Cloned partition will not boot.

Hi, I wonder if someone out there can help me.

First some history. I have a Pakard Bell PC which was supplied with no software disks, but had a hidden partition which contained all the software in a proprietory archive format. There is a special Pakard Bell "Smart Restore" program to use the archive and restore/repair pre-installed software. I have used their program to move this archive to CD ROM which has freed up the hidden partition which now appears as Drive F:, Drive C: being the second partition on the disk.

I want to clone the C: Drive to another (newer / faster) hard drive and although True Image has made a copy of the partition, and restored it to an emty partition on the new drive, my system will not boot from the clone. The boot process correctly identified the disk as primary, and then searches for boot information which it finds, but no boot menu appears.

I thought the problem might have been that the clone partition is the first (rather than second) partition on the new drive. However, I changed BOOT.INI to reflect this but still don't get any menu.

My copy of True Image is a limited time, but fully functional, version which I had intended to license if I can get it to work. Does anyone out ther have any ideas? Have I missed something REALLY simple (wouldn't be the first or last, time) or is there something really obscure that I need to do?

Thanks in advance

 

The Cloning feature of TI seems to have the most problems even when the process is done right - different hardware like usb and wireless devices seem to give Cloning some hiccups.

However when Cloning you must select the ENTIRE drive, not just your C partition. And you do this by putting the check mark beside the Disk name - not just the partition letter. This wil of course, bring over the F partition to the new drive. To get rid of this there are some workarounds on this forum which I have not tried. You can also use Partition Magic to merge the F into the C on your new drive.

 

Hello essenby,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please clarify whether you want to have a 'dualboot' system which will allow you to choose what operating system to boot?

We may recommend you to use the following workaround:
- Please boot up from the Windows Bootable CD, then go to the Recovery Console (the first Repair option you come to).
- From the command prompt please type:

FIXMBR DISK
FIXBOOT DISK

where DISK is the partition letter of the new hard drive/partition where you have restored the image.

BOOTCFG /rebuild

This command scans the hard disks of the computer for Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000, or Microsoft Windows NT installations, and then displays the results. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to add the Windows installations to the Boot.ini file. Additional information is available in this Microsoft Knowledgebase article.

After that, please reboot your computer.

If you still experience this issue then please create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post and submit a request for technical support. Attach the collected report file to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

Chutsman -

Many thanks for your advice - I will try that and let you know ho I get on.


Acronis Support -

Thanks also for your advice. Unfortunately I don't have the Windows distribution CD as all software was pre-installed. I also suspect the the pre-installed WinXP has been "crippled" in some way as I never see the Boot Menu and consequently cannot get into Recovery Console (if it is available). Hence the need to clone everything from the old drive to the new one.

I do intend to have a dual boot system, but would like to boot initially from the new drive with the second operating system installed on the old which will be installed either as a master drive on the Secondary IDE channel (with the DVD Writer as slave) or as slave to the new drive on the Primary IDE Channel.

 

Chutsman, a quick update.

Used a utility called HDCLONE to copy both the F: and C: partitions across to the new drive. Not exactly elegant (or quick!) but it did the job - AND Ican boot from the new drive. (Like lightning it is!)

I did have Partition Magic installed (from a cover disk I think) - but have replaced it by Partition Manager (oops!) and I can't remember why.

P Manager won't touch the invalid partitions. It will show me that they are there, even browse the files within them, but because they are invalid it won't do anything to alter them! I'll try and dig out the disk again to see if that will merge the partitions.

 

Glad you got it worked out ... check your PM.