Cloning dual-boot Win XP32 and Win XP64-bit drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Odie Ferrous
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Odie Ferrous

Does anyone have experience of successfully cloning a drive containing
the subject's partitions to a new drive?

Tried everything - Logicube hardware cloners, Ghost, True Image, various
other s/w "solutions" but nothing will give me a target drive that plugs
in and boots, despite the fact that the master drive boots up perfectly.


Odie
 
Odie Ferrous said:
Does anyone have experience of successfully cloning
a drive containing the subject's partitions to a new drive?
Tried everything - Logicube hardware cloners, Ghost,
True Image, various other s/w "solutions" but nothing will
give me a target drive that plugs in and boots, despite
the fact that the master drive boots up perfectly.

The critical thing aint what is used to do the cloning, its whether the
clone can see the original on the first boot after the clone is done.

Its crucial to physically disconnect the original so the clone cant
see it on the first boot after the clone is done, otherwise XP
gets royally confused and includes files from the original when
trying to boot the clone. You can connect it again once you
have booted the clone, had XP claim to have found new
hardware and allowed a reboot for that new hardware.
 
Thunder va said:
remember to set the HDD you cloned to, to be active:) You can do that
in fdisk:)

Also, to make it master, not slave.

I was caught by this one for far too much to find it funny.


Antoine
 
Antoine Leca said:
Thunder va escriure:
You can do that in fdisk:)

Also, to make it master, not slave.


A Slave HDD can provide the "System" partition (in Microsoft
terminology, the partition with the boot loader files) as well as
a Master HDD can. Since most PCs have the boot files in the
same partition as the OS to be loaded, this means that an OS
can be "booted" from a Slave just as well as from a Master HDD.
All that is important is that the "System" partition be marked "active"
and be on the HDD that is at the head of the BIOS's HDD boot
order. The boot order in the BIOS can be set manually, or it can
be set automatically by default which puts the channel 0 (the
"primary" channel) HDD Master at the head of the HDD boot order.
If there is no Master on channel 0, the Slave on channel 0 is used.
If there are no HDDs on channel 0, the Master on channel 1 (the
"secondary" channel) is used, etc. But the default order can
always be overridden by manual input to the BIOS. Otherwise,
HDD jumpering is only for the IDE controller to distinguish between
two HDDs that are on the same channel.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
A Slave HDD can provide the "System" partition (in Microsoft
terminology, the partition with the boot loader files) as well as
a Master HDD can. Since most PCs have the boot files in the
same partition as the OS to be loaded, this means that an OS
can be "booted" from a Slave just as well as from a Master HDD.
All that is important is that the "System" partition be marked "active"
and be on the HDD that is at the head of the BIOS's HDD boot
order. The boot order in the BIOS can be set manually, or it can
be set automatically by default which puts the channel 0 (the
"primary" channel) HDD Master at the head of the HDD boot order.
If there is no Master on channel 0, the Slave on channel 0 is used.
If there are no HDDs on channel 0, the Master on channel 1 (the
"secondary" channel) is used, etc. But the default order can
always be overridden by manual input to the BIOS. Otherwise,
HDD jumpering is only for the IDE controller to distinguish between
two HDDs that are on the same channel.

*TimDaniels*

Thanks, all - but I do beta testing for a number of manufacturers of
drive controllers (Adaptec - your loss) so the issues you have raised
are really "puddysticks" to me.

I thought someone may have had personal experience of the *precise*
problem I have been experiencing. I also thought it would have been a
fairly common issue on this group, but apparently not so.

Nevertheless, I managed to achieve said clone using a hardware cloning
machine that I picked up for nothing out of a hardware throwout. (An
old, decrepit machine that cloned at stupidly slow speeds. But it
worked.)


Odie
 
Odie Ferrous said:
Thanks, all - but I do beta testing for a number of manufacturers of
drive controllers (Adaptec - your loss) so the issues you have raised
are really "puddysticks" to me.


