ok to book up with cloned hard drive attached?

  • Thread starter Thread starter naadimre
  • Start date Start date
N

naadimre

forgive me if my questions are very basic...

i recently upgraded my harddrive using ez upgrade to clone my old drive
onto the new one. the new drive is working great, and using this
upgrade kit, i'm able to use my old hard drive as an external drive,
which works fine. in the manual it states that you should never reboot
the computer with a cloned hard drive still attached b/c it may alter
the windows os settings. i was wondering if this is true (knowing me
i'm sure i'll accidentally reboot with the cloned drive still attached)
and i'm wondering if i can really mess something up by doing so.

fyi: on the old drive i deleted the recovery partition...i also
applied a new volume label named "OLDDRIVE", i'm not sure if this
modifies it enough such that it won't be a problem??

thanks a lot!

revathi
 
forgive me if my questions are very basic...

i recently upgraded my harddrive using ez upgrade to clone my old
drive onto the new one. the new drive is working great, and using
this upgrade kit, i'm able to use my old hard drive as an external
drive, which works fine. in the manual it states that you should
never reboot the computer with a cloned hard drive still attached b/c
it may alter the windows os settings. i was wondering if this is
true (knowing me i'm sure i'll accidentally reboot with the cloned
drive still attached) and i'm wondering if i can really mess
something up by doing so.
Click to expand...

That only applys for the first boot after the clone has been made.
fyi: on the old drive i deleted the recovery partition...i also
applied a new volume label named "OLDDRIVE", i'm not sure
if this modifies it enough such that it won't be a problem??
Click to expand...

It wont be a problem even if you hadnt done that.
 
forgive me if my questions are very basic...

i recently upgraded my harddrive using ez upgrade to clone my old drive
onto the new one. the new drive is working great, and using this
upgrade kit, i'm able to use my old hard drive as an external drive,
which works fine. in the manual it states that you should never reboot
the computer with a cloned hard drive still attached b/c it may alter
the windows os settings. i was wondering if this is true (knowing me
i'm sure i'll accidentally reboot with the cloned drive still attached)
and i'm wondering if i can really mess something up by doing so.

fyi: on the old drive i deleted the recovery partition...i also
applied a new volume label named "OLDDRIVE", i'm not sure if this
modifies it enough such that it won't be a problem??

thanks a lot!

revathi
Click to expand...
Yep. I did a clone with GOST 2003 ,checked the
copy in XP , and after that did not boot.
Wiped and cloned again, (without peeking)
and it booted fine!
 
forgive me if my questions are very basic...

i recently upgraded my harddrive using ez upgrade to clone my old drive
onto the new one. the new drive is working great, and using this
upgrade kit, i'm able to use my old hard drive as an external drive,
which works fine. in the manual it states that you should never reboot
the computer with a cloned hard drive still attached b/c it may alter
the windows os settings. i was wondering if this is true (knowing me
i'm sure i'll accidentally reboot with the cloned drive still attached)
and i'm wondering if i can really mess something up by doing so.

fyi: on the old drive i deleted the recovery partition...i also
applied a new volume label named "OLDDRIVE", i'm not sure if this
modifies it enough such that it won't be a problem??

thanks a lot!

revathi
Click to expand...

I'd prefer you to err on the side of caution. But if you happen to
accidentially reboot, chances are good you'll be OK. The difference is
between WILL and MAY. Just because you MAY get a problem doesn't mean
you will. But it's a risk you should avoid.
 
I'd prefer you to err on the side of caution.
Click to expand...

No need.
But if you happen to accidentially reboot, chances are good you'll be OK.
Click to expand...

You're guaranteed to be fine after the first boot of the clone.
The difference is between WILL and MAY.
Click to expand...

Nope, between WILL and WONT.
Just because you MAY get a problem doesn't
mean you will. But it's a risk you should avoid.
Click to expand...

There is no risk whatever after the first boot
of the clone without the original being visible.
 
There is no risk whatever after the first boot
of the clone without the original being visible.
Click to expand...

When choosing between your manual, and ROD, your manual always wins.

Just do what the manual says and you'll be fine. OTOH, If you follow
ROD, and ignore the advice of your manual, and you have a problem,
let's just say you were warned.
 
forgive me if my questions are very basic...

i recently upgraded my harddrive using ez upgrade to clone my old drive
onto the new one. the new drive is working great, and using this
upgrade kit, i'm able to use my old hard drive as an external drive,
which works fine. in the manual it states that you should never reboot
the computer with a cloned hard drive still attached b/c it may alter
the windows os settings.
Click to expand...

The operating system assigns a device ID string in the
registry and that ID gets the drive letter. If you then
clone another drive and boot the cloned one while the
original is still attached, the moment the OS loads the
drive letters for further access, it will consider your old
drive the (normally...) C: parititon instead of the new
drive. If your old drive then had the rest of the OS on it,
it might finish booting. If it doesn't anymore, it may
halt. Thus, you want to boot the new drive alone so that
it's device ID is reassigned the partition letter (C again ,
usually but it's in the boot.ini file) instead of it being
assigned another letter because the OS still saw the other
drive which it considered C.


i was wondering if this is true (knowing me
i'm sure i'll accidentally reboot with the cloned drive still attached)
and i'm wondering if i can really mess something up by doing so.
Click to expand...

