Clone Disk With WinXP

[TimTang]

I've got a newer bigger hard drive and want to clone my old one onto the new one using Norton Ghost. This is a typical scenario that everyone goes through every year or so, very simple, no problem. But wait...through XP into the mix and everything changes.

I've got three operating systems on the drive and first one is XP. After cloning, the new disk will not boot up. It starts to load then I end up with the newer, prettier blue screen of death informing me that the system is halted. If I boot from a floppy and change the active partition (fdisk), all the other operating systems work.

Does anyone know why XP creates this problem when cloned? Does the MBR have to be copied over or something?

This is the same result I've had with two other computers at work.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Mulga]

Are you using NTFS or FAT32 file system for XP? I believe there are issues with using Ghost on NTFS partitions. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Guest_imported]

I've found problems with Power Quest disk imaging when trying to clone XP HOME, but XP PRO was no problem. Haven't got to the bottom of it yet... :-(

 

[TimTang]

Mulga,

All you need is a really big revolving door, shorter ski's, and impecable timing... but I digress

I'm using Fat32. I was afraid that my other OS's Win98 and BeOS might not be able to read the drive (if it ever became necessary)

 

[wolluf]

Don't know why cloned version won't boot - but have you tried the fixboot command from XP's recovery console? (Boot from XP install CD and choose repair using recovery console option when prompted - you'll need Administrator password)

 

[Grenage]

I know XP has protection regarding how many devices can be changed before it locks an needs you to ring MS for a new code (I dont know how much them dummed this down because there was a lot of ptotest about it). Could it be that changing the HD would knacker it in that the HD it is looking for is not the HD it is on ?

 

[wolluf]

Grenage - its supposed to be at least 3 or 4 changes before you have to reactivate - and it should still work otherwise you wouldn't be able to reactivate it!

 

[Grenage]

Yes I agree, but the HD is somewhat different to the rest of the PC's components, in that the XP installation is actually on it.

 

[TimTang]

Wolluf - I haven't tried the fixboot command - I'll give that a shot.

Grenage - I think you're probably right about the HD being knackered. XP probably has some way of ID'ing the HD; if it doesn't find the right serial number it refuses to boot. This is probably a deliberate attempt by M$ to discourage cloning. Nothing in computer has changed but the HD.

If I could get AutoCAD and Lightwave to run on Linux I'd give M$ the boot. I paid for my computer with my own money, I don't know why M$ should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with it.

Go Linux Go!!!!

 

[TimTang]

Finally got it to work! Whew

I slaved the drive back to the original and set up all the OS's on the new drive to be bootable through BootMagic.

Tested each one. Only WinXP didn't work but I was able to boot it in to safe mode. When I rebooted it again, it worked.

Then I made a BootMagic rescue disk for this new configuration,took out the old drive and made the new one the master.

I then booted from the BootMagic rescue disk and as expected it noticed something was amiss. I then got an error message informing me that BootMagic can't find the partitions so will do a scan and reboot. When it rebooted BootMagic came up and only had the three OS's that it could find on the disk - exactly what I wanted - and each of them worked.

The weird thing is, XP forgot who I was, so wouldn't let me log on as myself (only as admin) and all the networking had to be reconfigured. I thought a clone was a CLONE! With XP I guess its not.

Thanks for your help guys

 

[4cpudoc]

If you get the newest version of Norton Ghost you can do just about anything with an NTFS XP system. I've got 42 computers for my labs that I've done for this with latest Ghost.

 

[Grenage]

Good to hear it's sorted

 

[ceh4702]

You can not have 2 machines with the same XP OS due to the licensing requirements of XP. XP Pro may already be preacitivated. So if you were to Take it off one computer and put it on a new computer, you might have to actually call Microsoft. The same might apply if you upgraded an existing computer with a new motherboard. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[TimTang]

4cpudoc - I used Ghost ver. 7 to do the cloning. I'm not sure if that's the newest version or not. I believe that it's supposed to be XP compatable, but then so is my mouse pad.

ceh4702 - I wasn't attempting to put XP on two machines. I was simply trying to upgrade to a larger HD.

Thanks again for all the input.