cloning a disk for my Dell laptop

I'm fairly experienced using both TI and Ghost to backup, restore and clone drives. I've upgraded numerous laptops this way. I'm stumped with my Mom's Dell, however. I clone the entire drive successfully, but no matter what, when I try to boot from the new clone, it gives me a message as follows:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk Hardware configuration problem.
Could Not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

I tried rewriting the MBR with the utility provided by Acronis.

I've also tried backing up the image and restoring it to the new drive. No luck. I've tried to clone it to 3 separate spare drives, all of which are listed as compatible with this Inspiron 8500. I also tried it with Ghost with the same results. It's clearly something unique to Dell. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure that my mom's backups will be usable if her drive fails.

Craig

 

That IS an odd one! Do you have any usb devices attached when trying to boot with a clone? Since you have a few drives to try, use the Dell restore CDs on one of them to make sure the hd will boot. If it does, erase everything and restore the image to it. What ver. and build of TI is it? Maybe use TI to "prepare" the hd first before restoring the image? Just throwing out ideas here.

 

That's a good Idea to use the restore disks on the drive first. I'll see what that might do. TI version 9.0 and Ghost version 9.0 - both have the exact same results.
No USB devices are attached when I try and boot up from the clone.

Thanks

Craig

 

Even though there are numerous problems with TI ver 9 (as you may have read in the rest of the forum) since your problem is also happening with Ghost, there must be something else going on here. What windows ver. is on the Dell? Are the spare hds larger than 120 gb? You might try making a partition the same size as the drive you want to clone. Is the Bios recognizing the cloned hard drive?

 

first one was 60 gig 7200 rpm, the second was 30, the third was 20 gig.
I'm loading my CDRoms now, hoping that there is some way that it brands or marks the disk outside of the partitioned area for Dell's BIOS to pass it as OEM. I did notice an unpartitioned area on the original disk that I've been unable to duplicate on my new disk. That should remain after I've cloned the partitioned area from my old drive.

I'll see soon, but if this is the case, I'm surprised to have found no discussion of it anywhere. Not on Symantec forums, not on Dell, not on Acronis forums, etc.

Craig

 

Indeed that did the trick. It looks like any time I want to restore my system onto a new drive, I'm going to have to go through a complete windows installation with my Dell OS installation Disks, then clone my old disk over it.

Dell should have this in their FAQ. Thanks all. Craig