J
John S.
Happy New Year to all!
I would be grateful for suggestions as to how I can solve a
problem I've run into, over what I thought would be quite a
straightforward partitioning/cloning task.
I'm trying to clone the HDD's of 3 computers belonging to a
voluntary organisation I belong to.
I purchased three Seagate 40GB drives, intending to use Partition
Magic (5.0) and Drive Image to make them into clones of the
existing drives, plus a second partition on each new drive for
backed up data.
The first computer I tackled went OK. It had Windows ME on a 20
GB drive in a single FAT 32 primary partition, with less than 2
GB of space used.
Method I used was was:-
Install new 40 GB drive jumpered as slave,
detected OK by BIOS and reported as correct size,
started PM 5.0 from floppy disks and created 7.8 GB FAT 32
primary partition, plus balance 32 GB FAT 32 logical partition
Shut down; started Drive Image from floppy and made an image
(medium compression) of original 20 GB drive on the 32 GB logical
partition on new drive.
"Restored" this new image to the 7.8 GB pri partition on the new
drive.
Shut down, disconnect old drive, jumper new drive as single
drive, restart and verify that the "cloned" drive boots up and
works OK.
Everything seemed satisfactory, although I then attempted to use
PM 5.0 to split the original 20 GB drive into two partitions. The
operation aborted almost immediately with an error message saying
that there was a bad sector on the drive. Scandisk however,
(running from within Windows ME), didn't report any bad sector on
a quick scan. Haven't tried a "thorough" scan yet.
***********
Next, came computer number two, and here I ran into problems.
No 2 is very similar to No 1 with a 20 GB drive (single FAT 32
partition) and less than 2 GB of space used, also running Windows
ME.
I followed the same procedure as described above and everything
seemed to proceed as before until I finally jumpered the newly
cloned 40 GB drive as a single drive and tried to boot from it to
verify that it was working OK.
The drive wouldn't boot. When I used a floppy to boot to DOS,
and did a "DIR" command, instead of seeing the expected list of
files and directories I saw a list of non ascii characters.
Since then I have tried several times to clone this computer's 20
GB drive to the new drive, without success. On each attempt I
have first used the Samsung ClearHDD utility to get rid of
anything already written to the first part of track zero. On some
occasions I used fdisk to create the partitions or to check on
the partitions created by PM 5.0, and found that fdisk and PM 5.0
seemed to agree with one another about the partition details.
I have tried doing a disk to disk copy with Drive Image, instead
of using the intermediate step of an image file. I have tried
using a jumper to limit the capacity of the new drive to 32 GB in
case that was causing complications (although the BIOS correctly
reported the size of the drive anyway, so I assume it supports 40
GB).
On each occasion, a DIR command on the newly cloned primary
partition would show a list of non ascii characters in place of
file names, or there would be no list displayed at all, and the
drive would not boot of course.
Finally something worked. I tried creating a primary partition
on the new drive of 21 GB, then using Drive Image to do a drive
to drive copy, this time allowing Drive Image to adjust the
target partition to exactly the same (approx 20 GB) size as the
source partition (leaving the rest of the 21 GB partition as free
space).
This method appeared to work, and I found the newly cloned
primary partition displayed the expected list of files and
directories, and the partition booted OK.
Having got this far, I defragged the newly created partition,
from within Windows ME. I then shut down, and used Drive Image
(from floppy disks again) to make an image of the defragged
partition (that image is stored on the original drive as
insurance whilst I'm experimenting with the new drive).
Next step left me back where I started, because I tried to use PM
5.0 to resize the new, defragged primary partition down to 7.8
GB. I figured this should work as there was less than 2 GB of
space used on the partition, and I had previously managed to
clone computer No 1 to a partition this size.
PM 5.0 seemed to do the job OK and reported all operations
successfully completed, BUT the resized partition was again
unbootable and no files were shown listed by the DOS DIR command.
I have since gone back and restored the saved image to a
partition of the "correct" approx 20 GB size on the new drive, so
I now have an operating clone on the new drive.
However, I'm not all that confident in having a drive as backup
which resists any change of partition size, and I'd really like
to understand what's going on.
I should mention that both computers (No 1 and No 2) have some
kind of Norton "protection" software installed, and this software
seems to take over some operating system management functions at
a fairly low level as far as I can make out. I'm wondering if it
is possible that this protective software manages the data in
track zero and interferes with the way partition data or FAT data
is handled?
Nobody here seems to know who installed the Norton software, and
I can't find the original Norton disks in the filing cabinets so
I'm not really sure what I'm dealing with.
I'm puzzled why two apparently very similar computer
installations behave quite differently with the same partitioning
and imaging software.
I would be grateful for any practical suggestions as to how I can
diagnose what is going on, and how I can take control of this
darned HDD and partition it the way I want to.
I suppose I could try uninstalling the Norton software (although
it doesn't seem to want to let you do anything radical unless you
have "administrator" privileges), and try again. However, every
time I try a cloning operation it seems to take several hours by
the time I've gone through everything, so I'm asking for help.
