I am new to ghost, as I have seen so are many on here. These are great forums, but have not seen a solution to my siutation.

I have many computers that are running out of Hard Disk Space. My plan was to purchase Ghost and just copy from the smaller hard drive to the NEW hard drive and "Off we go." For some reason, more than likely my lack of use, this is not as easy as it used to be in the OLDER versions.

Steps I took:
1: Installed ghost onto host PC, because the hard drives that are running out of room, obviously can not handle the space requirment .
2: Installed drive that is running out of room, "SMALL", and NEW hard drive into host computer (So now I have 3 drives in one machine.)
3: Copy Hard drive to hard drive (SMALL TO NEW)
4: Ghost gives a "SUCCESSFUL" prompt
5: Load NEW hard drive into old computer and either get "Boot read" error, or Asks if I want to boot into safe mode or regular mode. If I choose normal, it just loops back to safe mode option. If I load into safe mode just gives syntax and does nothing.

When I look at NEW HD on host compter it shows that the SMALL HD data was tranfered?????

Is there something I am missing?
Please help

helpdesk101,

The userguide instructions on upgrading to a new HD omits some fine details. Have a look at these...

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1117581957;start=

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1148252120;start=


Quote:

Load NEW hard drive into old computer and either get "Boot read" error

Ideally you should perform the clone in the computer that will use the new HD.

Brian,

Thanks for the links, it may take some time to read up on all the tests you have completed, but am trying some more "Copy to new drive" while I read.

When I purchased GHOST 14 it was not accompanied with an instruction manual??? Is this normal? I have used older and I mean older versions of ghost and it seemed easy.

I am using the exact same model of computer as the "HOST" computer to run the ghost app, if it makes that big of a difference. If I choose NOT to resize to fill the new drive then it will still have the same problem as before, right? (running out of disk space)

So I running the COPY again. 20 GB drive (D:) To the "unallocated" 150GB drive (no drive letter)

I ticked “check source for file system errors”, “check destination for file system errors”, “set drive active (for booting OS)”. Destination Partition type: “Primary partition”. Chose Drive Letter of “None”. Ticked “Copy MBR”.

I didn’t tick “resize drive to fill unallocated space”, “disable SmartSector copying” or “ignore bad sectors during copy”.

as you did in the 2005 test of GHOST 9.

I will then disconnect the OLD HD and boot the NEW as master.


Does this sound like your tests? Or did I skip over something that could change things?

thanks again for all your help with me and all of us on this rock we call Earth.
:)

So just finished the above COPY.

Receiving error
Windows could not start because of disk hardware config.........

Is this were I should use the fdisk /mbr ?

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 19^th, 2008 at 6:13pm:

Windows could not start because of disk hardware config

It sounds like you are close. That is usually a boot.ini error. Do you have any partitions before the OS partition on the old HD that could cause a problem with partition numbers?

Want to try EditBini?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

Quote:

I am using the exact same model of computer as the "HOST" computer to run the ghost app, if it makes that big of a difference. If I choose NOT to resize to fill the new drive then it will still have the same problem as before, right? (running out of disk space)

That computer should be OK.

Yes, you do need to click "resize".

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 19^th, 2008 at 5:56pm:

When I purchased GHOST 14 it was not accompanied with an instruction manual??? Is this normal?

Yes, that's normal.  Just a small introduction booklet.  But the entire manual should be on your CD, or you can download it.  Look in the Radified FAQ:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1176321672/#5

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=218

Ok, so I have looked through those links you sent me to. Good stuff!

I used one of the suggestions to boot to the XP cd (on the NEW HD)and rebuild the boot cfg, but it said it could not find one.

So I loaded the OLD HD back in found the boot.ini, there were three IDs. One with XP Pro and two with xp. I deleted the two xp IDs. When it restarted it added one of the XPs back on???

Do I want to delete all of them and have the computer build a new boot.ini? And do I do this on the OLD HD before the GHOST?

Or should I use the Editbini? I am not sure on how to use it. There was not any instructions. Do I use it on the NEW HD or OLD?

