best cloning method?

[Rod Speed]

Rod, I take exception to that. I and others do periodic system
reinstalls on several 300G drives I have due to all the clutter that
quickly accumulates. I sure don't want to clone 250G of MPs and
photos. What I do is keep a fresh install of Xp and other apps on a
40G drive and only clone the first partition of the main larger drive.
All takes less than 15 minutes.

It makes a lot more sense to image instead of clone.

That way you can compress the image and keep more copys,
and you can incrementally image with a decent modern imager
and thats much quicker again, so quick that you can image the
OS partition before installing anything or reconfiguring anything
just in case the system restore doesnt work if things go pear shaped.

The only real advantage with cloning instead of imaging is that
you can come back quicker on a hard drive failure, and few
personal desktop systems need to do that, and those that
do should be using OS level shadowing, not cloning, so they
can come back even quicker than you can with cloning and
are always completely up to date.

 

[stevesai]

Can you hear the noise of the razor blade dragging across my wrist?
This is not going well. I tried again with True Image - this time I
disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the
the new disc would not boot. Same error that there was no boot disk.
Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive)
which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot
sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then
reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive
unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once
I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new
drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP
configuration. I think I give up on True Image.

As far as Casper goes. My statement that it won't partition the extra
space comes from the manufacturer's website, although I have to admit
that your use of the word 'spurious' let everyone know that you meant
business! And I quote -
"While fully operational, this trial version does not provide support
for volume resizing. For example, using the trial version of Casper XP
to copy a 10GB drive to a new 100GB hard disk will result in a 10GB
copy being created on the 100GB hard disk; the additional 90GB of space
on the new hard disk will remain unpartitioned space." This makes the
free version perfectly useless to me and I don't feel like dishing out
$50 just to clone a damn drive.

This leaves me with the possibility of Ghost- I actually have a copy of
2003 that I just installed, but have no idea how to use it yet. I am
still looking for the simple way to clone a hd and have the damn thing
boot up and have all the programs work on it. Believe me - I'm still
listening with both ears if anyone has any other suggestions. I'll
post back about how Ghost works out. If anyone has any tips for using
Ghost I'd love to hear that as well. Thanks all for the continued help
in this nightmare.

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Can you hear the noise of the razor blade dragging across my wrist?

Nar, you're a bit too far away for that.

And it aint that quiet at this end too.

This is not going well. I tried again with True Image - this time I
disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the
the new disc would not boot. Same error that there was no boot disk.

You do have to tell the bios to boot off the new drive with
some bios. Otherwise it can just try to boot the old drive
and is too stupid to even notice that its been disconnected.

And not all drives will be seen by all bios if the new drive is jumpered
as a slave and its on the same ribbon cable as the old drive.

Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive)
which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot
sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then
reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive
unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once
I'm into Windows.

Because that boot off the new drive is with the old drive visible.

I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the new drive and
disconnect the old one before messing up the XP configuration.

See above.

I think I give up on True Image.

Thats mad, its trivial to do it properly with the stuff above.

As far as Casper goes. My statement that it won't partition
the extra space comes from the manufacturer's website,
although I have to admit that your use of the word 'spurious'
let everyone know that you meant business! And I quote -
"While fully operational, this trial version does not provide support
for volume resizing. For example, using the trial version of Casper
XP to copy a 10GB drive to a new 100GB hard disk will result in
a 10GB copy being created on the 100GB hard disk; the additional
90GB of space on the new hard disk will remain unpartitioned
space." This makes the free version perfectly useless to me
True.

and I don't feel like dishing out $50 just to clone a damn drive.

This leaves me with the possibility of Ghost- I actually have a
copy of 2003 that I just installed, but have no idea how to use it yet.

You'll get the same result as you did with True Image, for the same reason.

I am still looking for the simple way to clone a hd and have
the damn thing boot up and have all the programs work on it.

Just rejumper the new drive when you disconnect
the old drive after the clone has been done, and
make sure the bios is set to boot off the new drive.

