Cloning Question

Hi, I'm about to clone my drive and have read the manual and posts on here so that I (hopefully) know what to do. So, I know you have to unplug the old drive containing the OS before rebooting so as not to "confuse" the OS.

But, what if I want to plug the old drive back in again? The old drive will still contain the OS if it is not deleted during cloning (it would be a disaster if during cloning there is a problem and the old OS has been partially deleted so I would prefer not to do that).

So can't I retain the OS intact on my old drive and EVER plug it back in again? Surely I'm missing something ...

 

Sorry to be rude by bumping this, but I was hoping to carry out this operation very soon, could I expect and answer before the weekend?

Thanks, and sorry again.

 

Geezer

You must be as old as me with a name like that. Getting to your question. If the OS our currently booted from is Win/XP, then mounting the old CLONED drive will disable it. Under XP only one native boot drive is supported. If your OS is WIN/98, no problem.

If you are performing a CLONE process from the TI boot CD, and a error occur's obviously the cloned target drive will be inoperable if the process is terminated.

Your Question "But, what if I want to plug the old drive back in again? The old drive will still contain the OS if it is not deleted during cloning (it would be a disaster if during cloning there is a problem and the old OS has been partially deleted so I would prefer not to do that). If you want to plug in the cloned drive, make sure you remove the orginal drive.

If you want to make another clone, shut the system down, connect the target drive, boot from the TI boot disk, and clone the system again. It will replace everything that was there as long as you reply to delete the partitions.

I hope that this addresses your questions.

Storage_man

 

If you choose "not to delete the old data", is there ever a situation in which the old hard drive data would get messed up?

 

Can a stored disk image be applied to a new hard drive to make it bootable?

 

Thanks Storage Man (I chose my name after a race horse, for whatever reason ...).

I am using XP Home, SP2. What will be diabled? The old drive containing the old cloned OS?

So, besides selecting to delete the OS from the old drive during cloning I can't plug in the old drive with the new one in? Basically, I want to perform the clone as safely as possible, unplug the old drive, reboot, see everything is working, replug in the old drive (with the new one still plugged in as boot device) and then proceed to reformat/partition the old drive and use it as data storage.

 

Hi.. I would avoid mounting the old and the new drive at the same time. To me, this is asking for trouble.

Why not remove the new drive, mount the old drive as Master and use WinXP installation disk to format the drive. The Dell Reinstallation Disk is bootable and gives you the option of formatting your drive. I think it's the same for any WinXP installation disk: they are bootable and give you the option of formatting your drive.

Then mount the new drive as Master and the old drive as Slave and you're in business. You can always use WinXP to reformat the Slave if required.

 

Thanks for your idea, but sadly I have never had an XP installation disc - I bought the PC (Packard Bell) direct from a shop with XP pre-loaded. I do have some floppy "rescue discs" but no CD and I contacted PB at the time to ask why - they said it was something to do with Micro$oft

 

Hmmmm - I just had a brainwave (I think ) ... I have an external drive enclosure ... I could boot the new drive and then plug the external enclosure + old drive in via firewire - should then be able to format/re-partition ... unless someone has an idea that this wouldn't be possible?

 

Can't you plug in the old drive (along with the new) and just boot from a Windows bootable floppy and format the old?
I'm confused I think. You can boot from a floppy or CD with an OS on the HD, so what's the problem with booting from the new HD even if the second one has an OS on it? As long as the boot sequence is set to check the new drive first, why wouldn't it work?

 

I don't see much difference between the old drive as Slave or the old drive in an external enclosure via firewire. Windows will still see two C: drives and which will be disabled is questionable. Hopefully the old drive will simply acquire a new drive letter.

 

The reason why you want to disconnect the old drive once cloning is completed is because you want to avoid Windows seeing two C: drives at the same time. Supposedly that's when the problems occur.

When booting using Windows Installation disk or a Dell Windows Re-installation disk, you get the option of formatting before the Windows OS loads. This way, Windows never gets to see two C: drives. This option is not however available to The Geezer. As for booting from a floppy and formatting from there, I don't know if that would work.

The reason for disconnecting the old drive given by Acronis Support is given here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=500555&postcount=6

 

Any ideas Acronis Support ...

If I do throw caution to the wind and "wipe" the old drive during cloning will it still be seen as another C: by windows when plugged in? I guess it must otherwise why would there be a need to unplug the drive after cloning?

But I can't believe I'm the only person wanting to reuse a drive after cloning?

 

dld - I would not be booting with the firewire external enclosure connected - but would just plug it in after the OS has booted - do you think the problem would occur then? I'm not sure from your post whether you just thought I would boot with both drives plugged in?

 

Hi The Geezer... I see your point. Having booted with only the new drive connected, Windows would have assigned it the letter C. If you were then to connect the old drive via firewire, then Windows would have to assign a new letter for this drive. Just make sure you have saved on your new drive a TI image of your new drive before you attempt this. Doing this, you will have images on both drives. If something should go wrong, surely with two images you should be able to get out of trouble. Good luck!

