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Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive (Read 9104 times)
allenfr
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Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Mar 7th, 2007 at 8:32pm
 
I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I'm trying to move my 60 GB ATA drive's contents (O/S, all applications, and data) to a new Maxtor 300 GB ATA drive using Ghost 10.0 (specifically for Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP Pro).  According to Windows' Disk Management the 60 GB drive has two partitions - a Dell Utility partition (not the active/primary partition) and the normal C:\ partition.  I used Ghost 10.0 to move the primary partition (C:\) after I formatted the new 300 GB drive, but the new 300 GB drive won't boot after I remove the original drive and put the 300 GB in as Master (using cable select) - I get the following error:

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.  Could not read from the selected boot disk.  Check boot path and disk hardware."

Here is my operating environment: Dell Dimension 4550 (Pentium 4) that came with a 60 GB ATA drive running Windows XP Pro.  The BIOS is A05, which according to the info I've seen on the Dell website, should allow access to drives bigger than 137GB.  All service packs and updates have been applied (which together with a late enough BIOS is required to support LBA for drives larger than 137GB).  According to Windows'  Disk Management the 60 GB drive has a Dell Utility partition (the first on the disk, taking 39 MB), followed by the second/last partition (labeled C:\ and specified as "System" by Disk Management - this is where the O/S, all apps and data is located).

Is it possible that Ghost moved (or didn't move) the MBR to the 300 GB drive, which according to a program MBRWizard, shows 2 partitons and when I try to boot, the system is not finding the second/normal partition corresponding to C:\?  Any other thoughts about the solution or how to use Ghost 10.0 differently to accomplish my objective?  I tried using the "trick" of booting from a Windows 98SE Startup disk and ran the FDISK /MBR command to zero out the signature, but that did no good - are the partitions specified at the end of the MBR or elsewhere (if at the end, the "trick" would do no good, as the original disk had two partitions and the new disk only has one).
 
 
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John.
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Re: Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Reply #1 - Mar 7th, 2007 at 9:01pm
 
You need to update the boot.ini file on your new 300gb hard drive to reflect the correct boot partition, which is now the first (not the second) partition.

Here's a normal c:\boot.ini file:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
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" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Note, that mine says
partition(1)
.  Your original 60gb drive likely said partition(2).

Boot from the Ghost 10 recovery cd.  Choose utilities and look for the "Edit boot.ini" utility.  Start it and change the partition number to (1).

Shut down and reboot.  That should do it.

Did you use the Drive Copy feature of Ghost 10 or did you take a backup (to external usb etc) and then restore it from the CD?
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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allenfr
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Re: Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Reply #2 - Mar 7th, 2007 at 10:15pm
 
Thanks, your BOOT.INI solution worked!

Because my wife has used this PC since I did the Dirve Copy with Ghost 10, I reinstalled the 60 GB drive as the primary drive and will re-image again so I'm sure we have the latest files/emails.  When done, I'll edit the BOOT.INI (making sure to set the READ-ONLY property to off so I can save it), then mark it READ-ONLY, swap the two drives (so the new 300 GB is what I'm booting from but have the 60 GB available in case I need to fetch anything) and we should be in business!

Thanks again!
 
 
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Re: Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Reply #3 - Mar 7th, 2007 at 10:26pm
 
Glad to hear that Ghost 10 worked for you!

The only thing you lose by not copying the Dell utility partition I believe is the ability to run some diagnostics.  If that is a big concern when you start over, then run DriveCopy twice:  the Dell utility partition first, then your primary partition (and then you would not have to change the partition parameter).

Here's a detailed explanation of what is going on:

http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/index.htm

 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Re: Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Reply #4 - Mar 8th, 2007 at 9:46am
 
I read all of Goodell's info about Dell.  I do have one more question that I'm hoping you can shed light on:

After re-imaging the new drive with Ghost 10, I shut down, swapped drives (so the new drive was master and the old was slave), then booted up.  What I saw in Disk Management was that the new drive's letter was still F: (but it was marked as "System") and the old was C: (marked as "Pagingfile").  I turned everything off, pulled the cable from the old drive (still leaving it in the drive slot so it doesn't get damaged alying around), then rebooted again and the new drive's letter was C:

My question is: do you know what the drive letter(s) would be if I plug the cable back into the old drive (still having it as slave) - would it revert back to C: for the old drive and F: for the new or......I'd like to be able to reuse the old drive (if for nothing else, perhaps make it the paging file)?

Thanks!
 
 
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Re: Moving a 60GB Drive to a 300GB Drive
Reply #5 - Mar 8th, 2007 at 10:06am
 
Windows XP doesn't like to see two identical drives with the same signature (DiskID).  That's why you are supposed to remove the old drive, and set the new one to master, then reboot.

Shut down, remove your 300gb drive, connect your 60gb drive, and follow Method#3 to clear the DiskID of your 60gb drive.
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

After doing that, put your 300gb back in as master and 60gb as slave and try it.  I would immediately delete all partitions of the 60gb drive and define a new fresh partition.

Be sure you have a good Ghost 10 backup image of your system before doing anything.  Windows XP Disk Manager does not have an undo feature.  It's permanent.
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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