Problem upgrading hard drive on laptop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Howard Woodard
  • Start date Start date
H

Howard Woodard

I used Powerquest Partition Magic 8 (now owned by Symantec) to copy
the partition from my hard drive to an external hard drive connected
via USB 2.0. Then I physically switched the hard drives -- thinking
that the copy partition function makes an exact replica/clone -- but
the laptop won't boot off the new disk. It says "no OS found".

Is anyone familiar enough with PartitionMagic to know if this should
work? For that matter, if it should work, how to do it?

Thanks in advance,

Howard
 
Howard said:
I used Powerquest Partition Magic 8 (now owned by Symantec) to copy
the partition from my hard drive to an external hard drive connected
via USB 2.0. Then I physically switched the hard drives -- thinking
that the copy partition function makes an exact replica/clone -- but
the laptop won't boot off the new disk. It says "no OS found".

Is anyone familiar enough with PartitionMagic to know if this should
work? For that matter, if it should work, how to do it?

Thanks in advance,

Howard
Click to expand...

Which OS? You probaly did a good job at copying...but...
When you run PartitionMagic 8.0 straight from either the CD or from the
rescue disks what does the copied OS partition look like?

--
M.f.G.
Michael Kimmer

"Ein Tag an dem Du nicht lächelst ist ein verlorener Tag"
"Eine Nacht in der Du nicht schläfst ist eine verschlafene Nacht"
 
Previously Howard Woodard said:
I used Powerquest Partition Magic 8 (now owned by Symantec) to copy
the partition from my hard drive to an external hard drive connected
via USB 2.0. Then I physically switched the hard drives -- thinking
that the copy partition function makes an exact replica/clone -- but
the laptop won't boot off the new disk. It says "no OS found".

Is anyone familiar enough with PartitionMagic to know if this should
work? For that matter, if it should work, how to do it?
Click to expand...

It should definitely not work. PM has no business copying the MBR
when being told to copy a partition only. I don't know whether it
also offers to copy an MBR. Depending on the bootloader that would
not necessarily work, e.g. when the bootloader stores the exact
kernel location.

Best just reinstall the bootloader, that should be enough.

Arno
 
Previously Timothy Daniels said:
How does one do that?
Click to expand...

What OS? Which Bootloader?

For Microsoft, a recovery floppy or CD is needed. I have
not used the MS bootloader in a long time, but it used
to be just

sys a:

from the commandline of the recovery system. For Grub, LILO
and other bootloaders, it depends.

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
What OS? Which Bootloader?

For Microsoft, a recovery floppy or CD is needed. I have not
used the MS bootloader in a long time, but it used to be just

sys a:
Clueless.


from the commandline of the recovery system. For Grub, LILO
and other bootloaders, it depends.

Arno
Click to expand...
 
I'm running WinXP Pro. I didn't see any choices about OS or MBR. It
just asked if I wanted primary, physical or logical, and file system
type. I picked primary, physical, NTFS.

Even if I create a new partition and install a new OS I don't know how
I would get all of my programs, configurations, desktop, etc. back --
which was why I was trying to do this to start with.

======================================================
 
I don't understand this question. The partitions are displayed as colored segments.

Sorry...
===================================================
 
Howard said:
I don't understand
this question. The partitions are displayed as colored segments.

Sorry...
===================================================
Click to expand...

Let's do it otherwise,
Can you create a partition information file and post a link here to it:
(Make sure that the 1st rescue disk is not write protected)
How to create a partition information file?
- Start from the first PartitionMagic rescue disk.
- Press a key after the prompt rather than to physically insert disk #2
- type:

partinfo > pi.txt

and press the Enter key.

- Upload it somewhere and post the contents of "pi.txt" using a hyperlink

--
M.f.G.
Michael Kimmer

"Ein Tag an dem Du nicht lächelst ist ein verlorener Tag"
"Eine Nacht in der Du nicht schläfst ist eine verschlafene Nacht"
 
I'm running WinXP Pro. I didn't see any choices about OS or MBR. It
just asked if I wanted primary, physical or logical, and file system
type. I picked primary, physical, NTFS.

Even if I create a new partition and install a new OS I don't know how
I would get all of my programs, configurations, desktop, etc. back --
which was why I was trying to do this to start with.
Click to expand...

Boot from your Microsoft XP CD, and select Recovery Console, and then
repair/rebuild the MBR.

Hopefully you haven't touched your original hard drive which you
removed, so you always have that as a backup.
 
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