Yes, it can be a problem but so long as you do as they
directed, it should work.


fyi: on the old drive i deleted the recovery partition...i also
applied a new volume label named "OLDDRIVE", i'm not sure if this
modifies it enough such that it won't be a problem??
Click to expand...

Doesn't necessarily matter whether you deleted the partition
unless it was the OS partition and none other remained,
since Windows is typically installed on the first existing
partition. I don't think the volume label matters either
but I'm not certain of it.
 
When choosing between your manual, and ROD, your manual always wins.
Click to expand...

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

Its completely trivial for anyone with a clue to test
that situation and see if the manual is wrong or not.

Clearly you're so stupid that you cant even manage something as basic as that.

But that is no surprise what so ever given that you proved to
the world that you couldnt even manage to work out that the
symptoms proved that another poster never had a bad hard drive.
 
kony said:
The operating system assigns a device ID string in the
registry and that ID gets the drive letter. If you then
clone another drive and boot the cloned one while the
original is still attached, the moment the OS loads the
drive letters for further access, it will consider your old
drive the (normally...) C: parititon instead of the new
drive. If your old drive then had the rest of the OS on it,
it might finish booting. If it doesn't anymore, it may
halt. Thus, you want to boot the new drive alone so that
it's device ID is reassigned the partition letter (C again ,
usually but it's in the boot.ini file) instead of it being
assigned another letter because the OS still saw the other
drive which it considered C.
Click to expand...


Pure drivel. The clone will usually boot up successfully
for the 1st time with the "parent" HD visible to it, but random
files in the clone's file table will actually be pointers (i.e
"shortcuts") to identically named files in the "parent" OS.
Sometimes these cross-links are to seldom-referenced
text files, and months or years can go by with no discernible
problems until the "parent" OS's hard drive is removed or
reformatted.

The clone will always refer to its own partition as "C:" if that
was the name by which the "parent" OS knew its own partition,
regardless of whether it sees its "parent" OS during its first
bootup. The drive letter has nothing to do with the boot.ini file.

*TimDaniels*
 
wow, thanks for all the answers...i thought it was just for the first
reboot, but just wanted to make sure...
 
wow, thanks for all the answers...i thought it was just for the first
reboot, but just wanted to make sure...
Click to expand...


Just to be sure you understand - the special procedure of
hiding the "parent" OS *is* for the first boot of the clone. After
that first boot without seeing its "parent", the clone OS *can*
be booted with its "parent" OS visible to it. At such time and
thereafter, the "parent" OS's file structure will be seen as any
other partition's file structure, and files can be transferred
between them by drag 'n drop or any other normal means.
When the clone is running, it will refer to its own partition by the
same letter-name that the "parent" partition did, and it will refer
to the "parent's" partition with the next available letter-name.
So if the "parent" OS called its partition "C:", so will the clone
call its own partition "C:".

Similarly for 2 WinXPs in the same system if they were each
installed without the other being seen at the time of installation,
e.g. when the 2nd OS is installed on a new 2nd hard drive. If the
first hard drive is disconnected when the 2nd WinXP is installed,
the 2nd WinXP installation will call its own partition "C:". Thereafter,
with both hard drives connected and running, the running OS will
call its own partition "C:" and the other partitions that it sees will be
known by other letter-names, regardless of which OS is running.
You can easily make the boot.ini file in either hard drive a dual-boot
menu by merely adding a 2nd entry - either manually or via msconfig
or by running Recovery Console's bootcfg - and by giving the timeout
a non-zero value.

*TimDaniels*
 
so basically, i'm safe since i already did a first boot with the clone
unattached...this makes me very happy, thanks a lot.
 
Pure drivel. The clone will usually boot up successfully
for the 1st time with the "parent" HD visible to it,
Click to expand...

"Usually" doesn't quite cut it though, you have to isolate
the mechanism if you want more than random luck. It is in
fact predictable that having the same drive hooked up (as
was previously) can be a problem.

but random
files in the clone's file table will actually be pointers (i.e
"shortcuts") to identically named files in the "parent" OS.
Click to expand...

.... which is only significant in the context I'd pointed
out, that these shortcuts depend on the logical drive
assignments previously made to specific physical drives. By
leaving out the physical drive the assignments point to the
only drive there, the new one.
Sometimes these cross-links are to seldom-referenced
text files, and months or years can go by with no discernible
problems until the "parent" OS's hard drive is removed or
reformatted.
Click to expand...


What you are essentially saying is that you do it the
less-than-optimal way and then suffer the consequences later
rather than sooner. The issue is often of booting at all,
but also includes all pointers, which tend to designate
either the physical controller and logical position on it,
or the drive letter. Do you know of any pointers that use
another method? Since the new drive can be placing in exact
same scenario, the pointers you refer to would have to have
embedded (or linked) information derived from the drive
device string, which was why the drive would be removed in
the first place, so that device string was not continually
linked to the OS volume partition and system variables.

