Unable to clone multi-partitioned HD to SATA drive

Using ATI build 937, I've been unable to successfully clone a multi-partitioned PATA HD to a SATA HD.

1. The PATA source disk contains two partitions, one containing the Me or Win 98 OS, the other containing the XP OS.

2. The source disk is entirely functional and without defect - no problem booting to either OS and no problems using programs/data on either OS. Similarly, no problems with the SATA I or II drives that I use (Western Digital and Samsung).

3. The Disk Clone process proceeds without incident. After disconnecting the source disk and booting up with the destination (SATA) drive, I'm able to boot into Me (or Win 9 without any problem. However, I cannot boot to the XP OS. That's the basic problem. The system freezes at the XP Welcome screen (no messages of any kind).

4. This cloning failure occurs with various multi-partitioned (Win9x/Me/XP) drives. I've tried it with a number of Maxtor & Western Digital PATA (source) drives but always with the same result in that I can boot to the Win98 or Me OS, but not the XP OS.

5. No problem creating a disk clone to the SATA drive as long as the source disk is not multi-partitioned with two bootable OSs and no problem creating a disk clone to the SATA drive as long as the destination drive contains only the XP OS.

6. Similarly, no problem creating disk clones from PATA to PATA drives regardless of whether the source disk contains only a single XP OS or is multi-partitioned with two OSs (Win98 & XP).

Obviously, the problem seems to lie with the cloning process as it involves disk cloning from PATA to SATA drives in a multi-partitioned disk environment. I should mention that I've had the identical problem using Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 program.

Would appreciate any help.

artisan

 

Artisan,

Freezing at the welcome screen suggests a MBR problem. Have you tried the fdisk /mbr trick? See Method 3#.

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

 

Please understand that this problem occurs *only* when I clone a multi-partitioned drive (each partition containing a bootable OS) to a *SATA* drive. No problem exists when cloning the same multi-partitioned HD to a *PATA* drive.

 

I understand. Why don't you try fdisk /mbr anyway? Certainly a mystery.

 

Brian:
I appreciate your effort to help me with this problem.

I *did* try that fdisk /mbr command, but to no avail. But why would it work in this situation where the problem manifests itself *only* when I attempt to clone a multi-partitioned drive (containing a Win9x/Me OS and a XP OS) to a SATA drive? As I stated, I have *no* problem cloning the same multi-partitioned drive to a PATA drive.

I would hope that an Acronis technician would respond to my query.

 

Have you tried booting from the rescue CD and cloning from there? If that doesn't help then perhaps you could post the contents of the cloned WinXP partition's "boot.ini" file. It might provide a clue.

Regards

 

Hello artisan,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please prepare your Window XP for transferring using Microsoft System Preparation Tool as it is described in this FAQ article and then perform the disk cloning process once again.

If the problem still persists then please perform Windows Repair Installation as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

If that does not help then please create an image of your PATA hard drive saving it to any type of the supported media, unplug this drive, install the new SATA disk, boot from special Bootable Rescue CD and restore your image to the new SATA hard drive.

Please inform me about the results.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Artisan,

I think we both expected fdisk /mbr to fail but it was worth trying as your situation is so strange.