FYI - My boot.ini (on the OLD HD) looks like this

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows="Microsoft windows XP professional" fastdetect /NOexecute=OptIN
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\windows=Windows XP/ 2003

Thanks for all the HELP

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 24^th, 2008 at 2:00pm:

and rebuild the boot cfg, but it said it could not find one.

Strange.

EditBini is run from DOS. Do you have a floppy drive?

Do you have a BartPE CD to directly edit boot.ini?

If the answers are "no", there is still an alternative way to do a direct edit.

Are you using a Dell?

This computer does have a floppy. (Although, the other computers I will be ghosting, once I fugure out a working way of doing this, DO NOT)

I do have a BartPE CD of XP Pro SP2.

We have HP computers.

OK. Use your BartPE CD on the computer that isn't booting. The one with, "Windows could not start because of disk hardware config". What is the boot.ini?

I put in the CD, pressed R to get into recovery window......

Is this were I can find the Boot.ini on a computer that does not boot?

There is no R with BartPE.

Boot into BartPE. Boot.ini is in the root of C: drive

C:\boot.ini   You can double click to edit.

I guess I have lied to you. I had used Bart's boot extractor to make a boot disk. I will create a PartPE.

Made BartPE.

Says C: is corrupt or unreadable?????

I am very confused now. The OLD HD still boots up fine. I must be missing simething.  :o

Brian wrote on Jun 19^th, 2008 at 6:43pm:

Do you have any partitions before the OS partition on the old HD that could cause a problem with partition numbers?

I just actually looked and there is a 16MB "HP_HIPA" Partition on the OLD HD. Sure wish I would have slowed down and noticed this. Is there a different approach when using two partitions? I will refer to the link you sent about multiople partitions.

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 3:50pm:

I just actually looked and there is a 16MB "HP_HIPA" Partition on the OLD HD.

That explains why your old boot.ini says partition(2). As you only cloned one partition, the new boot.ini will have to be edited to partition(1) before the OS will boot.

I'm confused. Where do you see this?


Quote:

Says C: is corrupt or unreadable

Does BartPE boot to a "desktop". Can you open A43 File Management?

I hooked up the OLD HD to check to see if it booted, which it did, then went into disk mgmt and saw it there. Then I unhooked OLD HD, and have been trying to get the NEW HD to boot with BartPE like before and I am about to throw the thing through the window.

BartPE "did" boot to it's desktop, on the NEW HD. Then I went to explorer. That is when I saw the "corrupt" error. I am trying to get to boot BART PE. to look for 43

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 4:27pm:

I hooked up the OLD HD to check to see if it booted, which it did, then went into disk mgmt and saw it there.

Did you have only one HD in the computer when you used BartPE?

Why not delete the partition from the new HD and start again. Clone the 16 MB partition, then the WinXP partition. Does the new HD now boot?

This is the process I am taking now, deleting HP partition then ghosting and see where I get. I will update.

I'm not sure that will get you anywhere. boot.ini will still show partition(2) and the OS won't boot on either HD.

Kind of what I was sitting here pondering. When I ran the ghost it does not show partition (1) only the OS partition. So I need to go into BartPE and figure out how to find the boot.ini.


Brian wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 4:16pm:

Can you open A43 File Management?

You mentioned A43. Not sure what you mean by this.

A43 is in the Program list. It's the app you use to find boot.ini. Then double click boot.ini. A43 looks a lot like Windows Explorer.

Here is a typical partition(1) boot.ini


Quote:

[boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Ok..... CDROM died.

Booted into BartPE. Used A43. browsed to C:/ Nothing there.

Going to ghost again? And try.............

This may be the end of my career. Computer going out window soon. ;D

Thanks for your patience.

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:41pm:

Computer going out window soon

I know the feeling! Clone BOTH partitions.

The small 160MB partition, (1), does not show up as a partition able to clone in the copy option.

Oh. Standby.

Try this as a test. Download CopyWipe... (a free app)


Quote:

Download CopyWipe for DOS  from.... (Don't get the Windows version) http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php Double click makedisk.exe to make the boot CD. There are good instructions in the pdf. In one of the computers with an old small HD, connect the new HD as a slave. Boot to WinXP and from Disk Management delete the partition(s) on the new HD. Shutdown and boot to the CopyWipe CD and run through the copy menu. Use the Scale Size option. When it's finished copying, shutdown, remove the old HD from the computer and install the new HD as the master. Boot to the new HD.