The clone will always refer to its own partition as "C:" if that
was the name by which the "parent" OS knew its own partition,
Click to expand...

Yes, but while the clone boots, when it gets to the point of
loading the registry and assigning drive letters, then
windows sees the old drive, that this old (still present)
drive already has "C", and proceeds to designate the new
drive as another letter, D or whatever hasn't been assigned
to another present drive. After that point, anything
referring to C, is pointing to the old drive not the new
one.

regardless of whether it sees its "parent" OS during its first
bootup. The drive letter has nothing to do with the boot.ini file.
Click to expand...

The drive letter doesn't have to, only OS boot does... BUT
the OS boot does then shift to drive letter designations at
which point it matters as you observed with the links you
see problematic in the future.
 
kony said:
"Usually" doesn't quite cut it though, you have to isolate
the mechanism if you want more than random luck. It is in
fact predictable that having the same drive hooked up (as
was previously) can be a problem.



... which is only significant in the context I'd pointed
out, that these shortcuts depend on the logical drive
assignments previously made to specific physical drives. By
leaving out the physical drive the assignments point to the
only drive there, the new one.



What you are essentially saying is that you do it the
less-than-optimal way and then suffer the consequences later
rather than sooner. The issue is often of booting at all,
but also includes all pointers, which tend to designate
either the physical controller and logical position on it,
or the drive letter. Do you know of any pointers that use
another method? Since the new drive can be placing in exact
same scenario, the pointers you refer to would have to have
embedded (or linked) information derived from the drive
device string, which was why the drive would be removed in
the first place, so that device string was not continually
linked to the OS volume partition and system variables.



Yes, but while the clone boots, when it gets to the point of
loading the registry and assigning drive letters, then
windows sees the old drive, that this old (still present)
drive already has "C", and proceeds to designate the new
drive as another letter, D or whatever hasn't been assigned
to another present drive.
Click to expand...

That last doesnt happen, it doesnt get a new letter in that situation.
After that point, anything referring to C,
is pointing to the old drive not the new one.
Click to expand...

Its more complicated than that.
 
so basically, i'm safe since i already did a first boot with the clone
unattached...this makes me very happy, thanks a lot.
Click to expand...


No, you would be safe if you made the 1st boot of the CLONE
with its "parent" OS unattached. The clone has to have its 1st boot
in isolation from its "parent" OS.

*TimDaniels*
 
kony said:
"Usually" doesn't quite cut it though, you have to isolate
the mechanism if you want more than random luck. It is in
fact predictable that having the same drive hooked up (as
was previously) can be a problem.
Click to expand...


You dodge and weave as usual. My use of "usually" was
to contradict your implication that starting the clone for its
first time with its "parent" OS visible would lead to the clone
getting assigned a drive letter different from its "parent".
You wrote:

"Thus, you want to boot the new drive alone so that
it's device ID is reassigned the partition letter (C again ,
usually but it's in the boot.ini file) instead of it being
assigned another letter because the OS still saw the
other drive which it considered C."

This does not happen, as the clone automatically names its
own partition by the same drive letter that its "parent" did -
by virtue of it being a clone of its "parent" OS.


What you are essentially saying is that you do it the
less-than-optimal way and then suffer the consequences later
rather than sooner.
Click to expand...


Learn to read (at least better than you write) Korny.
What I'm "essentially saying" is that if the clone can see
its "parent" OS when the clone is started for the 1st time,
the random and sparsely occurring links that it does form
with its "parent's" files may not be evident for some time.
Sooner of later, that will become a problem. One should
therefore NOT start up a clone for the 1st time with its
"parent" OS visible to it, even if nothing seems to be
wrong after what APPEARS to be a successful bootup.
I do not, and I do not recommend, any "less-than-optimal
way".

*TimDaniels*
 
ok, that is what i actually did. after i cloned the old drive to the
new drive, i replaced the old drive with the new one. so the old
"parent" drive was no longer attached and then i booted the computer
(with the new cloned drive in place). so now i should be able to have
both attached and boot with no problem? sorry that i'm asking stupid
questions, but all the variety of answers i'm getting is making me more
confused.
 
(e-mail address removed) wrote
ok, that is what i actually did. after i cloned the old drive to the
new drive, i replaced the old drive with the new one. so the old
"parent" drive was no longer attached and then i booted the
computer (with the new cloned drive in place). so now i should
be able to have both attached and boot with no problem?
Correct.

sorry that i'm asking stupid questions, but all the variety
of answers i'm getting is making me more confused.
Click to expand...

Yeah, its surprisingly complicated and
many dont actually understand the basics.
 
ok, that is what i actually did. after i cloned the old drive to the
new drive, i replaced the old drive with the new one. so the old
"parent" drive was no longer attached and then i booted the computer
(with the new cloned drive in place). so now i should be able to have
both attached and boot with no problem?
Click to expand...

As Rod would say, "Yep".

And in case you're wondering, you can start up the "parent" OS
with the never-yet-booted clone connected with no problem. It's just
when you get around to booting the clone for its 1st startup that you
should disconnect the "parent".

*TimDaniels*
 
Back
Top