Clone will work, but not image?

I have a Compaq Laptop N800c 2.2 GHz mobile Intel Pentium with 1 gig of Ram, running Windows Xp Pro on an 80 Gig Toshiba MK8032GAX HD.
The Windows is fresh install, fully updated as of yesterday. No other software. So no drivers, are an issue.

I am trying to make a copy of the hard drive. So I would have a clean slate in little time, after my next crash. The Target is a 80 Gig Toshiba MK8032GAX HD. I already have two 80 Gig Toshiba MK8032GAX HD paper weights. Well they work as slaves, to bad my laptop can't run them.

Using True image Home Build 4,942. I can manage to "Clone" the drive, to another HD and it works fine. But when I "Image" and restore. I just get a blinking cursor. I have tried the Windows fixmbr. Dosen't work. The check archive, says the archive is good. I have read many posts on here about just getting a blinking cursor, but have found no real answer to that problem.
Has anyone come up with one?

I am afraid that if I use the clone, one of these days I will accidently clone the wrong direction. Image is much safer, and dosen't tie up an entire hard drive.

Thanks for taking the time to read.
Hope I didn't forget any necessary info.

 

Make sure you restore the MBR together with the Image of C: drive.

 

Thanks for the reply, but I did have that checked.

 

This is frequently stated in the forum and is misleading because in most cases the MBR doesn't have to be restored. Not ticking "Restore MBR and Track 0" is not the cause of non booting. Acronis TI creates a generic MBR if the above is not ticked. In a previous thread about Dell laptops and HPAs we learned that "Restore MBR and Track 0" must NOT be ticked to restore an image successfully.

If you have a special MBR that you want to copy then that is an exception.

Quoting Dan Goodell..

 

alliance,

Interesting. Could you describe in detail how you performed the image/clone procedure?

 

I just got True Image yesterday, so I am just a novice with the program.

In detail would be tough. I used the True image Home, as I stated. As I remember. I burned a Boot CD. Attached an external HD via the usb. then booted with the CD. I selected the "Full" mode not the "Safe" mode. I followed all the prompts, not changing any settings, to burn the image.
"What you want to Back up <My Computer>"
"Select Partition to back up"
"Full Backup"
"Select Destination and give it a Name"
The image was placed in an existing directory on the external HD. Simplicity is always my first attempt.

To restore, changed out the internal HD. Rebooted with the CD again. Followed all the prompt's, again no changes. Except, you have to chose the destination, which gives you the option of using Just the drive, or the drive and the MBR. I selected both. And the result was it wouldn't work.
I also tried Installing my laptop HD into my desktop, and cloning to the desktop HD (This takes an adapter). Same results, It didn't work.

I basically used the exact same procedure for the clone, of course no disk swapping. That worked. But please read on.

Like I said, I am afraid that I could easily clone the wrong direction and ruin the good hd. Not really ruin, but make it so a full install was required. So after I got it to work once, I figured it's time to play.

So I imaged a copy of the laptop hard drive to my other computer over a network. Again with the exact same settings. MBR was checked again on the restore. It makes a workable copy of the hard drive that way also. I have cloned the HD twice that way. Both times works fine. The main draw back is it takes longer, about 45 minutes.

If you want me to I suppose I could redo the whole process and write down what I did, but I don't believe that I made any changes to the defaults. There is just that one place in the restore process that you have to make a choice. I selected the MBR option. Which like I say worked for me, over a network, I don't remember that option in the Clone.

I just don't understand why image works over a network, and not direct or over the usb?

 

alliance, thanks. I was mainly after the physical details which you provided.

Firstly, cloning. You cloned your internal HD to an external HD. Then put the external HD in the laptop and it booted. Good.

Second, imaging. You imaged your internal HD, writing the image to the external HD. You installed a different HD in the laptop, restored the image contained on the external HD but the internal HD didn't boot. Flashing cursor problem.

I'm not sure what you did here. Did you clone to a laptop HD or a desktop HD. I assume a laptop HD. This won't work anyway because of the different CHS geometry between Compaq laptops and desktops. You should have the laptop HD in the laptop for the image and restore process.

Again, a bit confusing. Did you write an image of your laptop HD to a network share and restore from this network share to a different HD in the laptop? You mentioned "clone" in the next sentence but I assume you meant image/restore.

Do I understand correctly?

Sometimes external HDs fail in the image or clone situation. Usually with cloning but your clone worked. You did the same image/restore technique over the network with success. This does suggest an external HD problem. I'm not sure what you can do apart from not using a hub, try different USB ports or try a different external HD. I agree images are more sensible than clones and you need to get it working.

Another technique is outlined here...

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=168066

Regarding your flashing cursor problem, it's worth trying "fixboot" from the Recovery Console. I've never had to use "fixboot" so best of luck. My suggestion comes from here and I realize you haven't used BootIt NG.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=176

These should be OK to reuse. No?