Cloning OS to new hard drive

[MGBRoadster]

My hard drive started making horrible "graunchy" noises a few weeks ago, so I bought a new HD, installed it as a Slave and cloned my old C drive onto it using Norton Ghost. (trying to follow http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=418&page=1 )

I've disconnected all the other hard drives, set the new drive to Master and re-booted, and the Bios sees the drive as Primary Master.

All I can get next is a screen that says:
"Searching for boot record from CD Rom
Searching for boot record from Floppy
Searching for boot record from SCSI

Reboot and select proper Boot Device"

Have I overlooked something stupid?

 

[ChartMan]

Boot to dos with a dos floppy.
run 'FDISK'
make sure you have an active partition set- usually 1.

With a blank drive, it's better to FDISK it, format with system ( dos boot) and make sure it boots up.
Then ghost it.

 

[ewilcox]

also check that the new hard disk has a boot partition . its that that the os looks for having powered up the hard disk.

 

[MGBRoadster]

Boot to dos with a dos floppy.
run 'FDISK'
make sure you have an active partition set- usually 1.

With a blank drive, it's better to FDISK it, format with system ( dos boot) and make sure it boots up.
Then ghost it.

Still struggling with this guys.

I created a dos floppy under WinXP and rebooted.

At the A:\ prompt FDISK gives "bad command or file name"

I can get to a command prompt using my XP setup disk, but FDISK isn't supported from there. FIXBOOT is, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

Try again tomorrow evening

Another wasetd weekend

 

[Mayfly]

Try booting with Win98 CD, you don't need to install Win98 just cut to C: prompt and DOS should be there for you.

HTH

Cheers

Mayfly

 

[mutantcar]

What boot sequence have you got set in the BIOS? You should have something like C:, A:, CDROM, I should think.

The one you listed says SCSI, is it a SCSI drive?

 

[dc2000]

Hi MGB
You mention Win XP is this the operating system you are using? if this is the case the drive will need partitioning as NTFS rather than FAT32 that the earlier versions of windows used

 

[ChartMan]

FAT32 is ok for Win XP, but that's another discussion altogether.

 

[robber]

MGB, a bit late for you this time around but take a look at Acronis True image. Full backup system to network or external drives and with a clone function which would do exactly the job you are struggling with. No booting into DOS either, True image runs entirely under windows or via a boot disc for recovery situations.

This review is from CNET;

Acronis True Image 8.0 is a speedy and powerful disk-imaging utility that copies the entire contents of your hard drive--data and operating system files, personalized settings, everything--onto another disk or disk partition, very useful when mirroring standard software configurations across new office desktops. Its interface is polished and easy to navigate; wizards step you through complex backup and restore tasks. It costs about the same as Norton Ghost 9.0, but True Image is significantly faster and less taxing on your system resources during routine backups. Like Ghost, True Image supports a variety of external media, including CD and DVD writers, as well as USB and FireWire drives. True Image also offers many tools not found in Ghost, including the ability to format and partition disks. Given its many features and performance results, Acronis True Image is a great buy and easily our CNET Editors' Choice for disk-imaging technology.

 

[dc2000]

Agreed
but you cant ghost an NTFS partitioned drive onto a FAT32 partitioned drive

Also MGB forgot to ask what version of ghost you are using as the earlier versions have a problem imaging NTFS partitions.

 

[JonnyT]

If you used Ghost 8 then there should be no problems.

I have never had to install DOS onto any drive prior to cloning with any version of Ghost or Drive Image.

I suspect you don't have an active partition for one reason or another.

JonnyT

 

[MGBRoadster]

OS is WinXP Home, and I think Ghost is version 8.0 (I'm not near that PC now)

Looks like the plan for this evening is

set new drive as Master
install WinXP from setup disk
test new drive boots ok
reset new drive to Slave and old drive to Master
Ghost old OS on top of new OS

I'll let you know how I get on

Cheers

 

[MGBRoadster]

You're right JonnyT, the partition wasn't active.

I set it to Active in Disk Management, and it tried to boot up, but hung on one of the blue screens.

Did a fresh install of XP and cloned the old C drive on top of it. Seems to be working ok now.

Thanks for the help chaps

 

[MGBRoadster]

uh oh, back again...

Me again !!!

Removed the old drive from my PC this morning, tried to re-boot. Got as far as the blue Windows XP screen and no further.

In the Bios the old drive is the primary master, the new one is the secondary master.

In Disk Management:
the new drive is Disk 0, System, Drive D
the old drive is Disk 2, Drive C, and has the Page File on it

Windows won't let me change the drive letter of the system volume.

I've tried to move the page file on to the D drive in System Properties, but it's still on the C Drive when I re-boot.

I've run FIXBOOT from the Win XP setup Recovery Console without any difference. Interestingly the Recovery Console sees the new drive as C and the old one as E.

I've also set the old drive to "Not Installed" in the Bios, but Windows still sees it.

Any suggestions?

 

[JonnyT]

Have you tried swopping the connections to the drives around assuming you are using Cable Select?

If you are not using cable select then set the new drive to be Master and the old one to be a Secondary. Make sure the new drive is connected to the Primary IDE Channel.

HTH

JonnyT