Laptop Cloning headaches NG9 vs TI 9/10

[Mackjazz]

I need some direction and advice before I run out and purchase another Cloning/Copying program for hard disk data transfer/replacement.

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook with WinXP Home SP2 and all updates. It has a 40gb Toshiba hard disk (factory) that came w/XP etc, on the C: and a DISE Backup image (7.79gb) on the D: partition of the same drive ( both Fat32's). I have run out of hd space and 2 weeks ago purchased a Fujitsu 80gb (2.5) with hopes of upgrading (replacing the existing laptop drive). Even though the drive is a Fujitsu, Fujitsu won't tell me a word as to whether their hd will even work in my laptop (both hd's are ata). To make matters worst I purchased Norton Ghost 9.0 about a year ago and as of last week have been trying to use it (first time) to make this disk copy but to no avail. Norton won't talk to me, even via email, as they tell me its too old do support 9.0 anymore. This is what I have done. I am using an external HD case (ADS) with firewire and a cable adaptor (3.5 to 2.5 which I have used successfully in the past for other recovery operations) which temporarily houses my new laptop 80gb drive.

I have tried several times to make the disk copy. Each time over 15hrs and it just keeps going so I give up and search the net for more answers. I am frustrated and about ready to move to TI but the following questions would be the same if I do. I would appreciate any help out there as I have read alot of posts (even Goodell's site) but have not found my answers yet.

How long should I wait for this cloning action? Currently its going on over 15hrs. Using NG 9, I first copied successfully the D: drive to the new hd. All bytes etc are the same and it shows up as my N: Dise backup Logical drive. I believe it is fine and will be fine.

Then I used XP disk management to format the rest of the 80gb (about 68gb) to NTFS as I was told that my old Fat32 C: info will have to be put in the enlarged partition space as NTFS. When I was asked to name the drive letter I gave it M:. I know from reading the threads that I may have issues with it booting correctly as the new OS, due to XP drive letter concerns but I see the work around posts to resolve this once I get the cloning done.

Can anyone please tell me that TI (whatever version) will work for what I am trying to accomplish, and if so a brief outline of the steps to correctly accomplish my task? Is it true I should not let XP see the new drive (which currently is in a firewire external case? If so how can this be done using an installed version of TI or NG? Could my laptop presently be in a never ending loop due to paging settings or low virtual memory settings (only 800 free mb left on the old drive)? NG 9 that I am using is installed on my old hard drive? Should I be running it off of a cd?

I apologize for asking about NG 9 input here on the TI site but if my issues are not due to the cloning software, I desire to avoid purchasing more software that will not solve my hdisk upgrading. I have not found any great NG forums to date and you folks, as I have been reading, seem smarter and more knowledgable than anyone else out there (I registered on 3 geek type sites last week and they know less than I..............O brother).

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Signed,
Still pulling my hair out (the very little that is left!!)
Mack

[bodgy]

I can see no reason why the 80Gb drive won't work happily with your Toshiba.

First of all the amount of time it is taking to clone your harddrive sounds as though there might be a driver problem.

As to your never ending loop, that could be many things, but I doubt the free disk space is causing the problem, pagefile and ram could be a problem as could the drivers to the disk. Even though this is a new disk, it might be worth running chkdsk /r note the space between the '/' and the word 'chkdsk' just to make sure there aren't any new bad sectors on it. This would cause a loop while the software is forever checking whatever algorithm it uses to make sure the data it's writing is error free.

This may or may not be a problem with TI. I'm not sure if you can clone with the trial version, but you can try out speed and driver issues, by making an image.

As XP can't boot from an external drive, and your laptop won't allow you to have two internal hard drives you don't have to worry about XP 'seeing' the other drive.

I haven't tried cloning with my laptop, but I have tried making an image from the 40Gb drive and restoring it to an 80Gb drive and that works.

I can't really help you with NG - I used to use it's DOS disk editing and partitioning facilities, but it's lack of 'windowness' (a new word) for imaging made it useless for the tasks I was going to use it for. So I purchased TI instead when I discovered it.

As to which version of TI, well as a new purchaser you'd onluy have the option of buying v10 so that point is moot.

Colin

[Ralphie]

Here's what I would do. I'm assuming that the lifebook has a firewire port since you mention an external firewire encl. True Image will work for what you want to do. And there are two ways to go about it with True Image.
1. Cloning
2. Imaging or Backup

Cloning:
Instal True Image on the laptop and MAKE the bootable TI Rescue CD.
Boot with the Rescue CD and perform the Clone on the 80 gig.
Remove the 40 gig, install the 80 gig and you should be good to go.

Imaging :
Boot with the Rescue CD and make an image of the 40 gig using the 80 gig as the destination drive.
When done, transfer that image to the 40 gig by booting back into Windows.
Swap the drives so the new 80 is now in the laptop.
Boot again with the Rescue CD and use the Recover feature to recover the image to the 80 gig.

In the imaging process, I think you can actually store the image right away on the source drive, the 40 gig, but I'm not sure.

[Brian K]

Mackjazz,

Norton Ghost 9 needs careful attention to perform cloning without errors. I suggest that you post in this Radified forum.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1117581957;start=

[Mackjazz]

thx bunches for the replies thus far............

Couple of specific Q? What would be the meaning, Colin of "driver problems"? Norton, my laptop? How do you suppose it could relate? I will run chkdsk just to be sure.
--
Yes the Fujitsu does have firewire which I prefer and use all the time with 2 larger external HD. My USB is only 1.1 and very slow.

I do prefer to clone instead of image because I just want to replace the current internal laptop hd. Question Ralphie: Knowing that my current 40gig has a c: Fat32 (OS) and d:Fat32 (backup image of all the OEM sotware and OS that came with the notebook), when I make the clone of the 40gb to the new 80gb do I have to do anything special or will the TI clone the total drive, c and d exactly as they are to the new? Also will the new cloned C: (on the 80 be a fat32 like it is now on the 40 or will it be an NTFS which allows me to utilize the total new hd space (approx 68gb)? I need to be able to use the whole hd and I was told only a NTFS can do that since XP limits Fat32 to 30gb. Or if not can I just make another partition (3rd) on the 80gb? Thx
--

I did happen to find the radified site while waiting for replies here, thx.
M

[bodgy]

If Nortons works in a similar way to TI in cloning/imaging, it is possible that the software driver it uses to access your IEEE1394 device or the hub (which will be one of the bridge chips inside your laptop) is not up to date enough to transmit at full speed.

This happens with TI sometimes - due to its Linux drivers on the rescue CD. However this wouldn't preclude a problem for either software in Windows - though less likely.

Colin