Cheers, and thanks in advance. John S.
I would be grateful for suggestions as to how I can solve a
problem I've run into, over what I thought would be quite a
straightforward partitioning/cloning task.
I'm trying to clone the HDD's of 3 computers belonging to a
voluntary organisation I belong to.
I purchased three Seagate 40GB drives, intending to use Partition
Magic (5.0) and Drive Image to make them into clones of the
existing drives, plus a second partition on each new drive for
backed up data.
The first computer I tackled went OK. It had Windows ME on a 20
GB drive in a single FAT 32 primary partition, with less than 2
GB of space used.
Method I used was was:-
Install new 40 GB drive jumpered as slave,
detected OK by BIOS and reported as correct size,
started PM 5.0 from floppy disks and created 7.8 GB FAT 32
primary partition, plus balance 32 GB FAT 32 logical partition
Shut down; started Drive Image from floppy and made an image
(medium compression) of original 20 GB drive on the 32 GB logical
partition on new drive.
"Restored" this new image to the 7.8 GB pri partition on the new
drive.
Shut down, disconnect old drive, jumper new drive as single
drive, restart and verify that the "cloned" drive boots up and
works OK.
Everything seemed satisfactory, although I then attempted to use
PM 5.0 to split the original 20 GB drive into two partitions. The
operation aborted almost immediately with an error message saying
that there was a bad sector on the drive. Scandisk however,
(running from within Windows ME), didn't report any bad sector on
a quick scan. Haven't tried a "thorough" scan yet.
***********
Next, came computer number two, and here I ran into problems.
No 2 is very similar to No 1 with a 20 GB drive (single FAT 32
partition) and less than 2 GB of space used, also running Windows
ME.
I followed the same procedure as described above and everything
seemed to proceed as before until I finally jumpered the newly
cloned 40 GB drive as a single drive and tried to boot from it to
verify that it was working OK.
The drive wouldn't boot. When I used a floppy to boot to DOS,
and did a "DIR" command, instead of seeing the expected list of
files and directories I saw a list of non ascii characters.
Since then I have tried several times to clone this computer's 20
GB drive to the new drive, without success. On each attempt I
have first used the Samsung ClearHDD utility to get rid of
anything already written to the first part of track zero. On some
occasions I used fdisk to create the partitions or to check on
the partitions created by PM 5.0, and found that fdisk and PM 5.0
seemed to agree with one another about the partition details.
I have tried doing a disk to disk copy with Drive Image, instead
of using the intermediate step of an image file. I have tried
using a jumper to limit the capacity of the new drive to 32 GB in
case that was causing complications (although the BIOS correctly
reported the size of the drive anyway, so I assume it supports 40
GB).
On each occasion, a DIR command on the newly cloned primary
partition would show a list of non ascii characters in place of
file names, or there would be no list displayed at all, and the
drive would not boot of course.
Finally something worked. I tried creating a primary partition
on the new drive of 21 GB, then using Drive Image to do a drive
to drive copy, this time allowing Drive Image to adjust the
target partition to exactly the same (approx 20 GB) size as the
source partition (leaving the rest of the 21 GB partition as free
space).
This method appeared to work, and I found the newly cloned
primary partition displayed the expected list of files and
directories, and the partition booted OK.
Having got this far, I defragged the newly created partition,
from within Windows ME. I then shut down, and used Drive Image
(from floppy disks again) to make an image of the defragged
partition (that image is stored on the original drive as
insurance whilst I'm experimenting with the new drive).
Next step left me back where I started, because I tried to use PM
5.0 to resize the new, defragged primary partition down to 7.8
GB. I figured this should work as there was less than 2 GB of
space used on the partition, and I had previously managed to
clone computer No 1 to a partition this size.
PM 5.0 seemed to do the job OK and reported all operations
successfully completed, BUT the resized partition was again
unbootable and no files were shown listed by the DOS DIR command.
I have since gone back and restored the saved image to a
partition of the "correct" approx 20 GB size on the new drive, so
I now have an operating clone on the new drive.
However, I'm not all that confident in having a drive as backup
which resists any change of partition size, and I'd really like
to understand what's going on.
I should mention that both computers (No 1 and No 2) have some
kind of Norton "protection" software installed, and this software
seems to take over some operating system management functions at
a fairly low level as far as I can make out. I'm wondering if it
is possible that this protective software manages the data in
track zero and interferes with the way partition data or FAT data
is handled?
Nobody here seems to know who installed the Norton software, and
I can't find the original Norton disks in the filing cabinets so
I'm not really sure what I'm dealing with.
I'm puzzled why two apparently very similar computer
installations behave quite differently with the same partitioning
and imaging software.
I would be grateful for any practical suggestions as to how I can
diagnose what is going on, and how I can take control of this
darned HDD and partition it the way I want to.
I suppose I could try uninstalling the Norton software (although
it doesn't seem to want to let you do anything radical unless you
have "administrator" privileges), and try again. However, every
time I try a cloning operation it seems to take several hours by
the time I've gone through everything, so I'm asking for help.
Cheers, and thanks in advance. John S.