TI Disk Cloned Boots Initially Then Doesn't

Hi. Hopefully someone can help me here. I did the disk cloning procedure and everything seemed to go fine. It copied all of the partions and after the system requested that you shut the system down and switch the jumpers and disconnect the primary drive and hook up the cloned drive the system comes back up ok. The file structure is correct and everything looks great. I then do a system restart using the normal windows procedure and it goes through the preboot procedures and then I am greeted with a black screen and nothing else. I can Cntr-Alt-Del here and I can repeat the booting process and get back to the black screen each tim. So can anyone shed some light as to what I am doing wrong. I have done this cloning procedure numerous times and it always turns out the same. The initial boot after the cloning works fine and then any boot after that presents me with the black screen. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have done some searching in the forums and will continue to do so, but am getting desperate for this system needs to be back online soon.

Thank You,
Roswell

 

The best chance for success is to put the blank target disk in its intended boot position.
Place the master in another alternate location such as internal or an external or network location.

Boot from the TI Rescue CD and perform the clone. Be sure and remove the master before first bootup following the clone.

My guide to Manual Cloning using the TI Rescue CD

Which version of True Image is being used?

Which version of Windows is being used?

Does Disk Management show multiple partitions?

Is the machine dual booting?

 

Grover,

Thanks so much for the quick reply. I am using TI Home 2009. Just downloaded today. The system is XP Pro and it is not being dual booted. Disk management does not show multiple partitions. I will take a look at your link. Thank you for the information. I will try what you suggested and report back.

Thank You,
Roswell

 

true image + windows xp + clone won't boot = drive letter problems.

easy to fix with a bartpe boot cd with the right plugins.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=210322

 

jonyjoe81,

Thanks for the link to that information. Looks like I have some reading to do. I was suspecting the drive letter issue but after it booted correctly initially after the cloning I thought I was fine. Thanks you both for all of the helpful information. I will do some reading and try what has been suggested and will post my results.

Thanks Again,
Roswell

 

Roswell,

I second GroverH's advice.

I'm confused. Did it boot into Windows?

PS There was a member in the Ghost forum with a similar issue. Normal first boot, then failure on the second boot. How old is your computer? What sizes are the HDs?




.

 

Brian K,

Yes after the cloning process was completed it did boot into windows initially. I checked the drive in Disk Manager and ran some programs and everything looked fine. The system is a HP dx2000 which was purchased around the end of 2004. The original system was in a domain environment, but I took it out of the domain before installing TI. After the first cloning attempt and the system booted into windows I was going to join it back to the domain thus the reboot was required and it did not boot back into windows. The second and third time I tried I also checked the drive in disk manager and ran some programs surfed the net and etc and then I just tried a restart from windows and it did not boot. Thus my confusion. Appreciate all of your help on this. As a relatively new admin I am picking things up as I go and accumulating tools and techniques so thank you all for the help. I was looking for a faster way to deploy similar machines and creating backup images and I thought I would do some testing on this machine first to get the process down, but the system is needed back soon.

Thanks again
Roswell

 

Brian K,

I forgot to mention the drive sizes. They are a maxtor 40 gig for the original and a Hitachi Deskstar 80 gig as the target.

Thanks
Roswell

 

Roswell,

The Ghost member had a BIOS issue which we didn't really understand. The BIOS would change the boot drive after the first boot. This is what fixed the problem...

Remove the BIOS battery for 15 minutes to reset the CMOS.
Install a new battery
Setup BIOS time, date, Hard drive etc.

Does WinXP boot?

 

Brian K,

I removed the cmos battery for around 20 minutes and reinstalled and set the date, time & etc in the bios and rebooted with the same result. Just a black screen where the only thing I can do is Cntr-Alt-Del to reboot. I guess it's back to reading and research. Appreciate all the help and I will have to try some of the other ideas posted and I will post my results when done.

Thanks again,
Roswell

 

Roswell,

I think you did everything correctly. If WinXP booted first up there is no technique problem. This is only the second thread I've seen with this issue. Do some investigation in the BIOS. Before and after the next clone. That is where the problem lies.