You'll have to clone it again with True Image because you have
wrecked that clone by booting it with the old drive visible again.

Believe me - I'm still listening with both
ears if anyone has any other suggestions.

What I listed at the top will fix the problem.

I'll post back about how Ghost works out.

No need, we know it produces the same problem
if you boot the new drive with the old one visible.

If anyone has any tips for using Ghost I'd love to hear that as well.

Same tips as with True Image. Just more awkward
in some ways since you can only boot the CD if you
have the distribution CD without using a quirk of Ghost.

Thanks all for the continued help in this nightmare.

Thats nothing like a real nightmare |-)

A real nightmare would have been to clone
the physical drive backwards, clone the stuffed
install on the new drive onto the old drive.

Even that is fixable, but not as easily particularly
if you dont have an XP distribution CD.

 

[Peter]

Maybe just give us some technical details about your system:
-motherboard model number
-devices, you have hooked up on your IDE ribbons
-BIOS settings relevant to boot/IDE devices
-exact error messages at critical moments of your cloning experiment

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I tried again with True Image - this time I
disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the
the new disc would not boot.

OK, that takes care of the Clone's First Bootup precaution.

Same error that there was no boot disk.
Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive)
which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot
sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then
reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive
unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once
I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the
new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP
configuration. I think I give up on True Image.

It sure sounds like the MBR isn't being copied over. But since
True Image is supposed to do that automatically when cloning,
I can't imagine why.

As far as Casper goes. My statement that it won't partition the extra
space comes from the manufacturer's website, although I have to admit
that your use of the word 'spurious' let everyone know that you meant
business! And I quote -
"While fully operational, this trial version does not provide support
for volume resizing. For example, using the trial version of Casper XP
to copy a 10GB drive to a new 100GB hard disk will result in a 10GB
copy being created on the 100GB hard disk; the additional 90GB of
space on the new hard disk will remain unpartitioned space." This
makes the free version perfectly useless to me and I don't feel like
dishing out $50 just to clone a damn drive.

OK, now I see that you meant that the partition that you're copying
is only 28GB and that the clone will be the that same size, not that
Casper XP won't copy more than that much. It may be possible to
create the larger partition using Disk Management and then use
the free trial Casper XP to copy into that pre-existing partition. It
may be worth a try since it won't hurt anything if it doesn't work.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

OK, that takes care of the Clone's First Bootup precaution.

It sure sounds like the MBR isn't being copied over.

Nope, because it boots fine with the old drive still connected.

But since True Image is supposed to do that automatically when cloning, I
can't imagine why.

Because the bios wont boot the new drive with the old drive
disconnected, either because it cant see the new drive with
the old drive disconnected because of the jumpering on the
new drive, or because it needs to have the new drive specified
in the bios to boot from with the old drive disconnected.

OK, now I see that you meant that the partition that you're copying
is only 28GB and that the clone will be the that same size, not that
Casper XP won't copy more than that much. It may be possible to
create the larger partition using Disk Management and then use
the free trial Casper XP to copy into that pre-existing partition. It
may be worth a try since it won't hurt anything if it doesn't work.

Makes a lot more sense to fix what prevents the new drive
from being booted when the old drives is disconnected,
after having done the clone with True Image.

 

[Anna]

(SNIP)...

This leaves me with the possibility of Ghost- I actually have a copy of
2003 that I just installed, but have no idea how to use it yet. I am
still looking for the simple way to clone a hd and have the damn thing
boot up and have all the programs work on it. Believe me - I'm still
listening with both ears if anyone has any other suggestions. I'll
post back about how Ghost works out. If anyone has any tips for using
Ghost I'd love to hear that as well. Thanks all for the continued help
in this nightmare.

Here, in slightly edited form, are some step-by-step instructions for using
the Ghost 2003 program that I prepared in response to a request I received
from a local computer club...

