I need some direction and advice before I run out and purchase another Cloning/Copying program for hard disk data transfer/replacement.

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook (laptop) with WinXP Home SP2 and all updates.  It has a 40gb Toshiba hard disk (factory) that came w/XP etc, on the C: and a DISE Backup image (7.79gb) on the D: partition of the same drive ( both Fat32's).  I have run out of hd space and 2 weeks ago purchased a Fujitsu 80gb (2.5) with hopes of upgrading (replacing the existing laptop drive).  Even though the drive is a Fujitsu, Fujitsu won't tell me a word as to whether their hd will even work in my laptop (both hd's are ata).  To make matters worst I purchased Norton Ghost 9.0 about a year ago and as of last week have been trying to use it (first time) to make this disk copy but to no avail.  Norton won't talk to me, even via email, as they state they do not support 9.0 anymore. 

This is what I have done.  I am using an external HD enclosure (ADS) with firewire and a cable adaptor (3.5 to 2.5 which I have used successfully in the past for other recovery operations) which temporarily houses my new laptop 80gb drive. 

I have tried several times to make the disk copy.  Each time over 15hrs and it just keeps going so I give up and search the net for more answers.  I am frustrated and about ready to try a competitor of Sym.   I would appreciate any help out there as I have read alot of posts (even Goodell's site) but have not found my answers yet.

How long should I wait for this cloning action?  Currently its going on over 16hrs.  Using NG 9, I first copied successfully the D: drive to the new hd.  All bytes etc are the same and it shows up as my N: Dise backup Logical drive.  I believe it is fine and will be fine.

Then I used XP disk management utility to format the rest of the 80gb (about 68gb) to NTFS as I was told that my old Fat32 C: info will have to be put in the enlarged partition space as NTFS due to Fat32 limitiation under XP.  When I was asked to name the drive letter I gave it M:.  I know from reading the threads that I may have issues with it booting correctly as the new OS, due to XP drive letter concerns but I see the work around posts to resolve this once I get the cloning done.

Can anyone please tell me what I need to do with NG 9 and my computer settings so I can accomplish my hd upgrade?  If so a brief outline of the steps to correctly accomplish my task would be wonderful?  Is it true I should not let XP see the new drive (which currently is in a firewire external case?  If so how can this be done using an installed version of NG?  Could my laptop presently be in a never ending loop due to paging settings or low virtual memory settings (only 800 free mb left on the old drive)?  NG 9 that I am using is installed on my old hard drive?  Should I be running it off of a cd?

I have not found any great laptop cloning forums to date and you folks, as I have been reading, seem smarter and more knowledgable than most the others out there(I registered on 3 geek type sites last week and they know less than I..............O brother).  I got one response out of 3 whole sites!!

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Signed,
Still pulling my hair out (the very little that is left!!)

Mackjazz wrote on Oct 30^th, 2006 at 8:38pm:

If you purchased a retail boxed copy of Norton Ghost 9.0, you should have received an additional copy of Norton Ghost 2003 which is the legacy version included for users of WIN 98SE and WIN Me.  Both and with Ver 2003 have been straightforward, immediate and flawless in my experience using two different FireWire external HDDs.  Perhaps you should give some consideration to the approach of with Ver 2003?

thx for the feedback.  Here is an update and I am not home yet.  The NG 9 just finished finally after 18hrs and 5 min.  It said it was successful.  I did a properties on both my original C: and the clone M:.  bytes are exactly the same.  BUT, I was sad to discover that in Computer Management the NTFS drive I have created (M:with 68gb) was turned back into a 29.7gb Fat32 which I suppose means I lost the extra space on the new bigger drive.  I think this might be because it is an exact clone of the orginal C: drive?  Also I may have mistakenly interpreted the option of “resize drive to fill unallocated space” backwards because I did check that box thinking that I wanted and would get the full extra space rather than be restricted to the orginal C: drive Fat32 space.  I figured I had to make it NTFS since the space would be bigger than the 30 gb Fat32 restriction limit.  Did I error in my thinking?  I am currently doing a chkdsk on the new drive as it is still in the enclosure.  Now I am wondering if I should next swap drives and see if it will work in my laptop as the boot up disk or if I should next try to figure out how to get the difference of the approx. leftover space 80 - 29.4 - 7.9 = 42.7 on the new drive that now appears to have vanished and therefore would be useless.  I hate to reclone at this point because I believe I have a cloned C: and D: successfully but I also want the left over space on the new bigger drive.  Hmmmmmmmmmm..............

