Hard Drive not bootable after restore

I am trying to replace an existing 30GB hard drive with a 100gb hard drive.

I did the following sequence:

Do a full backup of the 30GB to a USB hard drive.
Remove the 30 GB and install the 100GB
Boot from the Acronis CD
Do a full restore from the USB drive

After doing the above, all the data was on the new hard drive but Windows would not boot from it. Apparently I did something wrong.

Somewhere in the restore process I selected "Active" rather than "Primary". I was worried that this was a wrong choice so I went back and tried to redo the restore. However "Primary" was grayed out when I did that.

I also noticed that the software produced a 30GB partition on the new hard drive. It never asked me about the partition size.

The Clone feature seems like it more suited to this task, but I did not use it because clone seems to assume that both disks are accessable at the same time.

I finally had to put my old hard drive back in to get up and running again.

Can any one help me with the procedure for upgrading a hard drive in this way.

Phil S

 

Hello Phil,

A quick question first. How many partitions do you have on your old hard drive?

Regards

 

Thanks for the reply Menorcaman;

I have only one partition on the old hard drive.

Thanks
Phil S

 

My religion holds that "Thou shalt not let Acronis True Image, or other programs of that ilk, format drives."

Rather, do the formatting yourself and restore JUST the files and folders, not the drive. Yes, it takes longer, but avoids the problems you have encountered.

An alternative is to allow TI to restore the drive, then use Partition Magic to change the partition size, etc.

 

Hi again Phil,

OK, thanks. Assuming both old and new drives are of the same type i.e. PATA or SATA , proceed as follows:

- Create a "whole disk" image of your old drive to your external USB drive and verify it via the Check Archive Wizard.
- Switch off your computer, remove the old 30GB disk and replace it with the 100GB disk (if it's a PATA then ensure the new disk's jumper(s) are set to "master")
- Connect and switch on the external USB drive then boot from the Acronis rescue CD and restore the image to the new disk. In the Restore Data Wizard you must ensure that you tick the checkbox next to Disk 1, not just the C: partition. This will ensure that the Master Boot Record from the old disk is restored to the new disk (without it the new disk will not boot). After the restore you will be left with a 30GB "active" partition and nearly 70GB of unallocated space.
- Use the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard to create a temporary Secure Zone (SZ) in the whole of this unallocated space (set the size slider to maximum). Do NOT accept TI's default option to also activate the Startup Recovery Manager!!
- After the SZ has been created, use the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard again to "Remove" the SZ, selecting the C: partition as the location that the space being freed should be given to.

With luck you can then boot from the new disk and find that the C: partition occupies all 100GB .

Regards

 

Thank you for the information Menorcaman.

The procedure looks clear enough, I will give it a try tonight.

I have one question; How can I tell if the drives are PATA or SATA?

Thanks again
Phil

 

The most obvious physical feature is that the SATA drives use a very small, fairly short data cable. Then each end is only about 1" (25mm) wide by about 1/4" (7mm) thick. The actual connecting components look more like a minature edge connector. There are very few conductors in the cable since the data is transmitted serially. All of my SATA cables are red but I don't know if that is a standard.

The now "older" PATA drives have 40 or 80 conductor ribbon cables about 2" (50mm) wide and may have a connector on each end with another one closer to one end. They plug into 40 pin connectors on the motherboard and drive.

If your drive and motherboard are 2 yrs old or more it is very unlikely you have SATA.

 

Thanks Menorcaman

I am typing this on my computer with a new 100gb hard drive up and running.

The key was to check Disk 1 and not C. So your procedure gave me the key ingredient.

In the words of the sage philosopher Plato: "You Da Man!!!"

Thanks again.
Phil S

 

Not just da man - da Menorca Man !

 

My pleasure Phil. Happy True Imaging and, hopefully, not too many reasons for restoring .

Regards