 

Maybe this will help.......

1) With TI8 installed on your hard drive, create your clone. Shut down and remove the ORIGINAL hard drive. Install the CLONED drive into the empty "0" position, designated as Master.

2) Restart on the new CLONED drive and reassure yourself that everything's working OK. Shut down.

3) Reinstall the ORIGINAL drive into the Slave position and boot up. Windows XP Part Manager will automatically change the disk signature of the ORIGINAL (now Slave) hard drive to avoid a conflict with the CLONED (now Master) drive which you installed in the 0(0) position.

4) Launch TI8 and select Add New Disk. Select the ORIGINAL hard drive and choose to prepare it, clear it but do not partition it. Quit TI8.

5) Go to XP's Drive Management and select the Slave drive and right click it to choose to partition it.

6) If you want to reassign drive letters to the Slave drive, use the reformatting wizard by going to My Computer and selecting the Slave drive to format it.

I have done this several times and it works for me. Hopefully your results won't vary.

 

dld & bobdat

Thank you both for your input - I'm going to decide which method to utilise and try it out when I get a couple of hours this weekend. I'll post back to confirm my results.

Thanks again.

 

The cloning instructions refer to those who may want to save their cloned drive as an emergency replacement, not for simultaneous use. When you clone a smaller original drive to a larger new drive and use that new drive as your master, you must either wipe the smaller drive to use it for other purposes and assign a new letter or you must disconnect it. You really can't run the older "original" drive at the same time as the new clone unless you modify (i.e.: reformat) the original drive.

As for your C question, when you repartition or reformat the original drive (after you're running on the clone in your case) XP assigns it the next available drive letter when it mounts it for the first time. In your case it could be E or F depending on what else is mounted at that moment. The CD is usually D already. You can choose your own letter by deleting all partitions with TI8 (using Add New Disk) and then using the XP formatting wizard.

I like to use TI8 to set up my extra hard drives by launching Add New Disk, clearing all partitions on the drive, then quit without repartitioning with TI8. I launch XP's Disk Management, create a partition and mount the drive. If I want to change what I get from creating a partition under Disk Management, I go to My Computer and right click the new drive. I format it using the XP wizard and get all my choices in one spot.

It seems that your difficulties arise because you don't trust TI8's clone function to properly create the clone and simultaneously wipe the original drive - not a bad thing. Otherwise, your source drive would be wiped for you during the cloning process.

 

I'm confused (but that's pretty easy for me hehe ) I've always been under the impression that if you're hookiing two drives up and one was hooked up as Master and the other was hooked up as Slave then the master would pick up the drive letter C, and the slave would pick up another drive letter like D, or whatever (depending on your system structure at the time)....have I been under a faulse impression all these years? Maybe I just don't understand the cloning program/process...not sure. When I purchased TI, I had a rough go of it at first, but after getting into the swing of things, so to speak, I was finally able to get an image up and going and test out the restoring process. In the midst of doing that I never worried about disconnecting one of the drives, I just made the source D: (restoration proecess of course) and the restored system drive C: and just rebooted with no problems at all. Both drives were internal and I set both drives (jumper wise) to CS for cable select.

Also....by default, isn't the master C: drive the boot drive? Someone help me out here .... I need clarification

QD

 

QD: - I think you're right about everything you said. The previous stuff stated refers to cloning as compared to creating and restoring an image like you've been doing.

I think cloning is easy once you know you can trust TI8 not to screw up the process midway. Once you trust it, cloning is as painless as creating/restoring images.

 

Wouldn't the same thing apply though with cloning? I mean obviously you would have to shut down first after cloning, but couldn't you just make the necessary adjustments with the jumpers and/or cables setting one as master and the other as slave and then turn it back on and not have to worry about rather windows sees more than one drive C: or any of the other stuff that is being discussed in this thread?

QD

 

Hi QD,

Oh if life were only so simple! Windows NT, 2K and XP have a little gotcha up their sleeves called Disk ID retention. If you're interested in the details, check out this <Dan Goodell article>.

Regards

 

One way of doing this is to alter or delete the DiskID in the MBR. Since the DiskID is part of the partition signatures, this forces a change in the signatures and previously remembered drive letters can be reassigned because they no longer match valid partition signatures. To easiest way to delete the DiskID is to use a Win98 boot floppy (aka, "Windows 98 Startup Disk"). Boot the computer from the boot floppy, run the command "fdisk /mbr", remove the floppy, and reboot into 2000/XP


This is a quote from the info you turned me onto Menorcaman. This is probably the reason I didn't get into trouble when I was doing mine...as I had to use this very technique just to get my image to restore properly thanks for this info by the way, I'm sure it'll keep me outta trouble in the future

QD

 

XP and possibly earlier versions of the OS automatically change the disk signature of the clone when you first restart with it as the slave drive.

You can verify this by opening the Event Viewer and reading the "part mgr" action recorded under system events after the first start up.

 

Hi bobdat,

Granted but it more than likely wont be the right one!! Did you read the <Dan Goodell article>, or have I missed something?

Regards