Before I provide you (and others who may be interested) with the detailed
instructions involved, let me make the following points.
1. This is *not* complicated business. Using the Ghost 2003 program in an XP
environment in the manner in which I will set forth is a relatively simple &
straightforward process.
2. It (nearly) goes without saying, that in order for the cloning process to
be successful, both the source disk (the drive you're cloning from) and the
destination disk (the drive you're cloning to) must be non-defective and
properly connected/configured in your system.
3. The OS that you're cloning must be free from system files corruption.
("If you clone garbage, garbage is what you'll get").

And that's it. The precise steps to directly clone the contents from one HD
to another HD using the Ghost 2003 program are simple & effective.

But before I get to the actual step-by-step instructions, I want to make the
following points so that you (and others who might be interested in a disk
imaging program) understand how I use this program to achieve our desired
objective which is to *directly* clone the contents of one HD to another
HD...

1. We use the Ghost 2003 program for one purpose, and only one purpose - to
*directly* clone the contents of one hard drive to another hard drive. We
are not interested in "incremental or scheduled backups", nor are we
interested in creating "disk images" on removable media, e.g., DVDs. Our
sole interest & objective is to create & maintain a near-failsafe backup
system for restoration purposes.

2. It is *vital* that you work with the latest version of the Ghost 2003
program. That's the Ghost 2003.793 build. Should you have an earlier
version, you can use Symantec's LiveUpdate feature available in the Ghost
program to download & automatically install that latest update.

3. We prefer to work with the Ghost 2003 program rather than its successor
Ghost 9 & Ghost 10 programs. For our purposes, we find the 2003 version more
straightforward in design, simpler to use, faster in carrying out its
function than the newer versions. And, I might add, just as effective for
the purposes indicated. Again, I emphasize that we use the program solely
for the *direct* cloning of the contents of one HD to another HD.

4. In using the Ghost 2003 program, our preference is to work with the Ghost
2003 bootable floppy disk (or on occasion the Ghost 2003 bootable CD). We
find that media simpler to use in comparison with the Windows GUI and we
enjoy the portability aspects of using that media.

So, here are step-by-step instructions for using the Ghost 2003 program
(using a Ghost 2003 bootable floppy disk or bootable CD) to directly clone
the contents of one HD to another HD...

Creating the bootable Ghost floppy disk:
1. Install the Ghost 2003 program on your computer. Make sure you're using
the latest "build" - Ghost 2003.793. If not, use Ghost's LiveUpdate feature
to automatically download the latest version. It's important that you be
using this latest "build".
2. Insert a blank floppy disk (it need not be formatted) and access your
Ghost program.
3. Click on Ghost Utilities.
4. Click on Norton Ghost Boot Wizard.
5. Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk. A dialog box will appear.
a. Select the USB 2.0 Support option (assuming you have that
capability).
b. Select the Assign DOS drive letters option and click Next.
6. Select the Use PC-DOS option.
7. Complete the process following the screen prompts.
8. Remove floppy and label accordingly.

That's it. Now you have a Ghost bootable floppy disk which you can use to
undertake your cloning operations now and in the future. Now when you want
to clone the contents of one HD to another HD you simply insert the Ghost
bootable floppy disk in your floppy drive and boot up with both drives
connected.

After creating the Ghost bootable floppy disk, you can, should you desire,
create a Ghost bootable CD from it using the Roxio or Nero CD burning
programs, or most other CD burning programs that allow you to create a
bootable CD from a floppy disk.

