Cloning Disaster

I just tried cloning my C: to a larger HDD. Now neither drive will boot. They both started with AUTOPART: script file not found messages then a reboot...ad nauseum. But every once in a while I'd get to a black screen with a mouse pointer that I could move, but no Windows. A couple of times the blue background CHKDSK screen would come up but it would eventually freeze.

I could boot into safe mode once or twice, but that's been really inconsistent.

I tried booting with the rescue CD I created when I installed TI, but there was no bootable image on the CD. Had to reburn it. I tried again to boot from the CD, and I get a splash screen, then it says "Unable to load initial ramdisk. Press <Enter> to proceed..." I press enter and it hangs.

Is this software for real? Hopefully, I'll be able to reload the image I save to the file server before I tried this cloning step. I'm not too impressed.

 

Anyone

 

Hello GrantNakamura,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that we recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, since keeping both original and cloned hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

Please do the following depending on what operating system you use:

- Boot the computer from Windows 95/98/ME Startup Disk and run "fdisk /mbr" command;

- Boot the computer from Windows 2000/XP Installation CD and run "fixmbr" command in Recovery Console.

If you do not have Windows installation CD\Startup Disk for some reasons then please insert a diskette into the floppy drive and run the file available by the link below:

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.exe

Once the floppy is written, boot the computer from it and confirm that you want to fix the master boot record.

If the problem still persists and your PC still does not boot then please provide me with the more detailed information on the problem.

Describe actions taken before the problem appears step-by-step.

Tell me whether you have you unplugged one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has beeb finished.

What operating system you use?

As I have understood, you performed the disk cloning process from under Windows. Is that correct?

Please also provide me with the full version name and build number of the program.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Even if you have WinXP, try fdisk /mbr.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

See Method #3 ("Kawecki's Trick"):

 

Thanks for the reply.

I tried running fixmbr from the WindowsXP recovery console. No change in the behavior. It seems I can boot into Safe mode fairly consistently now, but not into a regular Windows XP session.

I don't remember if I unplugged the disks right after cloning. I'm using XP with the latest SP and patches. The version of TI is v8.0 build 937.

Thanks again.

Grant

 

If you clone a WinXP system disk. Then after the clone is made you should shut down and remove the clone. Then you can boot on the original disk. If you want to boot on the clone, then remove the original and replace it with the clone and boot up. Otherwise, windows will make at least one of the disks not a system disk and that disk won't be useful as a true clone. Windows won't accept having two system disks on one machne and marks at least one of the drives and not a system disk on the first boot up after cloning.

hope that helps,
sh

 

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not trying to boot with both disks attached. Each one is f&*%'d up by themselves, although the clone will now consistently boot to safe mode.

 

I did find out that I had a bad memory stick that was causing all the random crashes, but not the problem booting.

I tried fixing the mbr and no luck. I tried repairing with the WinXP SP2 CD and that seemed to get the original disk to boot, but not the clone. I tried re-cloning and somehow I screwed up and the original disk got trashed. And, the new clone disk still had the same error about the script file not found.

I just got frustrated and reinstalled windows and restored an image. Now, I'm doing okay, but not very eager to try cloning again.

Grant

 

Re: Image Restore Taking Forever (18 hours so far)

I may have missed something, but if your original disk had problems then so would the clone.

Another way of doing it...

1. On the new hard drive, create more than one partitin.
2. Create an image of the original hard drive and store it on the new hard drive on the second partition.
3. Remove the original hard drive.
4. Correct the jumper on the back of the new hard drive to either CS or Master if it was previously set as slave. Attach it to the end of the IDE cable (if SATA, just plug it in to the first SATA port).
5. Reboot with the TI rescue disk in and restore the image to the first partiton.

Good luck...