Any ideas folks (Brian, etc, etc)?

Thanks again to all who have helped in my frustration.

Thx Brian,

I am going to do the swap now.  The chkdsk said the files and folders were fine.  It is now verifing the free space. 

Just a clarification on using windows disk management.  I was sure I read somewhere that FAt32 were limited up to 30gb with XP where as with win98 it could be up to 2 terabytes.  The file system type as been one of my main unknowns as to how I should properly configure and use the full 80gb drive that will be replacing my 40gb drive.  I did format the 68gb as an NTFS but when the copy disk was finished it changed it back to FAT32 (which I understand because it is an exact copy) and said that there was no more space left.  In Disk Management it shows it as:  Partition M:, Fat32, Healthy, Active and capacity 66.71gb.  However when I do a Windows Explorer properties of M: it show 29.7gb with 800mb free left.  Now the extra space is unseen.  You mentioned the larger space should not be a problem but if the properties for the new copy say there is only 800mb of space left how do I go about finding the extra 42gb that have now disappeared?  By the way I just realized I have Partition Magic 8.0.  Perhaps that could be useful in my present delima??  What is recommended now in order to get the missing space (approx 42.7gb) identified, initiated, partitioned and formated?

You also mentioned to not worry about the DISE Backup image that is presently my drive D: partition on my old 40gb?  This image is everything that came with my laptop from Fujitsu.  My retail package did NOT come with any Disks not even WinXP.  This image is my only backup of my OEM software.  Wouldn't this be necessary to have on my new hd just as it was on the smaller older one?  You mentioned to forget about it but if I have a failure on this new disk it should be much easier to recover from the D: image than get back into my old 40gb hd to do a recovery or restore don't you think?

Did I miss something there in the translation??

Both my new partitions do show up in Disk Management and in Windows Explorer.  I have
Local disk C:
DISE_BACKUP D:
Local disk M:
DISE_BACKUP N:

thx again for the kindly support in my hd upgrade quest.
Mack

PS If you have a HD failure then it's not much help to have your OS and backup on the HD that has failed.

Dan's Method #3 is certainly worth trying if it doesn't boot. Good thought.

That 1.29 GB file in the D: drive, what is its file extension?

Well I did the swap and nothing after the bios and memory chk.  It did show the new 80gb hd as Disk 0 then it simply went to a black screen with a line cursor near the upper lefthand side of the screen.

So then I put in the win 98 startup disk.  got the a: prompt. and did a fdisk /mbr (with a space betwn the k and /).  rebooted but nothing.  the I used the win 98 again and went to the c: prompt and repeated and then to the D and repeated and then rebooted but still nothing.  Then because it takes a bit to exchange the laptop dirves I left it and went to bed 2:00am.

Today got into it using Partition Magic 8 and found 4 partitions but could only work on the new large one and the D:  I found a cluster size error.

Then came my big problem for the day so far.  I have not internet service (cable is down all over So Cal).  No tv either.  So now I am on my desktop and ijust nstalled some dial up sotfware.  Its slow but at least I can communicate!!

Well at this point I think I should just reclone.
Thoughts and Questions:
I am fine with the setup you suggested Brian.  In making 2 partitions on the new 80gb, one for OS and programs and the other for data.  And on the old the DISE IMage and the new image of the new 80gb working properly of course.

So what about the Fat32 issue limitation in cloning to the larger 80gb hd?  I just with MS and it did say XP is limited to 32gb for FAT32.  I guess I could make the Primary partitiion the present 29.7 that is is and then with the local drive (2nd partition) make that NTFS and move alot of my data over to it.

Do I first need to wipe everything out of my new 80gb and get back to 0?  If so what is the best way to do so?  What about formating and making the partitions?  Do I need to use Dan's # 2 before I clone in order to have the new drive recognized when it  replaces the smaller drive in my laptop?

Please let me know the steps I need to take.  Sorry for the challenges with internet and apparently needing to reclone.
Mack