Here's how to perform the cloning operation...
1. With both drives connected, boot up with the Ghost bootable floppy (or
Ghost bootable CD). You'll get an initial screen that displays "License
agreement warning". Right-arrow (or tab) over to the "Continue without
marking drives" button and press Enter.
2. The "About Norton Ghost" screen appears. Click OK.
3. Right-arrow twice over to the "To Disk" button and press Enter.
4. The next screen will list both your drives - the Drive 1 (source disk)
and Drive 2 (destination disk). MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Drive 1 IS INDEED
YOUR SOURCE DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING *FROM*!
Drive 1 will be highlighted. Press Enter.
5. The next screen will have Drive 2 (destination disk) highlighted. AGAIN,
ENSURE THAT Drive 2 IS YOUR DESTINATION DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING
*TO*! Press Enter.
6. The next screen is the "Destination Drive Details" window, and reflects
your ultimate destination disk, i.e., your current Drive 2. Press your Tab
key to highlight the OK button and press Enter.
7. The "Proceed with disk clone?" dialog box will open. Left-arrow over to
the Yes button and press Enter.
8. The cloning process will begin. The data transfer speed will vary
depending upon the speed of your processor and the HDs involved. Should you
be cloning internal HDs, on a medium to high-powered system you should get
transfer speeds ranging from about 800 MB/min to about 1.5 GB/min (and
perhaps slightly higher). It will be considerably slower if you're cloning
to a USB external HD.
9. After you get the "Clone Completed Successfully" message, left-arrow over
to the Continue button and press Enter.
10. Down-arrow to Quit and press Enter.
11. Click Yes at the "Are you sure you want to quit?" message.
12. Remove the Ghost floppy and shut down the computer.
13. Disconnect your source disk and boot up with the cloned drive. In most
cases (but not always), a Windows "Found New Hardware" message will appear
in the Desktop's Notification Area followed by a "System Settings Change"
message window informing you that new hardware has been found and asks "Do
you want to restart your computer now?" Click Yes.
14. BTW, the reboot of the newly-cloned drive usually takes a longer time
than usual, so one must be patient. On rare occasions the system will fail
to reboot - the system will hang before reaching the Windows XP Welcome
screen. It's a rare occurrence, but you may experience it from time-to-time.
If that does occur, simply use the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys to reboot.

Assuming you've cloned the contents of your working drive to your second
internal drive, that second drive will be bootable (after disconnecting your
primary one, of course) as indicated above. You also have the option of
cloning your working drive to a USB external hard drive. In that case the
USB EHD is *not* bootable, but you could clone the contents back to your
internal drive for restoration purposes should the need arise.

Just one other point I wish to emphasize with respect to the cloning
operation involving internal drives. Immediately following the cloning
operation and the shutdown of your machine, disconnect your source drive and
boot ONLY to the newly-cloned drive (as indicated in step 13. above). DO NOT
BOOT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLONING OPERATION WITH BOTH DRIVES CONNECTED.
Doing so is likely to cause future boot problems with the cloned drive.
Obviously there is no problem in this area should a USBEHD be involved in
the cloning process since that device is not bootable in an XP environment.

I should add that the Ghost 2003 program can just as easily clone individual
partitions on one HD to another HD as cloning the entire contents of one HD
to another HD. In our case we rarely have need to clone individual
partitions, usually preferring to clone the contents of the entire drive
instead, but that capability is there should you need it. And it's no more
difficult than cloning the entire contents of one drive to another.

I trust the above will be of use to you and others who might be thinking
about using the Ghost 2003 program for a routine backup system.
Anna

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[.....]
disconnected the old drive at the end of the cloning process and the
the new disc would not boot. Same error that there was no boot disk.

It probably says no boot files - no ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com.
That may be because the OS was copied to an Extended partition or
that the Primary partition it's in is not marked "active" and the boot
sector can't find the partition where ntldr is supposed to be.

Hooked the old drive up and booted into Windows (on the old drive)
which saw the new drive in Windows Explorer. Then set the boot
sequence in the bios to boot off the new drive which it did, but then
reverted to the original problem that it won't boot the new drive
unless the old drive is hooked up and it won't see the old drive once
I'm into Windows. I don't seem to be able to get the MBR onto the
new drive and disconnect the old one before messing up the XP
configuration.

It's time to tell all:

1) How do you know which OS is running? IOW, what distinguishes
one from the other for you? I put a folder on the Desktop with a
distinguishing name so that I can tell at a glance which clone is
running.

