Hi, im very new to this stuff, im trying to upgrade to a new hard drive. I really need some help, im using norton ghost 9 and i copied my c:/ drive to my E:/ drive. it seemed to work as all the files are there and the same amount of used space is there. but when i removed the original drive, and put the newly copied one in as the master, i get a wierd message during boot. it doesnt reach the OS or anything. it says unable to read media check all cables. i did this. it still didnt work. it works as a slave but not a master. im not sure what to do. the only thing i can think of is it could have to do with the  small *:/ drive. idk please help me someone.
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/7610/ghostrq8.jpg

anyone can help me?

raynearcadia

Does this outline help found in the Frequently Asked Questions thread for Ghost 9 by Brian:

Cloning partitions with Ghost 9

You might try changing your thread topic to *Ghost 9 Copy Disk will not boot!* to grab more attention.

Ray, you have probably figured out by now that Ghost 9 does NOT have a "copy the entire disk drive" feature on the boot CD.

1. Read through Chapter 7 of the Ghost 9 manual first.

2. You should delete any partitions on the new drive first and then try again.

3. Basically, you boot from the CD, then run the copy wizard 3 times:  first for the small Dell partition, next for the c: drive and last for the e: partition.

I have copied both partitions, but it doesnt work still, its almost as if its my own computer. as a secondary drive the computer recognizes it, but as a master, it doesnt... i cant figure this out

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 5:42pm:

I have copied both partitions, but it doesn't work still, its almost as if its my own computer. as a secondary drive the computer recognizes it, but as a master, it doesn't... i cant figure this out

You need to copy all 3 partitions, not just the two.  First the dell one, then the c: and last the e: partition.

When coping the c: partition, tell Ghost 9 to make that one bootable.  Look in the manual for the options.

The reason you copy all 3 is because the boot.ini file on your c: drive tells XP the physical arrangement of the hard drive partitions.  

You want an EXACT image, so do all three in the order I specified.

After copying, you change your new drive to master, and disconnect/remove your old hard drive.  Be careful on your new drive clip settings, because some drives have different clips for single vs master with slave present.

I re-read your first post.  Now I'm confused.  Is the e: drive on a separate physical hard drive or same one?

I'm puzzled as to why you have a drive letter e: showing.  You don't want to have both drives connected at the same time with XP running.

You will likely have to fix the registry of XP for the mounted drive letter e: to eliminate that.  Otherwise the clone won't boot because XP will remember that drive is e: and not allow it to be c:.

The easiest way to fix it is to modify your c: registry in XP JUST BEFORE shutting down.

Look at this thread:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1144945472

Specifically:

B. then the first and easiest approach is to modify the XP system registry:

Run Regedit, and navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices key.  Delete the \DosDevices\e: data-value where e: corresponds to the drive letter of your other drive.  

After this, delete all partitions on the new drive.
Shut down
Boot from Ghost 9 recovery CD.

This way your copy will have "forgotten" the e: drive.

yeah i had them both connected at the same time... is this wrong?

im having a real tough time with this... E: is the new drive... i think im not following the proper directions on this... i just copied each partition one at a time but all in wondows xp, do i have to use a recover cd? and if so, how and why?

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 7:41pm:

im having a real tough time with this... E: is the new drive... i think im not following the proper directions on this... i just copied each partition one at a time but all in wondows xp, do i have to use a recover cd? and if so, how and why?

I finally figured out that E: is your new drive.

Both drives have to be connected ONLY at the same when you copy--BUT you must copy using your Ghost 9 Recovery cd, which is a stand-alone boot.

Letting XP see both drives and copying from within XP is the problem.  Follow the procedures I outlined above with the registry fix to make XP forget about the new hard drive.

Read Chapter 7, starting on page 87 of the Ghost 9 manual, which is very complete and detailed.

ok, so where do i get a recovery cd? do i have to create this? i dont really know what it is to tell u the truth...

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 7:54pm:

ok, so where do i get a recovery cd? do i have to create this? i dont really know what it is to tell u the truth...

The Ghost 9 Recovery CD is the same CD that you used to install Ghost 9.  Put the cd in, and set your pc to boot from cd first, and it should bring up the stand-alone recovery version of Ghost 9.

also, since i formatted the drive, i dont see it in XP, i cant browse it anymore.

If you purchased a download version of Ghost 9 from Symantec, then you will have to contact Symantec and get the ok to download it from them and burn it yourself, or for them to mail you one at nominal cost.

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 7:58pm:

also, since i formatted the drive, i dont see it in XP, i cant browse it anymore.

Good.  You will be doing all your copying from the Recovery CD environment, not xp.

