Having trouble cloning a hard drive

partzman · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 5

I have two older computers. One with a 17gb drive and XP. One with a 30 gb drive and windows ME. The ME computer is a little faster setup. The XP computer was given to me with a lot of problems that I have cleared up and runs good, though slow, and I don't have the XP cd. I wanted to move XP to the 30 gb hard drive and install ME on the 17 gb. I used Drive Image XL to format the drive to ntfs and copy the other drive info. I can read the drive and install programs as a slave, everything looks ok. I have changed the jumper to master and unhooked the other drive. When I try to boot up I get the message " drive read error" press ctrl alt del to reboot.
Hope this makes sense. Any ideas?

micker377 · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 993

Which hard drive with which OS, is going into which computer? To replace an XP OS into an XP computer, takes a "Repair" install to get the XP OS to recognize the computer. To do a "Repair" installation requites a matching XP CD. This will occur if the "new" computer has any differences of the drivers or motherboard.

partzman · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 5

The cloned 30 gb drive is still in the XP computer. The XP computer won't boot from the cloned drive, but works fine as a slave. I will do a fresh install of ME for the other computer. I have all the drivers for both computers.

goretsky · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:19 am Post subject:

Hello,

If you go into the BIOS settings on the computer running Microsoft Windows XP with the 30GB hard disk drive installed and look at the settings for it, are they correct or do they appear to be for the 17GB hard disk drive?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

Several times a week, I have occasion to CLONE one hard drive to another within the same computer.
There are several programs suitable to CLONE a hard drive. They must be able to get every bit of data from the old drive and restore it to the new drive.
My favorite program for this has always been "Ghost".
I still use "Ghost 2003" from a bootable floppy, Flash Drive or CD to do this.

Two other programs capable of doing a correct clone are Seagate's Disk Wizard from Seagate and MaxBlast from Maxtor. To use either program you must have at lease one drive from the associated manufacturer.
Both these programs are FREE to download from the manufacturers web site.

Doing a Partition copy does NOT get the boot sector information. So that doesn't work for making a CLONE of one drive to another drive.
A Disk to Disk, or Disc Copy (CLONE) must be done to get everything needed to make the new drive boot the system.
A true CLONE will boot the system just like the original HD did.

Partzman, I can only suspect that somewhere in your process, you're not doing a full CLONE. Try one of the programs I mentioned above.

Good Luck,
The Doctor Cool

partzman · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 5

Thanks for the ideas, I will check them out this weekend.

partzman · Joined: Mar 09, 2008 Posts: 5

I went into the BIOS and it was reading the 30 gb drive ok. Still wouldn't boot. Installed Maxblast 5 and it worked like a charm. It won't boot from the 17 gb drive now but that ok, I can format and install ME on it.
Thanks for the help, Kerry

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

JFYI......
I keep three Bootable CD's on the shelf for drive cloning.

One is MaxBlast for cloning Maxtor drives,
One is Sea Tools for cloning Seagate drives,
and the third is Ghost 11.5 for cloning all brands of drives.

With that small arsenal at hand, I have NO drive cloning problems.

Cheers mates!
The Doctor Cool

davolente · Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 304 Location: Kent, UK

Just spotted your post. See my post http://help.lockergnome.com/general/BIOS-recognising-replacement-drive...opict56
There may be something in that discussion that helps. I`ve a sneaking suspicion that this cloning business is not quite as straighforward as is made out, especially with some programs that seem to be locked to a certain drive and need re-activating or similar when transfered to another drive. See my comments also about Windows update not working afterwards and Zone Alarm's options being re-set. Apart from that, my attempt seems to be still working satisfactorily!

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

Windows XP or Vista is "Locked" to the particular motherboard.
In my own experience, it don't give a hoot what hard drive it's on.

I've updated from a Brand X IDE drive to a Maxtor SATA drive with no problems what so ever.

Considering how often people change HD's, for whatever reason, any program that locks itself to a particular drive is just poorly written, in my honest opinion.
I don't and won't own such a program.

OH WELL..... I hope y'alls have a great New Year!

The Doctor Cool