Disk Clone Failure (8.0-774)

I attempted to clone a WD EIDE disk to an identical, blank replacement disk after getting an incipient SMART failure report.

TrueImage seemed to run correctly and completed all three phases successfully. There were no error messages of any kind. However, the new disk did not work and further investigation showed it to be blank, consisting only of unallocated space.

I attempted a second run using the add new disk wizard under XP (SP1). This also ran to an apparently successful conclusion. However, the new disk still did not work properly. This time the computer booted from the new drive and the XP startup screen appeared, but the Welcome screen never came up (though the mouse remained active).

I then booted from the original source disk with the new disk as a slave. The 2 partitions displayed in Windows, but both were deemed inaccessible.

Next I booted from an NTFS-DOS floppy. I was able to see all of the directories and files in both of the new drive's partitions! So I again tried to boot from the new drive--without success. I ran Spinrite and got an error message that no compatible hard disk was installed (untrue, and the disk WAS recognized by the BIOS). Next I tried Partition Magic, which displayed a "demounting" error and refused to proceed. At this point I gave up, repartitioned and formatted the drive, and began the torture of reinstalling XP and all the apps from scratch.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here? I have become very uncomfortable with this product.

 

Hi, mblatt

Welcome to Wilders and Acronis Forums.

Please see this post and check your HDD:- Unable to clone disk .....

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

This doesn't relate to the problems I had. There were NO error messages and both the procedures I described seemed to complete successfully. This was a direct clone to an identical drive and did not involve a dynamic disk.

 

Hi, mblatt

Sorry, my bad understanding again.

Take Care,
TheQuest

 

Hello mblatt,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that you should remove one of your hard disks, because two hard disks with identical systems may occur boot problems.

Please uplug your original hard disk and try to boot your computer from cloned hard disk.

Thank you,
--
Oleg Shegay

 

With one hard disk installed (i.e., the cloned copy), the computer booted and the Windows startup screen appeared. The mouse cursor remained active, but the Welcome screen never appeared and the computer couldn't be used.

With the original hard disk as master, the new drive appeared in Windows explorer, but the two partitions on this drive couldn't be accessed.

With only the new drive installed, Spinrite couldn't see it. Partition Magic saw the drive and reported the "demounting" error I mentioned before exiting.

 

Hi, mblatt

Have you checked that the HDD jumper is set to master or cable select after you swapped it around.

I use removable HDD [vipower] so set all mine to cable select.

Take Care.
TheQuest

 

Hello mblatt,

Could you please do the following:

- Download Acronis Report utility from http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe;
- Run Acronis Report utility and select the "Create bootable floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and proceed with creating the bootable diskette;
- Plug both hard drive to the computer under consideration and boot it from this diskette and wait for report creation process to complete;
- Send the report.txt file from the floppy disk to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread.

This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman