Cloning software to larger drive

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Michael_co, Nov 20, 2011.

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  1. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    I am looking to upgrade a hard drive which is showing signs of failing. It's in an old XP machine and the new drive will be larger. I have heard issues with cloning from a smaller to a larger drive (e.g, the useable space on the larger drive will be limited by the size of the source drive).

    Any suggestions of software to look at?

    Thanks,
    Michael
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Michael,

    If you have bad sectors do the clone now while you still can. If you have too many bad sectors no software will perform the clone.

    Take your pick of software. They will all work with a larger HD. You can resize (or not) to fill the larger space.
     
  3. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    Brian,
    Thanks for the quick response - I had looked at Acronis True image, but have read in some threads, the partition has to be adjusted using some other package. Still not clear on whether the latest version has the same limitation.
    Does Paragon (e.g. Partition Manager) products fair better than Acronis, or about the same?
     
  4. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Michael,

    As it is a once up job you should use a free app. I suggest CopyWipe for DOS.

    http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

    Use makedisk.exe to create a boot CD. Boot from the CD and do a Scaled Copy. (Press F6 to View Partitions to confirm you are cloning in the correct direction).

    Laptop or Desktop?
     
  5. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    We,re working on a Desktop. Since replying to you, I was looking at XXClone. It sounded pretty straight forward. Do you know anything about it? Any good?

    I'll check out CopyWipe - thanks for the suggestion.
     
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I haven't used XXClone.

    Whichever app you use, install the new HD as a "slave", perform the copy, then remove the old HD and make sure the new HD is the "master". Only then attempt to boot from the new HD.
     
  7. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    Thanks - I understand the need to pull old drive before rebooting.
     
  8. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    It looks like I could use a little more help - I downloaded CopyWipe, and MakeDisk. Created a bootable CD, and when I rebooted, I ended up in BootIt.NG. Either I should have configured differently when I created the CD, or not seeing a way to access the CopyWipe app from the BootIt NG UI.

    I chose the default settings When running the MakeDisk wizard - was this correct?

    Michael
     
  9. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Michael,

    Wow, you must have got an incorrect file. Did you click the Download button at the bottom of the screen that says...

    CopyWipe for DOS

    The file I just downloaded is called copywipe.zip


    Edit... you don't have to download MakeDisk if that is what you did.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2011
  10. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    That is what I did - e.g., downloaded MakeDisk to create a bootable CD. So, then, I don't need to boot off the CD drive prior to running CopyWipe?
    Michael
     
  11. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    MakeDisk.exe is inside copywipe.zip.

    Sorry about my confusing instructions. I can see where you were misled.
     
  12. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    That helps, hadn't unzipped CopyWipe download - was busy testing out whether I could create a bootable CD using MakeDisk - unfortunately, the google search returned MakeDisK sitting inside the BootIt NG zip file.

    Looks like this does the trick. Thanks for guiding me back on track.
     
  13. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Seeing I gave you such confusing advice I'll make it up with some CopyWipe instructions....

    Boot from the CD
    Copy a Hard Drive
    Source Hard Drive.... Choose BIOS HD
    Hard Drive 0 press F6 to confirm it really is your source HD
    Esc to get back to the menu
    Target Hard Drive.... Choose BIOS HD
    Hard Drive 1 press F6 to confirm it really is your target HD
    Esc to get back to the menu
    Scale Size
    etc

    There is no mouse so you will use the up/down arrows and Enter.
    The reason for pressing F6 is to prevent the silly mistake of cloning the empty HD to the good HD.
     
  14. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    Brian,
    Your original instructions were fine - Unfortunately, I just viewed it from a different angle. After unzipping CopyWipe, re-burning the boot CD, the on screen instructions were fine. It's a good utility - hit a read error issue at around 50% complete, but it progressed through fine after that. Booting from the new drive haven't shown any issues, so hoping the read error(s) were in data files of little importance (denial is a happy place :~)). I know the source drive has been degrading - it's possible the errors were limited to old "bad spots" on the drive.

    Thanks again for the CopyWipe suggestion and your help.

    Michael
     
  15. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    imo i would also run chkdsk /r /f on the new disc just in case there are copied bad files and or sector errors this way they will be found before you get any errors down the line. the new drives surface will most likely test out just fine but there could be file errors still that may have been copied over. its prob fine but this would be a precaution. being it is a boot drive windows will say its locked and ask to do it on the next reboot just press y and reboot then it will do it before it hits windows the procc will take some time.
     
  16. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    Good idea. We had run chkdsk on the source drive last week where it found/fixed errors, and just kicked it off on the new drive. We had it on our list (mental) to do, but we seem to easily get diverted from our plan - your reminder changes it from a potential "whoops" to "done"! It's too easy, for us, to forget the "insurance/precaution" type tasks when we're busy checking all the functionality type stuff.
    Thanks for the suggestion - very much appreciated.
    Michael
     
  17. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Michael,

    That's great news. Keep you fingers crossed that the data loss was minor.
     
  18. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Michael,

    Does chkdsk show bad sectors on the new HD? If so they are from the metadata ($BadClus:$Bad) on the old OS partition. You can clear the erroneous bad sectors with

    chkdsk C: /b

    (done from a Win7 or Vista boot disk, not from WinXP)
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2011
  19. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    ^^^ was about to post this thanks brian.
     
  20. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    ChkDsk on the new drive showed 420kb in bad sectors. I was going to try to locate the log to see if there is any details of value.

    Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't do /b switch as it's running on XP.
    This machine is running old legacy software used to collect data from mobile devices - which is why we're trying to keep the existing machine going and running it on XP. I have cloned a second drive as a backup, so we can "buy" a few more years - hoping to avoid doing a rewrite on the mobile devices and the PC app.
     
  21. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    why not get a winpe disc from someone which is a windows 7 based and then run the /b switch... or if you have a install disc for vista or win 7 you can simply load to the disc and use the repair tools to run chkdsk from a prompt. even download a copy of win7 from a legit place and run that. it is NOT ILLEGAL to get a copy from online as long as you are not installing it without a legit lic key.. there are many places to get one from like directly from digital river or you can try the active@boot disk trial.
     
  22. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    How does the /b parameter differ from the /r?
    Michael
     
  23. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    /b NTFS only: Clears the list of bad clusters on the volume and rescans all allocated and free clusters for errors. /b includes the functionality of /r. Use this parameter after imaging a volume to a new hard disk drive.
     
  24. Michael_co

    Michael_co Registered Member

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    I had read the same description, but not sure of the need or problem.
    Is the problem ChkDsk doesn't re-check a sector which is marked as bad? So, you need to have the bad sector list cleared out prior to it analyzing the disk?
     
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Because of the cloning process the bad sector table from the old HD is now on the new HD. Almost certainly you don't have bad sectors but you have to use chkdsk /b to clear the old bad sector table before you can take any notice of bad sectors reported on the new HD.
     
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