To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: Cloning HD to another for installation to a Thinkpad A31
You restore the MBR on the new drive after you've imaged all of the data from the old
HD unit. FDISK /MBR is a non-destructive format which means it will only restore the contents
of the original MBR from the backup on the new HD without losing any data.
This topic seems like a good one to ask my cloning question in.
Immediately after I finish a format and clean install job on a new computer or an existing computer I clone the C Drive partition to a partition on another hard drive that is used exclusively for data storage. This allows me to quickly restore the same computer when Windows crashes.
I use Ghost.exe from the Norton SystemWorks 2004 CD. I boot to the C Prompt via a bootable floppy or bootable CD which has ghost.exe on it. I then execute ghost.exe and use it to clone.
When I restore a clone it will not boot into Windows XP. It hangs at the friendly Microsoft Windows blue screen (not the blue screen of death) that has the Windows logo on it. I have been troubleshooting. It seems that there are 2 instances where I encounter this refusal to boot from the clone.
1. If the clone resides on the C Drive (active partition) of the formerly target drive where I cloned the data to. In other words, if I attempt to boot directly from the clone.
2. If I use this storage drive that contains clone(s) as a source drive and Ghost the data to the C Drive active partition on a new hard drive. This is necessary when changing hard drives due to a hard drive upgrade or a hard drive crash and drive replacement. I can not boot from the clone on this new hard drive.
IF I use this storage drive that contains the clone(s) as a source drive and Ghost the data to the same C Drive that was once the source (when I did the original clone) then it boots just fine. This tells me that in Service Pack 2 or some other "security" update that Microsoft has done, Microsoft made the choice to prevent sucessful clones to another hard drive. This problem in sucessfully cloning to a different hard drive is there even if the new hard drive is the same size and model as the original hard drive.
This afternoon at 5 PM I have a computer coming in for warranty work. I suspect that thier hard drive has crashed (although the computer is only 3 months old). If their hard drive is defective (but operative enough to clone from using Ghost) I will attempt to clone their data to a new in-warranty replacement hard drive. If any of you have suggestions as to how to make this work they will be deeply appreciated. I do not want to have to spend 3 hours labor in reinstalling, updating and configuring Windows. I will if I have to.
I am hoping that the restoring of the MBR that you are discussing here may be a long shot that will work for me. Microsoft has went to extremes to prevent piracy if this is a deliberate move on their part to require that complete reinstalls be done each time a hard drive is physically changed.
I have 12 (+10 more for overflow) 80 GB hard drives partitioned into 10 partitions each that I use to clone to. This allows me to Ghost the customer's C Drive to its own partition on the drives I clone to. This works better than creating a restore DVD because I keep these clones for only 1 year. After 1 year there have been so many changes and updates that it is best to simply to a full reinstall, update and configuration when somebody's hard drive or Windows crashes.
I may be forced into learning how to create restore DVD's and how to keep things simple. If a customer uses a restore DVD they miss all of the updates and tweaks that I have developed in the time that has passed since I built their new computer or formatted their C Drive and reinstalled their Windows. It is best for me to handle the restoration process. This way they get the benefit of all of the updates and tweaks I have developed. Creating a restore DVD is my last resort. I am sure it takes lots longer to create a restore DVD than to clone 3 to 4 GB. It takes me only 3 minutes to clone 3 to 4 GB or to restore that clone. Ghost.exe is fast. On my personal computer I am now up to the high speed of copying 2500+ MB per minute with ghost.exe in Real DOS mode. This makes copying 100+ GB of data a snap!
Chuck
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