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Ghost 14 - copy drive problem (Read 5642 times)
zhh
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Ghost 14 - copy drive problem
Dec 14th, 2010 at 5:44pm
 
I am new on this, so please bear with me if the issue I described has been discussed.

My desktop runs XP pro (SP2). It has one WD 10000 RPM HD, which is old and now makes some noise. I hope to replace it with an intel SSD.

The WD HD is ~80GB, 3 partitions, the XP is installed on C which is 20GB. The other 2 are just for data. For historical reason the C drive is FAT32. The C drive only has operating system and application programs, no data stored here, ~ 10 GB.

The SSD is 40GB, formatted as NTFS.

What I did:

Connected the SSD to the system (internal SATA, not USB or eSATA), designated a drive letter G. Started Ghost 14 and selected copy drive: the drive C as the source, Drive G as the destination. Checked verify errors, prohibit smart sector, copy MRB (or MBR?). The copy was successful, took less than 15 min.

So I shut down the system, took out the WD HD, the SSD still connected. Restarted the system, everything went ok, the black Windows XP showed up, then it went to the blue Windows welcome screen. It got stuck there. This repeated a few times. I redid the entire format/copy thing. It always got stuck at this step.

I had to just put the WD HD back and got my computer running. Just curious what went wrong and how I could replace the hard drive without resintalling from scratch.

Any help will be appreciated!
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 14 - copy drive problem
Reply #1 - Dec 14th, 2010 at 6:31pm
 
@
zhh

You are only a few minutes away from success.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

Do not let old-XP see the new partition before cloning.
Doing so would give XP a chance to assign a drive letter, it will be remembered by the registry when it is cloned, and the clone will adopt the wrong drive letter for itself.

Do not let new-XP see the old-XP partition the first time it boots.
If new-XP sees old-XP, it won't reuse the original drive letter when it assigns a drive letter to itself. (Once XP-2 has booted and reallocated new drive letters, the old-XP partition can be reintroduced into the system, if desired.)

You broke the first rule. You let the old OS see the partition on the second HD before the clone. But it’s not a bug in Ghost. It is the way these OS behave when they are cloned. It’s nothing to do with formatting either. The Ghost user-guides from Ghost 9 to Ghost 15 say “The new hard drive does not need to be formatted.” This could be interpreted by some as “you can use a formatted disk”. If you do, the copied OS will not load. What the guide should say is “You can either copy into unallocated space or into a partition without a drive letter.” If a drive letter is present, with or without formatting, the copied OS will not load.

The other issue with cloning is what to do with the HDs immediately after the clone has been created. The user-guides for Ghosts 9 and 10 had confusing instructions and subsequent user-guides have no instructions at all. The second rule applies to this situation.

As you found, Windows won’t load because of a drive letter issue. But this can be corrected in less than a minute by zeroing or altering the Disk Signature and forcing Windows to recalculate Partition Signatures. There are many ways to do this but the easiest ways are fdisk /mbr from a Win98 boot floppy or by using Clear Sig from a BING CD. Once the Disk Signature has been zeroed, Windows then boots normally. By breaking either of the above rules, the Ghost clone will fail to load, but the failed clone can always be made to boot by zeroing the Disk Signature.

Here is a cookbook approach to zeroing the Disk Signature.

1... Using Method #3   http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm#method3

Use a Win98 floppy (or a Win98SE floppy). At the A: prompt, type fdisk /mbr and press ENTER. You won't see anything happen. It just goes back to the A: prompt.

As most people don't have floppy drives, you can also use a Win98 boot CD from...

http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

Get the Win98SE_bootdisk.iso. Burn the ISO file with ImgBurn. Use the same method. Type fdisk /mbr at the A: prompt and press ENTER.

2... Using Clear Sig. Download BootIt NG. There is a one month trial usage. Unzip the file and make a boot CD.

double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Partition Work (Don't put a dot in Normal), next
don't choose any Default Device Options (if necessary, these can be chosen in BING), next
leave Registration strings blank, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish

Boot from the CD....

the BootIt NG CD boots to the Work with Partitions window
Using the radio buttons on the left side of the Work with Partitions window, select the appropriate hard drive. (It should  be HD 0)
click the "View MBR" button.
click the "Clear Sig" button. Then click OK on the Notice.
click the "Apply" button.
click the "View MBR" button again and confirm the number in the left bottom corner is 0x00000000
click Cancel
click Close on the "Work with Partitions" window
click Reboot and remove the CD

These methods take less than a minute. That's much better than up to several hours for a repeat clone and there is no need to open the computer to switch hard drives.

 
 
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zhh
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Re: Ghost 14 - copy drive problem
Reply #2 - Dec 14th, 2010 at 10:33pm
 
Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for the step-by-step instructions. It worked like a charm!

One issue I had with the now working new HD - not sure if it's related to the new drive or not - size wize.

Now XP frequently reboots when I am watching movie streams. This never happened with the old HD.

One thing I can think of is the old HD has C formated as FAT32 and the size of C was 20GB. Now the new HD is 40GB, also formated as FAT32 (was NTFS, by "cloned" to FAT32).

Thanks again!
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 14 - copy drive problem
Reply #3 - Dec 14th, 2010 at 10:59pm
 
@
zhh

I don't know why your computer is rebooting but if you want to convert to NTFS....

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=105

Do "Align for NTFS Only" before you Convert.
 
 
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