Cloned Drive Won't Boot

Hi,

I've had a read through the stickies and searched the forum but haven't found an answer to my problem - apologies in advance if I missed a thread!

I'm trying to clone my existing drive onto a larger one using True Image 10 Home.

I can create the clone no problem using a bootable CD however the cloned drive refuses to boot.

My system is an AMD64x2 4400+ with Asus A8V deluxe motherboard. The old drive is a 200gb Maxtor, the new one is a 500gb Hitiachi. Both drives are SATA and are connected via the boards raid controller.

The original disk is carries two partitions are small recovery partition created by the system vendor, the second containing the system itself.

I choose the proportionally expand the partitions on the clone, I wasn't worried about losing a few gb.

The cloned drive starts and gets as far as showing "Hit F10 for recovery" but then the system hangs with no further disk activity. Hitting F10 does start the recovery software but I've not tried using any of that in anger.......yet!

I am using the latest build.

Can anyone shed some light on what I've missed?

Many thanks

Paul

 

If you have access to a Windows install disk, you can boot with that and do a repair. If you have access to version 8 of TI than use that and you should be fine. There are numerous problem with TI 10 at the moment.

 

Wardy,

If you clone the drive without expanding the partitions, does the clone boot?

You could also try creating a complete drive backup image of the old drive and then restoring that to the new drive (if you have room on an external or interal drive for the image). Sometimes it works better than cloning.

If you do an XP repair, you may not be able to access the Recovery Partition Software. The computer is probably booting into the Recovery Partition and booting from there into Windows. Cloning has changed the "link" and now it can't find Windows.

Is the Recovery Partition located at the beginning of the drive or at the end?

 

Which operating system being used? Manufacturer of computer and maybe model number?

 

Thanks for all the responses, if I can work my way through them

The machine started life as a Mesh Matrix 3500+ but apart from the case and motherboard it no longer resembles what I bought

The operating system is XP home sp2.

I only have access to the manufacturers re-installation disc, I don't believe this is the same as the installation disc referred to by Wiz33? but I could be wrong!

I haven't tried not expanding the partitions, have there been examples where this has worked? What software do you recommend for expanding the partition without losing data afterwards?

Sadly I bought TI10 thinking it would do the job so I don't have access to any older versions.

I don't have another drive to store an image to to try restoring from that, not sure I could explain to the wife why I needed to buy another hard drive to fix the one I've just bought either!

The rescue partition is at the start of the disk.

Any other pointers on how I can get this to work?

Thanks guys

 

If it's windows xp, it's probably a drive letter change during restoration. It's happened to me a couple of times especially on multi partition/hard drive configurations. Download the demo of "paragon justboot corrector" (you can diagnose with the demo)and use that to bootup your computer. You system drive partition needs to be c: drive. At least you need to rule out this simple fix first.

 

Wardy,

First do a clone without resizing/expanding the partitions and see if it boots correctly. If it does then you can try this procedure detailed by DwnNdrty in this post to reclaim the unallocated space using TI and the SZ. When you remove the SZ let TI add the space to the C: partition.

 

Wardy,

After performing the clone, do you remove the old HD from the computer, unplug the data cable of the new HD and plug it into the MB port that the old HD was using? Do you have to turn OFF the unused SATA port in the BIOS?

 

Joneyjoe81 & Mudcrab, I'll give these options both a try tomorrow, it's too late now for me to face it

Brian K, yes I do remove the old drive before rebooting, there's no need to switch off the unused SATA port, the motherboard is set to boot from txarray1 which is the primary sata port to which the cloned drive is then connected. I'm encouraged enough that the recovery partition boots that the drive is being selected correctly, it just appears that the handover from recovery to system is broken?!

Thanks for your helps guys, keep any further suggestions coming and I'll update you as I go.

This was a lot easier 7 years ago the last time I had cause to do this........

 

Wardy, as the cloning process doesn't work this is worth trying. Have both HDs in the computer. Delete all partitions from the new HD. Partition the new HD into two formatted partitions. Say 300 and 200 GB. Create an image of your old HD OS partition, writing the image to the second partition on the new HD. Ignore the Recovery partition.

Remove the old HD. Boot to the Acronis TI CD. Restore the image to the first partition. Don't tick Restore MBR and Track 0 as we don't want the old MBR. TI should write a generic MBR. Does the new HD now boot? If not, try fdisk /mbr to write new boot code.

Hopefully you won't get a boot.ini error. (hal.dll is missing)

We'll fix the partitions later.

 

OK Gentlemen,

Working my way through the suggestions in a logical order I tried an "as is" clone first - and it boots!!! For some reason when expanding the two partitions proportionally the clone breaks!

Now I need some further help if I may - how do I expand the c partition to fill the rest of the drive now?

Cheers Guys

 

See post #7 for the link to use the SZ to resize the partition.

Otherwise, if you have Disk Director or another partition manager you can use that.

 

Success at last!!!!!

Sorry I forgot about post 7.

I had to boot the CD about three times before the SZ would work properly, it kept dropping to a flashing cursor but eventually it worked.

Just wanted to thank all of you for your help, without which I never would have managed to get the software to work.

Thanks Gents you're all diamonds!

 

Hello Wardy and anyone interested,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I would like to explain the most likely reason for unbootable system after first cloning. It is that manufacturer's system partitions that allow restoration of the system on keystroke at boot time (F10 in your case) take part in boot sequence. They usually address the actual system (Windows) partition by it's physical location on the drive.
As the manufacturer's partition has been resized (because the "proportional" option chosen), the system partition beginning was moved, and the pointer was no longer correct. That led to Windows not booting.
The second clone operation ("as is" option chosen) placed partitions' to the same addresses, so the system was able to boot.

We are glad to hear that your issue has been solved and you can use Acronis True Image successfully.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Marat Setdikov