HD Clone does not work

Using True Image Home under Vista Ultimate.
Trying to clone an image from a 150 GB Samsung HD to 500 GB Samsung HD.
Everything seems to work fine, but the cloning process after restarting only takes 5 seconds and no data is transferred at all. The target HD is completely empty after cloning.

What's the problem?

thanks for help

 

Make the bootable Rescue CD, boot with it and use the Clone feature from its menu. Remember after the process is complete to remove or disconnect the 150 before the first reboot with the cloned drive.

 

Is this confirmed working or just a try?

 

Every system is different and seems to present different challenges to True Image. Even certain motherboard chipsets give TI problems as other users report.
Are your drives IDE or Sata?
Is the 500Gb internal or external?

 

SATA, internal.
The strange thing is, that it doesnt report any error. It justs goes on as everything is fine. But it aint =)

 

I now tried it with several different HDs and cables, different SATA ports and everything. Acronis just does not work with my configuration

 

Did you try the bootable Rescue cd?

 

I do only have the trial version and I am not willing to buy a product which doesnt work. And thats the way it is looking like at the moment.

 

I tried cloning from my old 100 gig SATA drive to a new 160 gig SATA drive today using version 10. I was successful but the 160 gig drive only shows the 100 gigs I had on my old drive. Does anyone have any idea how to recover the other 60 gigs? I tried looking at the drive with Partition Magic 8 and it doesn't show any free space. I know it's a 160 gig drive. Any help would be appreciated.

 

stansil,

That is very concerning. You are not alone.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167117

 

stansil,

What brand is your computer? How many partitions on the HD and what sizes? Any HPA? Which OS?

 

Thanks Brian. That threat refers exactly to my problem and I also have a Dell notebook. Unfortunately, that threat doesn't indicate a solution has been found. Now, I'm stuck with a 160 gig drive with only 100 gigs of space. Very frustrating. I was thinking of booting from a Windows XP disk and using the recovery counsel but from what the user described in his post, I don't think this will work. I may have to try and return the drive.

I have 2 main partitions (C for my OS and programs), E for my data. These are about 30 gigs for C and 60 for E. Then there are the Dell hidden partitions. I believe there are 2 of them. I'm running Windows XP Media Center.

 

Oops! I meant thread, not threat!

 

stansil,

You, Jeet and kirkaf were all using laptops but were using different OS and different imaging apps. It does sound like the HPA has been copied to the new HD and has expanded to fill the unallocated space. My guess.

How did you perform the clone process? Anything like Jeet?

I'd start a new thread to see if you can get more exposure because this is a unique problem. I'd contact Dell support too.

This page describes the Dell HPA.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm

I'm really interested to hear what you find.

 

I believe I did the clone the same way as Jeet. I took my old drive out of my laptop and put it a USB enclosure. I put the new drive in my laptop and then ran Arconis True Image from a bootable CD. Then did the clone.

In looking at some of Jeet's posts I ended up at the HDDGURU.com site and downloaded a free program called MHDD. There is a command called NHPA which does the following:

Cutting the drive (size change)

Use HPA command to limit size of a drive. You will be asked about new MaxLBA number, just enter how many sectors you want to use. To uncut the drive, use NHPA command.

I plan on trying that to see if I can gain the space back. However, right now I'm cloning back to my original HD to make sure I have a good copy of my system, just in case this gets me into more trouble. I'll look over the Dell document in your post as well. Thanks for your help and I'll keep you up to date on my progress.

 

stansil,

No, you did your clone differently from Jeet. But you did it in an unconventional way too. It's recommended to have the old HD in the computer rather than in the enclosure. Perhaps the unconventional techniques mean something with this error.

Have a look at..

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167401

Maybe a similar problem.

 

You might want to review this link. I corrected a similar problem using the procedure stated in my link.


http://206.128.27.142/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/007288.html#000013

 

GroverH, can you give me the specific line commands you used in MHDD. I tried that program but can't find commands that do what you say.

 

Use at your own risk but I found this program helpful.

Your drive needs to be attached as a master or maybe usb. The program does not identify slaves.
Normally, you can choose item 2 on Magic Disk Boot menu

Boot Prompt:
X:\MHDD\

start program..Type MHDD at the dos prompt
X:\MHDD\MHDD

When in program mode, prompt will read
MHDD>
Help menu= can be F1 or typing help at the prompt.
mhdd> Help

Detailed help can be obtained by
MHDD> MAN EN HELP

Individual help is by specific command such as if you wanted help on RHPA or NHPA or RST
MHDD> MAN EN RHPA
MHDD> MAN EN NHPA
MHDD> MAN EN RST

From the MHDD> promt, Press Shift F3 and select Drive from listings.
Be absolutely certain you have selected the correct drive.
After drive selected, Press F2 to obtain drive parameters
Fress F4 for a scan
Again, the help command is quite extensive.

The command to show size
MHDD>RHPA

The command to Return original size
MHDD>NAPA

The command to reset the drive is
MHDD>RST

You can also investigate the command
INIT which is reset and recalibrate

ID which is Get Drive Info

EID which is enhanced drive info

FDISK Make one full partition

CLRMBR.......Backup & Clear MBR

 

Have you considered trying the "Complete PC Backup and Restore" feature that's built into your version of Vista? Also, what exactly are you trying to accomplish - a backup, or a drive swap?

 

GroverH, brilliant find. Your post will be a treasure for people with the HPA problem.

I tried MHDD on a test computer, created a HPA and saw the reduced HD size in MHDD. However on booting into WinXP the HD was still full size. Booting back to MHDD showed the smaller HD size had persisted. Using NHPA returned the size to normal.

Any idea why the HD was still normal size in WinXP?

 

I worked it out. You must cut into Unallocated Space. Initially I had a partition extending to the end of the HD.

Very interesting app.

 

Hi Brian,
As with most everything--"different strokes for different folks". Hopefully,the posting will be helpful for a few who might need it. As in my original post, it took we a while to resolve before I succeeded, but I am unable to do any testing now--due to my hardware configuration. I have no IDE masters and I have no exta drive letters available to Magic Boot. I'm not sure how this might be used on NTFS drives.

I used my laptop to determine the commands for the last posting.

It would be interesting to test the concept of using FDisk from inside MHDD. The explantion is "make one full size partition". Would this pick up the extra space? Since this boot disk (either CD or floppy) is a modified 98SE, it has the modified FDisk. I wonder whether it would clear the extra bytes.

I also notice the program has the CLRMBR which will backup and clear the mbr. This might offer us another options in clearing this.

I also find the Magic Boot disk very helpful when restoring my registry via ERUnt registry backups. It enables me to restore registry even if Windows not bootable.

Thanks for your comments.
Grover