Yet Another 'Clone Won't Boot' Thread

[jgivens]

Here is mine. Cloned from an onboard RAID 0 SATA array (Intel ICH5R) to another RAID 0 array, an onboard Promise Fast Track PATA. When done cloning the source array drives were disconnected and the system was booted from the clone, still attached to the Promise controller.

Windows starts normally but then hangs between the splash screen and the blue background screen. Some light disk activity is seen during this time.

Booted from win98 floppy and fdisk/mbr made no difference. Tried the Paragon Justboot Corrector and the burned CD boots but the program hangs getting partition info.

Single OS, no dual-booting going on here. TI 8, 9 and 10 have had absolutely zero problems in making a bootable clone in this very same hardware, dozens and dozens of times. Now 2009 won't do it.

Only difference I see is that 2009 leaves unallocated partition space after the source partition, according to the map. Prior to 2009, when 'proportional' was chosen it would expand the partition all the way to the end of the larger disk.

Thoughts?

I had some other issues re 2009, one an absolute killer that had me a hair's breadth from total system loss. Only the presence of mind for me to squirrel away an image (on a hunch before trying 2009) saved my butt. But that's not the point of this thread.

Thanks.

[jonyjoe81]

On this type of problems, if you are using windows xp/server2003/w2k I always rule out the "partition ID" drive letter as your problem. It looks like your computer is booting up, then it hangs because it cannot locate the next "startup" files it needs. This is usually cause because the registry is looking in the wrong partition for those files.

Some people get the "mounted devices" and "partition ID" drive letters mixed up. The win98 fdisk/mbr can fix a "mounted device" drive letter, a "boot corrector" will fix a "partition ID" problem. Also you can check that the boot.ini isn't pointing in the wrong direction.

If you are using the demo of "paragon justboot corrector" that is obsolete in checking the latest computers. The only other way to check your "partition ID" is to use a "bartpe" with the savepart plugin ( there is a standalone savepart ISO but is gives inaccurate readings). There are some programs that have boot cds with updated "boot correctors" built-in.

One thing that causes these partition ID problems is if the source windows xp, has previously seen (and ID'ed) the drive it will be restored on.

[jgivens]

I will try a couple of things - I will wipe the to-be-cloned-disks totally, re-clone and see what happens from that. This is XP BTW. I booted ubcd4win and ran the partition tools there - test disk (I think it is called) found and was happy with the cloned disks' partition.

If anyone has any other thoughts please post, I am heading overseas for 6 weeks and will not be able to try anything on this PC until my return.

Thanks.

[jgivens]

OK, I am FINALLY revisiting this issue. All is the same as in the initial post except that the destination RAID has only a single partition.

I clone w/ 2009, 9615, and all appears to go well with the cloning, it just won't boot.

Cloning using the exact hardware and TI 8, 9 or 10 gives a perfect clone, except for the pagefile thing that it appears only affects me, http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=83282

Any ideas? Thanks.

[jonyjoe81]

The problem you describe with windows booting up and hanging at the logon screen, that is cause when windows is looking for the next startup files. If the windows registry is suppose to look for them in "partition ID c: " but due to problems "partition ID c: has been relabeled partition ID k:" , windows will hang or reboot when it doesn't find the partition it's looking for.

Until you rule out a "partition ID" drive letter problem, that's what I would be checking.

If all the hardware remains the same between the source and restored drives, that rules out a driver problem.

You mention that you notice an extra partition on the "restored" drive, that can also point to a boot.ini file problem i.e. the wrong partition reference in the boot.ini file.

I've seen too many people here in the forums disregard the "drive letters" or failed to properly troubleshoot that area as a problem, and wind up with a "cold case" problem.

I don't rely on true image to provide me with a "restored" drive that will bootup perfectly the first time. But through many restores that I have done the only problem I have encountered is "partition ID" drive letter problems and that's a quick 5 minute fix. As far as fixing the original problem of what cause the drive letters to go bad, I don't waste time troubleshooting that since it would take longer than the actual fix.

The only thing that might be able to work is to do a "sector by sector" clone or use a "new" hard drive that has never been exposed to the "source" windows, I've seen people have success using both method. But once a "restored" hard drive has been ID'ed by the "source" windows registry, it's almost impossible to fix without specialized utilitys.

[Acronis Support]

Hello jgivens,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image ( http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/)

Formally, you should use Acronis True Image Echo Workstation with Acronis Universal Restore (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/)

In your case you can try to remove the old RAID drivers in Windows safe mode. Also, you should first prepare Windows using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq/clone-windows-to-hardware/)

Thank you.

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Oleg Lee