Home installed (Originally had Gateway OEM of Windows ME, then I bought an upgrade version of XP (retail).

After finishing my new computer, I intalled the old HD and did a "Repair Install" with the XP CD. I insalled all necessary drivers and SP2. Everything worked great, but the old drive is slow and is a major bottleneck for my new system.

The next day I installed my new HD (Maxtor Diamondmax 10, 100gb, SATA 150). I downloaded the .iso file of MaxBlast 4 from Maxtors website. Then I created a "Bootable Data Disk" with nero and burned the .iso on to it.

I put the CD in, restarted my computer, and Changed the primary boot device to CD-ROM. After the motherboards loading screen it didn't ask me to press enter to boot from CD, it just started running all kinds of processes. Some of them were about USB drivers, another one said "No NTSF volumes found"

when it stopped, the last thing there was, was an Oak Technologies copyright and A:\, then it just sat there and waited for my to type in something.

I tried that a couple more times after making a new CD, to no avail.


So, then i downloaded "MaxBlast 4 for Windows", ran it, it found my new Maxtor drive, and it sent me through the setup/formatting process, I set it up as "A new primary Boot Device", and kept it as one large partition and formatted it for FAT32 (that's what the old drive is, I dont know if they have to match or not). MaxBlast then copied all boot files, system files, and non system files. When it was done it reported zero errors.

I turned off the computer, took out the old HD, double checked the bios, Hard disk first in the boot order. I Saved the settings and exited, after the mobo loading screen I just got a "Error Loading OS" message. I put the old HD back in , still got the same message. So then I unplugged the new HD, and windows loaded perfectly.

I tried doing another "Repair Install" of windows with only the new drive in, went allong fine until the computer restarts itself for the first time, instead of starting up and continuing the install like it should, I just got the "Error loading OS" message.



Thats my story, I hope im not just missing some simple step. All of this stuff with cloning is were my knowledge of computers is weak.

New System specs:

Asus A8N5X
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Antec Smartpower 2.0 500w
7800gt
1 gig (2x 512) corsair value select, pc3200


Thanx

[GaryRouth]

How big is the new hard drive? I'll guess that it's an parallel ATA-133 ("IDE") drive, and not the newer SATA type? (SATA= Serial ATA). [By all means, make sure you've used the new cable that came with the drive, and didn't re-use an older 40wire cable]

Since MaxBlast4 can install "drive-overlay" or "drive-translation" software, some users have been able to avoid this error by changing their hard drive "type" in the Bios from LBA to Large (or visa versa). Be aware that this can cause all data to be lost when unsuccessful. Some links: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000730.htm http://whocares.de/archive/000682.php

An option that sometimes works is to boot into the XP Recovery Console and try the fixmbr command and chkdsk /f -- but this has proven to be a hit-and-miss repair for many systems.

Keep the older hard drive out of the picture while you fix the boot trouble with the new (after all, you want your old data to be safe).

Once you have the machine booting successfully, you may want to consider converting the file system to NTFS, to take advantage of it's extra features. Here's a link regarding those extra features: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000165.htm
And here's a link explaining the process of converting: http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[crjdriver]

I do not use maxblast to clone drives, however when you clone a drive you do not partition or format the new drive. The drive needs to be blank; no partition info at all on it.

I would start over and use something like acronis true image to clone your drive. I have used this app many many times without any problems at all.

[glc]

Gary, very minor issue - chkdsk /f is not a console option - console uses chkdsk /p instead. Both methods use chkdsk /r which checks for bad sectors and can take forever.

CRJ has a good point - the free manufacturers' utilities can be hit or miss. If it works, you did well. If not, you may have to explore other options.

[GaryRouth]

glc - you're right about the /f switch in Recovery Console --I hadn't noticed that before. XP doesn't have many utilities that run all that quickly, but chkdsk is truly a snail... at least it usually works!