Again, do NOT have both drives connected while XP is running.  Only when booting from the cd.

no i have the disc, i have another question. and i must be an idiot i know.... but i just formatted the drive, its completely empty again, i now need to move the small dell utility partition and the c: drive to the unallocated space... which options should i check off for each part?

and as far as the regedit goes, i dont seem to have an E: i have A: C: D: G: H:, when i open explorer all i have is A, C,D.... what should i do about this?

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 8:03pm:

no i have the disc, i have another question. and i must be an idiot i know.... but i just formatted the drive, its completely empty again, i now need to move the small dell utility partition and the c: drive to the unallocated space... which options should i check off for each part?

Good. You're doing fine.  I'm assuming now that the new drive is NOT connected.  Right?  If it is, disconnect it and reboot back to XP.

Then modify your registry as I outlined previously.
Then shut down XP.  Power Off.
Attach both drives, your new one as the slave.
Boot from Ghost 9 Recovery CD.

The first copy will be the Dell partition:  Destination Type Primary checked.

After copying the Dell partition, return to menu and copy your c: partition and check the following:
Set drive active for starting OS
Click Primary Partition
Copy MBR

After that one complete,
Shut down pc
Remove your old drive
Change jumper settings on new drive from slave to single or master.

Boot to XP.

Hopefully this will all work.

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 8:12pm:

and as far as the regedit goes, i dont seem to have an E: i have A: C: D: G: H:, when i open explorer all i have is A, C,D.... what should i do about this?

Just to be safe, delete the G: and H: entries.

It shouldn't hurt to delete all mounted devices entries.

Look at 3B pictures, reply 13

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1144131251;start=1#13

so get rid of EVERYTHING in that folder

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 8:23pm:

so get rid of EVERYTHING in that folder

Using Registry Editor, navigate as shown.  Then highlight all the entries to the right.  All the \??\Volume\ and \DosDevices\ entries just like the picture.  Then delete those registry entry data values.

I should also mention that before doing all this, I hope you have some type of backup of your data.  No one anticipates problems, but sometimes they can happen when changing drives, copying from one to another etc.  It's just important to be safe beforehand.

well why would any of this ruin the original hard drive? i was keeping that one as my backup

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 10:08pm:

well why would any of this ruin the original hard drive? i was keeping that one as my backup

It shouldn't, but anytime you handle a drive or connections something could happen.  I once accidently banged a hard drive just the wrong way when removing it and it failed shortly thereafter.  Sometimes someone will think they are deleting a partition on the new drive and accidently delete one on the old drive. etc. etc. etc.

Always good to have backups.

what can i do then, how can i make a backup of it if its supposed to be the backup?

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 10:54pm:

what can i do then, how can i make a backup of it if its supposed to be the backup?

As a minimum, burn cd's containing your important documents, pictures, music etc.

Ghost is used extensively to create backup-image-files of your entire hard drive.  Many people buy an external USB2 hard drive for that purpose.  Lots of info on this forum regarding backups.

That is a separate feature from the copy-drive feature you are doing now.  

whats the best way to format a drive? i used this program called partition manager by paragon... but im not sure it did it for real

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 18^th, 2007 at 11:43pm:

whats the best way to format a drive? i used this program called partition manager by paragon... but im not sure it did it for real

I've used Partition Manager from Paragon.  It should work fine.

You can also use the Windows XP disk manager:
My Computer/right click/manage/disk management
Highlight the disk you want to format, and right click/format.

Again, be careful because formatting is permanent.  Make double sure you have the correct drive selected.  Be sure you have a backup of your critical data before formatting anything.  You DON'T want to accidently format your c: drive by mistake!

Disk drives don't have to be pre-formatted to use the Copy-Drive feature of Ghost 9.  A new blank unformatted disk works fine.  It's the preferred way to copy-drive.

However, since you previously used the drive, you have to delete the partitions that are on it and/or format it.

well i deleted all partitions in Paragon then i formatted partition... is this the proper way to do this?

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 19^th, 2007 at 8:25am:

well i deleted all partitions in Paragon then i formatted partition... is this the proper way to do this?

That's fine.  Then follow the procedures previously outlined.

ok im gonna do all this... thanks so much for ur help.... if this dont work then im not sure what i will do.... btw, and maybe this is just cause the way i did it, but i just wanna make this clear before i go do this one more time so u understand... originally i copied disk to disk in windows, all partitions(which i now know was wrong) but the when it was done, i could see both HDD in my computer and in bios, the new one as a secondary, the main one as the master. when i shutdown, and removed the master original and moved the secondary to its spot and set it as master, i booted and the bios wouldnt recognize it. that was my original problem. it was recognized as a secondary, but not as a main. now hopefully, my problem was that i didnt do it right(bootfrom cd instead) and this will fix all that.