2) Is the partition marked "active" on the new HD the one with
ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com at the root of the file structure
of that partition? Disk Management will show which partition
is marked "active". Rt-clk the graphic of the disk space and
see if "Mark Partition as Active" is grayed out - which means
it's "active".

3) Please list for us the contents of the boot.ini files on both HDs.

4) You've written "the new drive is a Maxtor 80g ata133 7200rpm
(the old is a 28g Western Digital.) These are jumpered
differently. Are you jumpering each of them correctly when
there is only one HD in the system?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

It probably says no boot files - no ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com.

Or its the normal bios non system disk error message.

That may be because the OS was copied to an Extended partition

Not even possible with True Image with a clone.

or that the Primary partition it's in is not marked "active"

Wont happen with a clone.

and the boot sector can't find the partition where ntldr is supposed to
be.

You dont even know that its even being loaded by the bios at all.

It's time to tell all:
Nope.

1) How do you know which OS is running? IOW, what distinguishes one from
the other for you? I put a folder on the Desktop with a distinguishing
name so that I can tell at a glance which clone is running.

Waste of time when we know what happens when you boot
a clone with the original still visible on the first boot of the clone.

2) Is the partition marked "active" on the new HD the one with ntldr,
boot.ini, and ntdetect.com at the root of the file structure of that
partition?

We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine.

Disk Management will show which partition is marked "active". Rt-clk the
graphic of the disk space and see if "Mark Partition as Active" is grayed
out - which means it's "active".

We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine.

3) Please list for us the contents of the boot.ini files on both HDs.

We know that True Image clones a physical drive fine.

4) You've written "the new drive is a Maxtor 80g ata133 7200rpm
(the old is a 28g Western Digital.) These are jumpered differently.
Are you jumpering each of them correctly when there is only one HD in the
system?

Finally, the one thing its likely to be, after someone else has pointed
that out.

Effective debugging is all about concentrating on
what can produce the symptoms seen, child.

 

[yuenkitmun]

Hope I'm not going off topic here but - I'd recommend using VMwar
Server (formerly known as GSX).

It's now free! I haven't used it yet but I did use VMware Player for
bit and there was no problem.

Using a virtual machine is more convenient than cloning the hard disk
If your PC motherboard fails, the cloned hard disk is unlikely to b
bootable on different hardware. A virtual machine isolates you fro
that.

You can stop the virtual machine, copy out the image files, and that'
your complete portable system backup that you can run on any ne
hardware, even with a different PC brand.

Best if you're setting up a machine for the first time. Install som
free Linux to save on license costs, install VMware Server, boot
virtual machine install from CD (Windows or Linux, whatever, you
actual running OS).

Details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMwar

 

[alanm]

True Image makes a lot more sense.
Ghost 2003 is way past its useby date now.

Bullshit.

 

[Cliffhanger]

OK folks -
I used True Image to clone the disk using the clone drive wizard.
Everything seemed to work fine and it copied everything rather quickly,
a nice surprise, HOWEVER... there is a really wierd situation now.
The new 80gig drive is set as the master drive. When I boot into
windows it is the only drive that shows in Windows Explorer even though
the old drive is still connected as a slave. Wierder still is that if
I disconnect the old drive the computer will not boot into windows -
instead giving an error message that it cannot locate a boot disk, or
boot file or something like that. When I reconnect the old drive as
the slave it boots into windows on the new drive with no problem.
Bizarre. Windows doesn't even show the old drive, but it can't boot
the new drive without it. Can anyone shed some light on this. I'd
love to have this work the way it should. I truly can't believe how
complicated this process has become in the past couple years. This
used to take me one try and an hour out of my day - this is going on my
fourth try and countless hours at this point. Thanks all for the help
so far.

BTW - the free version of Casper won't partition the extra space on a
new larger drive, so only 28g of the new 80g drive would be usable, so
I didn't even try it.