My posting was not for you but for the record.
The significance afforded by folklore to "Master"
and "Slave" jumpering has gone mythical.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
My posting was not for you but for the record.
The significance afforded by folklore to "Master"
and "Slave" jumpering has gone mythical.


Sorry, Tim - not directed at you at all.

Mind you, "folklore" is actually a good nomer (sans "mis") for Rolkfert.


Odie
 
Timothy Daniels said:
A Slave HDD can provide the "System" partition (in Microsoft
terminology, the partition with the boot loader files) as well as
a Master HDD can.
Since most PCs have the boot files in the
same partition as the OS to be loaded, this means that an OS
can be "booted" from a Slave just as well as from a Master HDD.

Has nothing got to do with it.
All that is important is that the "System" partition be marked "active"

The system partition isn't necessarily the boot partition.
and be on the HDD that is at the head of the BIOS's HDD boot order.

Or is the HDD that is the only HD that is considered bootable
so that other HDs are skipped until it finds the bootable one.
The non-bootables are either empty (no partitions) or have
only extended partitions.
The boot order in the BIOS can be set manually,
or it can be set automatically by default which puts the channel 0
(the "primary" channel) HDD Master at the head of the HDD boot order.

Not any MB I have seen.
If there is no Master on channel 0, the Slave on channel 0 is used.

Even if there is a master (device0) on it but one without a primary partition.
If there are no HDDs on channel 0, the Master on channel 1 (the
"secondary" channel) is used, etc.
But the default order can always be overridden by manual input to the BIOS.

Not always, obviously, for those that don't give that choice.
 
Odie Ferrous said:
Thanks, all - but I do beta testing for a number of manufacturers of
drive controllers (Adaptec - their loss) so the issues you have raised
are really "puddysticks" to me.

I thought someone may have had personal experience of the *precise*
problem I have been experiencing.

Which apparently is that you can't seem to find a simple one to one sector
cloning program.
I also thought it would have been a fairly common issue on this group,
but apparently not so.

Nope, apparently no one so stupid as yourself.
Gives a whole new meaning to those "puddysticks" dont you think,
'puddysticks_for_brains' Odiferous.
 
[blah, blah,blah]


In the boot process, the BIOS searches for the HD
at the head of its HD boot order. If this HD has a proper
Master Boot Record (MBR), it hands control to that MBR.
The MBR looks for the "active" Primary partition on the
HD, and it hands control to the boot sector of that partition.
That partition is what Microsoft calls the "system" partition.

The "system" partition is the one that contains the loader
and the boot menu, among other things. In WinXP, this
partition contains ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com. The
files in this partition control the loading the OS, which may
reside in the same partition or in another partition on the
same HD, or on another partition on another HD. The
"system" partition must be a Primary partition, and it must
be marked "active" for the Mater Boot Record (MBR) on
that HD to hand control to it. There may be several
partitions on a HD that are able to function as the "system"
partition, but only the Primary partition that is marked
"active" can be the "system" partition.

Microsoft calls the partition containing the OS the "boot"
partition. The "boot" partition can be a Primary partition
or a Logical Drive in an Extended partition.
There may be many "boot" partitions on a HD.
Explicitly, the "system" partition controls the "booting",
and the "boot" partition contains the operating system.
(Yes, it's intuitively backwards.)

During loading, the menu entries in the boot.ini file
contained in the "system" are used to "point" to the
partition to be used as the "boot" partition, i.e. they
indicate where the OS is to be found.

In the vanilla of vanilla cases (99% of the time), the
"system" and the "boot" partitions are one and the
same, and that partition is the only partition on the
only HD in the system.

Since they usually jumper that HD as Master and put
it on channel 0, it defaults to the head of the BIOS's
HD boot order, causing the BIOS to hand control to its
MBR at boot time, and 99% of PC users then believe
that the "Master HD" must contain the OS to be loaded.
In actual fact, the Slave drive on the primary IDE channel
could just as well control the loading of the OS from the
Master drive on the secondary IDE channel.

*TimDaniels*
 
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