Success?

No success-

After CopyWipe completed, read "1 event not resized"

Unhooked OLD HD and rebooted. "Disk read error"

We're not having good luck.

Is the new HD jumpered as a master now? Does it look OK in the BIOS?

Yep, Master!

BIOS reads good. Shows model #.

What about copying to external flash drive then copying to NEW HD? This will more than likely turn up the same.

helpdesk101,

Could you install the old HD as master and make the new HD the slave. Boot to WinXP and look in Disk Management. Do both HDs have the same partitions and look identical?

Wow, I attached a screen shot of the NEW HD. It did some wild partitioning.

---

Wow is correct.

This may work. Remove the old HD. Attach the new HD as a master. Boot to a Win98 floppy and run fdisk /mbr

If it doesn't work, could you run disk diagnostics on that HD. It may be a sick HD.

I don't have access to 98 floppy. I am running checkdisk

I actually hope this Disk is sick! :D

I'm not so hopeful for fdisk /mbr but this does the same...


Quote:

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.iso Download this .ISO and burn it (as an image, not as data) to a CD. I use ImgBurn but if you use Nero, it's Recorder, Burn image. Boot to the CD. You will see "Press any key to rewrite MBR". Press a key and you will be instructed to "Press ENTER to reboot" so press ENTER and remove the CD.

I'll be away for a few hours.

helpdesk101 wrote on Jun 27^th, 2008 at 4:34pm:

Wow, I attached a screen shot of the NEW HD. It did some wild partitioning.

I looked at your screenshot of your hard drives.

I noticed your OLD hard drive is only 20GB.  Are you sure that the BIOS in the computer supports large hard drives?

You might need to update your BIOS to make it support larger hard drives correctly.

Just uninstalled GHOST 14 and installed GHOST 2003. Tried and Failed to clone. (Disk to disk)

Updated the BIOS and tried again. Still Failed.  >:(

I am going to the next step. Going to try another computer and hard drive. Maybe something is wrong with this one????

Wouldn't you know it. It worked. I guess using a host computer to copy a drive to a new drive doesn't work too well.

Note to readers:
C:// Host
D:// OLD/SMALL HD
to
NEW HD

DOES NOT WORK.

Although: Please let me know if anyone else has made it work.

helpdesk101 wrote on Jul 1^st, 2008 at 6:59pm:

I guess using a host computer to copy a drive to a new drive doesn't work too well.

I don't think Ghost 14 (or earlier versions) was ever intended to.

You are supposed to purchase a separate license for each pc you want to use Ghost on.  I suspect Ghost put some of c://Host onto NEW HD.  Probably the mbr of NEW HD was created from c://Host.

If what you are looking for is some sort of hardware "disk duplicator".  Or some software that is a offline CD Boot cloning software.

Ghost 14 has to be installed on the pc it is intended to be used on.  In your case that would be c://Host,

So if you had intended to copy a new drive from c://Host to NewHD and then use NewHD on that pc, you would have been ok.

I just want to thank Radfied for all the help getting through this.

Big hats off to Brian.

Cheers! ([ii]

helpdesk101 wrote on Jul 2^nd, 2008 at 10:10am:

Big hats off to Brian.

Yes I agree. Brian always comes through!

Brian, I'm curious now, have you ever used Ghost in one pc to copy hard drives that came from another pc?  Do you agree that the problem above was caused by (probably) the wrong mbr being copied to NEW HD of Helpdesk101?

John. wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 9:58am:

have you ever used Ghost in one pc to copy hard drives that came from another pc?

John,

I've never tried that. The problem I see is that you have 3 HDs in the computer and the OS you are copying isn't the System drive. It's not seen as C: drive. It has some other drive letter. You should assign a drive letter of "None" to the target during your copy but I doubt this is enough.