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 19^th, 2007 at 9:13am:

now hopefully, my problem was that i didnt do it right(bootfrom cd instead) and this will fix all that.

Correct.  Normally it wouldn't be this complicated.  You would take a new blank unused unformatted disk that you just purchased, read chapter 7 of the manual, and boot from the cd.

If for some reason, you get an error message or some problem when you boot from your new drive (with your old one REMOVED), just write the message down etc.  Then remove your new drive, hook up your old drive, and post the results here.

Don't boot into XP with BOTH drives connected.

ok i have a worse problem now... first idk what im doing in this recovery disk, which options do i pick? and secondly i dont think it even identified the new hard drive.. windows doesnt either now... bios did but nothing else does. paragon does but its just all unallocated space.... when i opened up recovery disk i had 3 drives, the cd, the c: and then this wierd ms-ram z: drive is that the hard drive? idk what was with that. but which option do i pick when im in the recovery disk?

i dont think there is any copy from hdd to hdd in the recovery disk... am i wrong? it seemed like i could only use previously made images, and what not...

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 19^th, 2007 at 10:27am:

i dont think there is any copy from hdd to hdd in the recovery disk... am i wrong? it seemed like i could only use previously made images, and what not...

You're right.  I'm sorry for the confusion.  It's been awhile since I used the copy-disk option of Ghost 9.

The copy-disk feature is from the Windows XP option in Ghost 9, so you won't need the the Recovery CD.

To recap then (and again sorry for the confusion):

1. Connect your old drive as master, and new as slave.
2. Boot to XP
3. Verify with XP Disk Manager that both disks appear.  Your new slave drive should be shown, but without a drive letter.  That is correct.  There should be NO drive letter assigned to new hard drive.  If there are any partitions on the new drive, delete them.  Be sure you are selecting the correct drive!
4. Follow the Registry edit changes previously outlined.  Close Registry editor.
5. Start Ghost 9
6. Select Tools/Copy-Drive.  Copy dell partition, then c: partition.  Use options I mentioned previously.
7. close Ghost 9.
8. Shut down XP immediately.
9. Remove old hard drive.
10. Change new hard drive to master/single.
11. Boot new hard drive.

ok that didnt work... again same problem.... it says PXE-E61 media failure, check cables when i put the new drive in by itself... and for whatever reason, when i coppied it made a partition exactly the same size as the original c: drive but i have all this unallocated space that isnt usable still.....

raynearcadia wrote on Jan 19^th, 2007 at 1:09pm:

ok that didnt work... again same problem.... it says PXE-E61 media failure, check cables when i put the new drive in by itself... and for whatever reason, when i copied it made a partition exactly the same size as the original c: drive but i have all this unallocated space that isnt usable still.....

Does your pc support large hard drives?  I noticed your original drive is 30gb which makes me think that it is an older pc and it is possible that your bios does not recognize the larger drive size.  Go to the website for your pc and look for bios updates and be sure you have installed the latest one.

Unfortunately if you do find a newer bios, you will have to delete the partitions, and start over and try again.  At least now you know how to do it.

Also, when you copy the c: partition, check the option "resize drive to fill unallocated space" as well as the other options previously mentioned.  That will expand the c: partition to fill up the rest of the drive.

Also look here for other hints about your error message:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PXE-E61+media+failure

Is your old hard drive set to cable select or master?  What did you set your new hard drive to?

Just saw some postings about improper settings.

http://www.nocrash.com/ncbbs/msgs/3247.shtml

How old is your PC?  The reason I ask is that there was a pc technology change 4 or 5 years ago to support hard drives larger than 137 gb.

Many pc's manufacturers had bios updates required in order to access these drives.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm

ok i finally got it to work, i used partition manager tocopy entire disk and it worked perfectly. thanks for all ur help but i think the paragon thing was better than ghost 9. and it only took 30 minutes to copy.

one other thing, the new hard drive randomly makes a clicking noise. like a "click-clock" sound every once in a while. is this bad?

Glad to hear you got it working, but sorry to hear that Ghost 9 would not work.  What make/model PC do you have?

A clicking noise if it sounds kind of like a metal tap is usually the sound when the drive is re-calibrating or re-trying a read or write.  Just to be safe you should look on the website for your disk drive manufacturer and look for some type of drive testing or verification utility to verify everything is working.

Always good to have regular backups of your important data too in case of an unexpected failure.

its a western digital wd1200bb, its not a grinding or constant click... just randomly... sometimes when im doing nothing at all

comp is a dell dimension 2350