Failed to boot cloned disk. Help

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Marc_G, Jun 30, 2006.

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  1. Marc_G

    Marc_G Registered Member

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    I'm feeling stupid. Someone please help. I tried cloning to the new disk, but when I boot from the new one, it tells me "Disk Read Error" and press ctrl-alt-Delete to reboot.

    I'm using an IBM T42p laptop, XPSP2, nothing strange. Currently with an 80 GB HD, upgrading to a 100 GB HD. I figured this week instead of making my backup to an external USB hard drive, I would just clone over to the new HD.

    I put the completely blank, never used in any way, no signature file written, etc. new 100 GB HD into my second hard drive caddy, with my original drive still as primary in its usual place, and booted Acronis True Image 9.0 build 2337. I've got it on a USB key, by the way.

    I chose the clone option, leaving my original data intact, and told it not to resize the partitions. just leave the extra space at the end. The cloning proceeded without error.

    At the end of the process I shut down, swapped the new drive into the primary bay in the laptop (put the old one safely away), and booted. Gave the Disk Read Error. Tried booting a WINXP SP2 recovery disk, chose repair console, did fixmbr and fixboot, then tried rebooting again. Same error. Tried again, doing fixboot first then fixmbr. Same error on reboot.

    I'm stumped. Any help appreciated.

    Marc
     
  2. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    You could try another way. Put your old HD safely on one side and have your new HD in the computer. Connect your backup usb drive and boot from you USB key. Now follow the restore procedure using you latest image whole drive image. This at least should get you working again and it is exactly what one should do in case of a real failure of your old drive.

    Xpilot
     
  3. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    I forgot to suggest that with your old drive in place you could make an up to date image before doing a restore to your new drive.

    Xpilot
     
  4. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The drive is brand new but that doesn't necessarily mean it is in perfect shape. Have you run chkdsk or a diagnostic on it just in case it has a problem?

    This is one reason why I always do a full format on a new drive before I copy my images onto it. Yes, they wipe out the format but it does give me a bit of confidence it is working.
     
  5. Marc_G

    Marc_G Registered Member

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    Hi guys,

    I was hoping to do the clone rather than the image backup this time 'round, since I'll be setting the original drive aside as a backup in its own right. Cloning takes < half an hour in my case whereas the image/restore process is about 5 hours. That's why I wanted to get it done that way. Oh, well.

    But, since I couldn't get the clone to even begin booting (that disk read error happens immediately; windows doesn't even start to load), I made an image on an external USB, then restored it to the new drive (from which I had removed all the partitions that were previously cloned onto it), and the re-imaged new drive worked fine.

    So, my conclusion from this is that there's some problem with the cloning process (in the build I used, posted above), that fails to set the partition properly active. No recovery process, even the Windows CD, could fix it.

    I have downloaded the latest version, and will update my boot media etc., but I don't have confidence in Acronis' cloning now.

    Marc
     
  6. mark3

    mark3 Registered Member

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    A lot of users would agree with you. There are users who experience no problems at all but the majority of threads in this forum report difficulty with the cloning process. For some unexplicable reason cloning is not a strong point with TI Home. Maybe the problem(s) will be resolved in a future update.
     
  7. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    Some report success cloning with the Rescue CD when a clone from within Windows fails.
     
  8. Marc_G

    Marc_G Registered Member

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    Hi Seekforever,

    FWIW, my original attempt at cloning was using the rescue media. I don't like the idea of cloning from a live Windows install. I know the current state of the art in technology makes doing this feasible, but I'm "old school" and don't have that peaceful easy feeling about doing it from Windows.

    Sadly, as I've now got my new drive up and running, I've got no motivation to dig into the problem and see if there is an identifiable fault I can correct to give me the confidence I lack. I'm stuck at "imaging/restoring" has always worked for me, so I'll do that.

    Will monitor the forum in hopes of an eventual chorus of accolades for TI getting cloning to be more robust.

    Marc
     
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