My son recently had the exact same problem on an XP-Pro machine where he
had a cloned a new HD.

After much searching, he asked if I had Windows98 boot floppy. Apparently,
he had found a newsgroup thread that suggested, disconnecting the old
drive, booting from the W98 floppy and using "fdisk /mbr". Then rebooting
from the new drive.

A little while later, he came downstairs and said: "I never thought I'd be
so glad to have a w98 floppy".

YMMV. I can't locate the place where he found this advice. But, if you'd
like, I'll ask him tonight and post it.

Bill

 

[Peter]

Hope I'm not going off topic here but - I'd recommend using VMware

Server (formerly known as GSX).

It's now free!

BETA = no support.

I haven't used it yet but I did use VMware Player for a
bit and there was no problem.

What problem?

Using a virtual machine is more convenient than cloning the hard disk.
If your PC motherboard fails, the cloned hard disk is unlikely to be
bootable on different hardware. A virtual machine isolates you from
that.

You mean I can run virtual machine with no hardware?

You can stop the virtual machine, copy out the image files, and that's
your complete portable system backup that you can run on any new
hardware, even with a different PC brand.
Almost.

Best if you're setting up a machine for the first time. Install some
free Linux to save on license costs, install VMware Server, boot a
virtual machine install from CD (Windows or Linux, whatever, your
actual running OS).

And I would not need a license for Windows running on VM? Is that true?

 

[Bill]

My son recently had the exact same problem on an XP-Pro machine where he
had a cloned a new HD.

After much searching, he asked if I had Windows98 boot floppy. Apparently,
he had found a newsgroup thread that suggested, disconnecting the old
drive, booting from the W98 floppy and using "fdisk /mbr". Then rebooting
from the new drive.

A little while later, he came downstairs and said: "I never thought I'd be
so glad to have a w98 floppy".

YMMV. I can't locate the place where he found this advice. But, if you'd
like, I'll ask him tonight and post it.

Bill

Google for "Kawecki's Trick"

"do not let new-XP see the old-XP partition the first time it boots.
If new-XP sees old-XP, it won't reuse the original drive letter when it
assigns a drive letter to itself."...........

"If the clone has already been made (and we don't wish to start over with
Method #2 and reclone), we can fool Windows into thinking the previously
assigned drive letters belong to partitions that no longer exist. Drive
letters are remembered by partition signature, so by invalidating the
previous signatures we can induce 2000/XP into releasing previously used
drive letters for reassignment.

One way of doing this is to alter or delete the DiskID in the MBR. Since
the DiskID is part of the partition signatures, this forces a change in the
signatures and previously remembered drive letters can be reassigned
because they no longer match valid partition signatures. To easiest way to
delete the DiskID is to use a Win98 boot floppy (aka, "Windows 98 Startup
Disk"). Boot the computer from the boot floppy, run the command "fdisk
/mbr", remove the floppy, and reboot into 2000/XP. "

The Win98 "fdisk /mbr" command is similar to the 2000/XP "fixmbr" command
(used from the 2000/XP recovery console). The intended purpose of both
commands is to restore the MBR boot code, and both commands replace the
boot code but do not alter the partition table at the end of the master
boot sector. The two commands are not exactly identical, however. As
detailed by Michal Kawecki, the NT/2000/XP boot code is 440 bytes, while
the Win98 boot code is 446 bytes (271 bytes of executable code, 80 bytes in
error messages, and 95 bytes filled with zeroes). The NT/2000/XP "fixmbr"
command replaces the MBR boot code but stops short of overwriting the four
bytes of the DiskID that sits between the boot code and the partition
table. The Win98 "fdisk /mbr" command will replace the boot code and zero
the DiskID--albeit, unintentionally. As Kawecki points out, we can take
advantage of that "mistake" because it has the effect of invalidating the
partition signatures--since the signature is derived from the DiskID and
Windows has to regenerate a new DiskID, it has to recalculate the
signatures and assign new drive letters, abandoning any previous
assignments.