 

Hello Roswell,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

Make sure that you remove HPA before cloning if any. HPA is a hidden area of a hard drive that is not normally visible to an operating system. The information about HPA parameters is stored in a special firmware chip of a hard drive. Acronis True Image cannot copy HPA to another hard drive, but the product does copy the information about HPA settings stored in MBR (while actually copying MBR itself). In such cases HPA is activated during the first boot from the target drive and operating system detects wrong size of the target hard drive reporting it to be of the same size that the source drive is.

To restore the drive to its original capacity you need to remove HPA on the target drive:

* Download the following ISO image: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/downloads/ftool_207.iso
* Burn the ISO image to a CD according to the rules described at http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm
* Boot your computer from the created CD;
* You will get the "Drive list" window after the boot process is finished. Select the necessary ("broken") hard drive from the list using your mouse or arrow keys;
* Click on the "Features" menu or press Alt+F keys and select "Change Capacity" item;
* You should see "Manufacturing values" and "Current values" on the appeared window;
* Click Options and choose Maximum Capacity from the appeared list. The appropriate value will be automatically entered in New Capacity field;
* Click OK.

Reboot the system and check the capacity of hard drive that shows wrong size.

If you are using a Dell laptop and the target hard drive changes again after booting the laptop from this drive, the Dell MBR calls special code to re-enable the HPA anytime you boot from the hard disk. In this case we recommend you to contact Dell to get further assistance.

Please also be aware that this solution cannot be applied if the drive is connected to a computer USB/FireWire interface. You will need to connect this drive to IDE/SATA port of your motherboard or your storage controller. If this is not possible, please apply to a service center with the request to reset the drive settings to factory default.

Some additional information about HPA issues on Dell laptops can be found here: http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.htm and on the official Acronis Forum at https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167401

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

Dmitry,

Roswell has a HP desktop computer, not a Dell laptop and there is no suggestion of a HPA.

He can successfully clone his HD. He has done it numerous times without a failure. The problem is the computer will not boot a second time. Or a third time. He only gets a single successful boot after the cloning procedure. Any solution?

 

Roswell,

Would it be possible to post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows for the original/source drive and of what it shows on the first boot-up of the cloned drive? It may help to see them.

Also, did you try clearing the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices Registry key or changing the Disk ID before or after the first boot-up of the clone?

Do you have (or have access to) a standard Microsoft Vista OEM or Retail DVD or a VistaPE, WinPE or BartPE CD?

 

MudCrab,

Sorry for the late reply. We had a power outage today that lasted 6 hours. Turns out a tree top on my yard broke off and broke the wires and took out the whole town. Anyway I did another image clone and I have the machine running right now after the initial reboot. I have attached 5 screen shots. Hopefully this helps. I did check on the HPA and HP did have that as an option on this model but it was a download option and did not come pre-installed so that should not be an issue. Let me know if you have any leads and I will continue to plug away.

Thanks
Roswell

 

MudCrab,

I had one more screen shot

Thanks,
Roswell

 

Hey all,

I did finally get to be able to boot into Windows correctly after I rebooted from the completion of the cloning. I'm not exactly sure what the definitive answer is because I did the process so many times with some differing drive configuration settings. But what I believe I may have been doing is that the original drive was in the cable select position when I cloned the drive and I had the target drive designated as the slave, but after the cloning process was completed and it requests you to shut down the system and move the jumpers to the master setting that was what I was doing. I should have been putting it back in the cable select position on the cloned drive. I did not have time to test this theory. I was just so relieved that it worked and I had to have the system back into production today which I did. If anybody has any thoughts on this I would like to prove or disprove the conclusion that I arrived at to help anybody else with a similar problem. That is the only thing that I may have done different with the exception of this last time I did leave the system up and running for about 12 hours before I rebooted into Windows to test it out.

I would like to say thank you to all who provided information to me. You we're extremely helpful and it is sincerely appreciated. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to assist. The Acronis program worked great once I figured out my problem which I am hoping that was the problem. I had been experimenting with Norton Ghost 14 before trying Acronis and had nothing but problems with it and after reading the support forums I was not alone.

So once again thank you and I look forward to utilizing the Acronis software going forward.

Thank You,
Roswell

 

Roswell,

Thanks for the feedback.

If anyone knows the answer, please let us know.

The only thing you did differently from your earlier efforts was to use different jumper settings and have a more prolonged first boot run time. The guy who was using Ghost fixed his problem by resetting the CMOS. This didn't work for you. It is weird.