I don't use MaxBlast myself (though I've seen plenty of computers that have used it) - it seems quirky to me, and I usually find that either the XP disk tools or the disk specialty programs do OK. Powermax is reliable, but pretty much just does its diagnostics. DataLifeGuard has always seemed pretty reliable too.

crj - True Image got the top rating for it's class earlier this year in PC World magazine. It's usually neck-and-neck with Ghost and DriveImage. All three are pretty good. I think they are each about $50 or so, on average.

donvito - the nice thing about your situation is that you have your data safely tucked away on the old drive - so it can't hurt to try to repair your current installation. If the bios changes do it, that'd be nice - since it's a no-extra-cost repair.

Interested to see how this turns out!
. . . Gary

[crjdriver]

Acronis has a trial version available for download; you might want to give it a try. I have not used the trial, so I do not know if there are any limitations.
Acronis trial

[DonVito]

Thanks for the help guys.

OK, I downloaded Acronis True Image trial version. It just finished copying and says "Congratulations, copying has been copleted succesfully....
Press any key to shut down your computer"

Now, do I take out the old hard drive when I shut down or leave it in and start the computer. I didn't do the "automatic" copy, I set up the partitions and stuff manually (if that matters).


Thanx

[crjdriver]

Do not restart with both drives connected. Shutdown and pull the power from the old drive. Now restart and make sure you can boot and drive letters are correct. Once you are sure that you can boot the system, you can shutdown and reconnect power to the old drive. The os will assign the next available drive letter to the old drive. You can now use it for storage.

[crjdriver]

One more thing. Once you disconnect power to the old drive, your bios should default to the new one as the boot drive, however it does not hurt to check the settings in the bios.

[DonVito]

Ok I shut down the computer and unplugged the old drive. I checked the bios and the new drive is the boot drive (it's connected to the 2nd SATA connector and is the master). Now were I used to get the "Error loading OS" message, it says nothing, it just sits there. The new drive doesnt start spinning or anything. I know the drive works, I was able to get all the data over to it. It just wont boot .

Any Ideas?



UPDATE: I needed to use the computer so I plugged the old HD back in, put it first in the boot order and it worked. After the XP loading screen is automatically ran a CheckDisk for only the old drive, after it finished (no errors) it scrolled way down and said "Acronis TrueImage Complete". When windows loaded I went into "My Computer" both drives are now named Local Disk, the old one is C:\ and the new one is E:\. They both have all of my data on them. I shut down the computer, unplugged the old HD and started it up (checked the BIOS) but nothing has changed. Still just sat there.

[GaryRouth]

You can try booting into the XP Recovery Console and trying the "bootcfg /rebuild" command (without the quotes). You can boot from your XP CD to reach the Recovery Console. Details are in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058

This should allow you to add the new XP installation to the boot files.

[I think - I haven't had any opportunities to try this myself yet!]

. . . Gary

[ not sure, but it's seems like it might also be possible that you'll have to get the SATA drivers from the old drive to the new somehow . . . -- not sure if the fixmbr trick can help with this or not - since you cloned, the old mbr and boot files are setup for an ATA-133 drive, not a SATA drive -- this might be where letting Acronis do the trick "automatically" would help]

[DonVito]

Ok, I tried the SATA driver thing and it still wouldn't boot.

But, I think I have an idea. I'll just do a clean install of XP on the new drive, then copy/paste all of the stuff I really dont want to lose (music collection etc.) from the old drive to the new one. Then reformatt the old drive for storage. I think my computer could use a clean install anyways. And it will give me a chance to get rid of all the junk that has built up over the years.

This should work right?


Thanx for help

[GaryRouth]

I like that idea, especially if you have an XP CD with SP2 already on it. If not, no sweat = just download it ahead of time & burn it onto a CD (saves a lot of time).

It's so much easier to add the SATA drivers during the XP Setup: all you have to do is press F6 when you see the message "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver", and follow the prompts = you'll want to have your SATA drivers either on floppy or CD, so that XP can find them.

You'll probably have some time to spend at Windows Update catching up on patches, so make sure your antivirus & firewall are ready-to-go when connected.

. . . Gary

[glc]

you'll want to have your SATA drivers either on floppy or CD, so that XP can find them.

It *must* be on a floppy - the F6 routine can only load drivers from a floppy that has been assigned drive letter A.

If the SATA controller has native XP support, F6 is not necessary - try without it, but if the hard drive is not found, start over and use F6.