I don't think the MBR is a problem as the MBR from old HD is being copied to new HD. fdisk /mbr would correct a "bad" MBR anyway.

helpdesk101 tried a conventional clone with two HDs in the computer. The new HD failed to boot with "Disk read error". Ghost 2003 clone failed too.

helpdesk101 succeeded cloning a HD in another computer but I'm not sure how it was done.

He also had a boot.ini issue in the early stages related to not copying the diagnostic partition. Too many variables. My head is spinning.

Brian wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 4:01pm:

I don't think the MBR is a problem as the MBR from old HD is being copied to new HD. fdisk /mbr would correct a "bad" MBR anyway. helpdesk101 tried a conventional clone with two HDs in the computer. The new HD failed to boot with "Disk read error". Ghost 2003 clone failed too.

Maybe this post (up on lenovo forums) may be of some help-see last reply by 'dawog' (and the weblinks); reproduced here for your ref-

Last month I successfully cloned the original 80GB hard drive to a 256GB Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS hard drive on the R61e, but it took two attempts.  On the first try, I used Acronis to clone both partitions (main & hidden), and allowed the main partition to be expanded to fill up the remaining space on the hard drive.  After replacing the internal 80GB drive with the newly cloned 256GB hard drive, it failed to boot.  Normally I've had great success with Acronis, so this may have been an error on my part.  I think I may have let the system "see" the newly cloned drive before removing & replacing with the 256GB drive. I've read posts (on other forums) that state that you should NOT reboot (w/original drive) AND with the newly cloned drive still attached.  I also read some other posts that stated that the main partition has to be the same size as on the original hard drive.

My second attempt was with Paragon Hard Disk Manager, and this time I created an EXACT clone (same size for both partitions) on the new 256GB hard drive.  After cloning, I shut down the laptop & replaced the original 80GB hard drive with the newly cloned 256GB hard drive.  It booted right up first time.  I then used the Paragon Partition Mgr to move the hidden partition to the end of the drive, and then expanded the main partition to fill up the remaining space on the hard drive.  Rebooted & everything still worked like a charm.

Hope this helps.

zmdmw52,

That's interesting. Maybe it does apply to some computers. Numerous people in the Acronis True Image forum report successful cloning from a small to a large HD and resizing the OS partition while cloning. And numerous people in the Acronis True Image forum fail in their effort to clone from one HD another HD. It seems to be hardware dependent.

I've cloned small OS partitions to larger partitions with True Image and Ghost. No problems.

Brian wrote on Jul 4^th, 2008 at 1:44am:

And numerous people in the Acronis True Image forum fail in their effort to clone from one HD another HD.

As he mentions, the problem may have been during re-boot:
After replacing the internal 80GB drive with the newly cloned 256GB hard drive, it failed to boot.  Normally I've had great success with Acronis, so this may have been an error on my part. I think I may have let the system "see" the newly cloned drive before removing & replacing with the 256GB drive. I've read posts (on other forums) that state that you should NOT reboot (w/original drive) AND with the newly cloned drive still attached.

I assume he was using Acronis TI from a bootable medium. Though I am not as technically inclined not being a computer professional, Norton Ghost 2003 should work as well.
The Paragon option using Ghost (exact Hard Disk copy f/b partition size alteration) 'should' also work-Ghost does have the disk clone (copy) option.

If one of the disks is a Seagate, Acronis TI is now available as a *free* d/l. See here. They claim it works only if one of the HD's is a Seagate; also allows creation of bootable CD's.

zmdmw52,

I think both Seagate and WD have versions of that program. It's a cut down Acronis True Image program.

In the True Image forum, cloning is an area where lots of failures are reported. I've tried really hard to get a deliberate cloning failure with TI but couldn't. I can easily create deliberate cloning failures with Ghost.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1164330999;start=0#0

Why use 3Com Boot Services?
By using 3Com Boot Services in combination with PXE-compatible
boot ROMs and Symantec Ghost, you can automate the use of
Symantec Ghost and consequently reduce TCO. Because it stores
the boot image file on the server, Boot Services eliminates the need
to visit each client machine with a Ghost Boot Disk. Time saved by
eliminating the need to manually install software and configuration
means more time for IT staffs to provide professional, high-level
support.