Bill

 

[Rod Speed]

Bullshit.

Fact. Its lan support is completey ****ed, it cant do incremental images,
its user interface is quite ****ed, its hopeless for simpler users if the
image creation goes bad for even the simplest reason, etc etc etc.

 

[Rod Speed]

Hope I'm not going off topic here but - I'd recommend
using VMware Server (formerly known as GSX).

It's now free! I haven't used it yet but I did use
VMware Player for a bit and there was no problem.

Using a virtual machine is more convenient than cloning
the hard disk. If your PC motherboard fails, the cloned
hard disk is unlikely to be bootable on different hardware.

Its completly trivial to fix that using an install in place.

A virtual machine isolates you from that.

You can stop the virtual machine, copy out the image files,
and that's your complete portable system backup that you
can run on any new hardware, even with a different PC brand.

Its completly trivial to do that using an install in place.

Best if you're setting up a machine for the first time.
Install some free Linux to save on license costs, install
VMware Server, boot a virtual machine install from CD
(Windows or Linux, whatever, your actual running OS).

And then the shit hits the fan when much of what
works fine on XP doesnt on VMWare. No thanks.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[.........]
After much searching, he asked if I had Windows98
boot floppy. Apparently, he had found a newsgroup thread
that suggested, disconnecting the old drive, booting from the
W98 floppy and using "fdisk /mbr". Then rebooting from the
new drive.

A little while later, he came downstairs and said: "I never
thought I'd be so glad to have a w98 floppy".

YMMV. I can't locate the place where he found this advice.
But, if you'd like, I'll ask him tonight and post it.

It's probably this: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Cliffhanger wrote

It's probably this: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

That isnt the ADVICE he is clearly talking about.

 

[Cliffhanger]

That isnt the ADVICE he is clearly talking about.

No, it isn't ;-)

I posted as "Bill" under "Cliffhanger", not realizing I had ticked a
different profile on my newsreader.

Anyway, here's a link or two
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm#method3
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1122608259

Bill/Cliffhanger

 

[stevesai]

WOW - this thread has really gotten some legs. Thanks to all for the
advice and guidance - I may try the Ghost route, but now using True
Image seems like a personal challenge. I'll lay out what I did as
specifically as possible - maybe that will point a red flag as to what
I did wrong.
1)Old drive jumpered as slave
2)New drive jumpered as master
3)Bios set to boot old drive
4)Run True Image
5)When it says 'clone complete.....press any key to shut down
computer', I did so.
6)I unplugged the old HD
7)New drive is still jumpered as master
8)Set bios to boot new HD, but shouldn't even matter since only one
drive in system
9)No boot, although the NVIDIA boot agent comes up and twiddles around
for a little bit
10) Rehook up old drive and start again
11) Screen comes up during boot saying that Acronis finished doing
somethingorother and boots into XP
12) C drive (old drive) and F drive (new drive) visible in windows
explorer
13) shut down and unplug old drive
14) boot fails again
15) change bios to boot new drive
16) Screen comes up again during boot saying Acronis finished some
process again and boots into XP
17) C drive (new drive - I know by checking the properties and the size
gives it away) is the only visible hard drive in system
18) shut off computer and unplug old drive
19) gave it another try and boot failure again
I guess I'm missing the concept of exactly what I should do when
Acronis says that the clone is complete (even though it obviously isn't
done because it does more things when rebooted.) When I shut down the
computer, should I jumper the new drive differently, or set the bios to
boot differently? I don't even know if it's copied the MBR at this
point. Before performing the clone the program lays out what it's
going to do in 3 steps. Step 1 is clear the drive (ending in reboot),
Step 2 is clone the drive (ending in reboot) and Step 3 is copy the
Master Boot Record. I don't know if I'm unplugging the old drive
before it copies the MBR - but if I don't it'll go right into XP with
both drives connected and mess it all up again. What the heck am I
missing? Thanks again to everyone.

17)