Disk cloning interrupted - MBR corrupted?

[John Smith]

I would really appreciate if someone would help.

My hd is getting old and just to be sure I bought a same size hd (both sata) and
started "Ranish" disk cloning software. Unfortunately the disk cloning was
interrupted at 2% and I had to reboot.

Previously I had disk C (main hd) and disk D which would be my new main HD.

After rebooting I Windows 2000 reported a lot of errors which it then went to
fix. After a lengthy time it managed to reboot to Windows 2000. What appears now
is I have former disk C showing up as disk D and vice versa. It appears the disk
cloning had managed to copy most of the windows system to D which is now C. I
have not changed any cables.

My old hd is now disk D and all files appear to be intact there ... whew!

Thinking I can fix this easy by taking off the new hd and reboot with my old hd
in place I ran n to problems. Unfortunately it refuses to boot and windown
complain of missing [boot drive]winnt\systems32\ntosknl.exe (or something).

The missing files are there I check. I reckon the problem is that the my old hd
has its MBR saying "boot from the other hd". If I fix the MBR it should boot
normally.

What can I do? I have taken the necessary backups.

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

I've also dislocated my Windows 2000 installation CD - bummer -

I should probably run fixmbr but it requires the lost CD. Can fixmbr or fixboot
be downloaded from from MS or somewhere?

When the computer loads it show I have two "My Computer" in windows explorer.

 

[Mike Walsh]

I would really appreciate if someone would help.

My hd is getting old and just to be sure I bought a same size hd (both sata) and
started "Ranish" disk cloning software. Unfortunately the disk cloning was
interrupted at 2% and I had to reboot.

Previously I had disk C (main hd) and disk D which would be my new main HD.

After rebooting I Windows 2000 reported a lot of errors which it then went to
fix. After a lengthy time it managed to reboot to Windows 2000. What appears now
is I have former disk C showing up as disk D and vice versa. It appears the disk
cloning had managed to copy most of the windows system to D which is now C. I
have not changed any cables.

My old hd is now disk D and all files appear to be intact there ... whew!

Thinking I can fix this easy by taking off the new hd and reboot with my old hd
in place I ran n to problems. Unfortunately it refuses to boot and windown
complain of missing [boot drive]winnt\systems32\ntosknl.exe (or something).

The problem might be that Boot.ini is telling it to look in the wrong place. You need a line with this to load Windows from the first partition of the first drive.
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

I would really appreciate if someone would help.

My hd is getting old and just to be sure I bought a same size hd (both sata) and
started "Ranish" disk cloning software. Unfortunately the disk cloning was
interrupted at 2% and I had to reboot.

Previously I had disk C (main hd) and disk D which would be my new main HD.

After rebooting I Windows 2000 reported a lot of errors which it then went to
fix. After a lengthy time it managed to reboot to Windows 2000. What appears now
is I have former disk C showing up as disk D and vice versa. It appears the disk
cloning had managed to copy most of the windows system to D which is now C. I
have not changed any cables.

My old hd is now disk D and all files appear to be intact there ... whew!

Thinking I can fix this easy by taking off the new hd and reboot with my old hd
in place I ran n to problems. Unfortunately it refuses to boot and windown
complain of missing [boot drive]winnt\systems32\ntosknl.exe (or something).

The problem might be that Boot.ini is telling it to look in the wrong place. You need a line with this to load Windows from the first partition of the first drive.
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I have that on both hd's. Is that OK?
I have to SATA hd's. One is a partial duplicate of the other. When w2k boots it
starts to boot from the partial duplicate. If I take out that hd and leave the
hopefully intact original hd it does not boot and w2k says it can't find
ntoskrnl.exe.

I figure that after my hd duplicate operation failed and I went to boot the
computer w2k mistakenly repaired the duplicate (it has a lot of repair files) to
work somewhat and made the original hd to be "hd2". Both have same boot.ini
however.

 

[Mike Walsh]

I would really appreciate if someone would help.

My hd is getting old and just to be sure I bought a same size hd (both sata) and
started "Ranish" disk cloning software. Unfortunately the disk cloning was
interrupted at 2% and I had to reboot.

Previously I had disk C (main hd) and disk D which would be my new main HD.

After rebooting I Windows 2000 reported a lot of errors which it then went to
fix. After a lengthy time it managed to reboot to Windows 2000. What appears now
is I have former disk C showing up as disk D and vice versa. It appears the disk
cloning had managed to copy most of the windows system to D which is now C. I
have not changed any cables.

My old hd is now disk D and all files appear to be intact there ... whew!

Thinking I can fix this easy by taking off the new hd and reboot with my old hd
in place I ran n to problems. Unfortunately it refuses to boot and windown
complain of missing [boot drive]winnt\systems32\ntosknl.exe (or something).

The problem might be that Boot.ini is telling it to look in the wrong place. You need a line with this to load Windows from the first partition of the first drive.
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I have that on both hd's. Is that OK?

Yes. rdisk(0) tells it to load Windows from the boot disk (specified in the BIOS).
rdisk(1) is the second disk e.g. you can boot from one disk and load Windows from another. Boot.ini can have many entries on a multi-boot system.

I have to SATA hd's. One is a partial duplicate of the other. When w2k boots it
starts to boot from the partial duplicate. If I take out that hd and leave the
hopefully intact original hd it does not boot and w2k says it can't find
ntoskrnl.exe.

Don't know why it can't find ntoskrnl.exe but here are some basics to check.
The BIOS specifies which drive to boot from.
There must be one active partition on the boot drive.
Boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com must be in the root directory of the active partition.
Boot.ini should have an entry something like this:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=" Description here "
Multi and disk should be 0 except on a SCSI drive.
Rdisk specifies which drive to load Windows from; 0 is the first drive.
Partition specifies which partition to load Windows from; 1 is the first partition. Check to see if the Windows partition is in fact the first partition.
\WINDOWS (in this example) is the Windows directory.

If I recall correctly ntoskrnl.exe is the first file that is loaded from the Windows directory. Try clearing the attributes of ntoskrnl.exe. Try replacing it with a known good file.

 

[Andy]

I would really appreciate if someone would help.

My hd is getting old and just to be sure I bought a same size hd (both sata) and
started "Ranish" disk cloning software. Unfortunately the disk cloning was
interrupted at 2% and I had to reboot.

Previously I had disk C (main hd) and disk D which would be my new main HD.

After rebooting I Windows 2000 reported a lot of errors which it then went to
fix. After a lengthy time it managed to reboot to Windows 2000. What appears now
is I have former disk C showing up as disk D and vice versa. It appears the disk
cloning had managed to copy most of the windows system to D which is now C. I
have not changed any cables.

My old hd is now disk D and all files appear to be intact there ... whew!

Thinking I can fix this easy by taking off the new hd and reboot with my old hd
in place I ran n to problems. Unfortunately it refuses to boot and windown
complain of missing [boot drive]winnt\systems32\ntosknl.exe (or something).

The missing files are there I check. I reckon the problem is that the my old hd
has its MBR saying "boot from the other hd". If I fix the MBR it should boot
normally.

The disk signature in the MBR of the old disk has been changed. That's
why it became drive D: as you described above. When you then boot from
the old drive alone, Windows uses the disk signature as specified
under MountedDevices in the registry to reference the correct disk,
which is now the clone disk.

What can I do? I have taken the necessary backups.

Boot from a Windows 98 emergency boot disk, and run fdisk /mbr to zero
the disk signature in the old disk. Then you can boot and run Windows
from the old disk.

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

OK - got it fixed. Thanks for all replies.