3 failed attempts to clone - what should I try next

Sniipe

I have a 1tb hard drive currently as my operating system, but I've bought a new 500gig which is faster that I want to use as my operating system hard drive.

I've tried Norton Ghost - It copied all the files but failed hard on being bootable. With this I tried windows startup repair but with no joy. I think what went wrong was that the 1tb hard drive had 100mb of stuff before the NTFS partition... I think this was important.

I've also tried Acronis 2011 - It also failed with the MBR.

I've also tried windows backup and restore. This seemed like the best option. It failed when it tried to use the iso I had on my network. It didn't like it because it came from a 1tb partition and was trying to write it to a 500gig drive. There is only 190gig being used on the 1tb hard drive so I tried to shrink the partition but it only shrank it by 180gig using diskpart 0.

I don't know what to try next. I have this ultimate boot disc which has some cloning built in... Perhaps someone can point me to a good app that I could use?

Fysh

What brand drives are you using? Are they both of the same type and on the same interface? (Eg are they both SATA 3GBPs drives?)

I've had a lot of success with the Acronis TrueImage utility branded as MaxBlast or DiscWizard (depending on whether you're using Maxtor or Seagate drives at the time, you can use the tool for free so long as at least one drive from the relevant manufacturer is installed in the system at the time). You boot from a CD with the software, then tell it what disk to copy and where to copy it to. I presume you can do the same thing with the full version of Acronis.

I would suggest you try again with Acronis, copying just the partition and not the MBR. Once you've done this, with only the 500GB drive installed, boot from your OS media and go to startup repair (Vista/7) or recovery console (XP). The Vista/7 Startu Repair utility should sort it out for you, while in XP you'll need to run the fixboot, fixmbr and bootcfg commands (in the case of bootcfg you'll need the /scan flag, which should then find your installation and ask if you want to include it in the bootloader).

RoyalMarine

with norton ghost, when you clone it, remove the old drive.

then you will need to repair / remake the mbr with your windows installation disk. just run the repair feature and it should sort it out.

Sniipe

Hey Royal Marine - I did this but it didn't work out. I can't remember what the problem was but failing Acronis I will try again.

I followed Acronis again and filled out the details to clone disk 1 to disk 2. It asked for a reboot but is failing to reboot because windows tells me that its

"(waiting for) Acronis Scheduler2 Helper"

Its still this way after 30 min...

google tells me nothing of note: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/14406

Sniipe

I've tried a few options now but I think they all try to do the same - shrink using diskpart 0 then copy. They all fail to shrink it down enough. (ie copywipe, clonezilla, other tools from the ultimate boot CD)

So I tried "Acronis True Image 2011 Home" again and things went well until the reboot where it was about to do the work. It complained "AUTOPART ERROR: Script file not found".

I'm now going to give Norton Ghost one more try. After this I think I'll sell the hard drive I just bought (Hybrid Seagate)

Fysh

You shouldn't need to shrink the partition though - what you want is to create an image of the used space on the partition. As long as your destination drive has at least as much space as used on your existing partition, you should be fine. This is pretty much what I've done before using Acronis, though I haven't used the full version much.

Try this - wipe any partitions you've got on the Seagate drive and start again. Go here and download DiscWizard. Create and burn bootable media from the software package. Shut down your system, ensure both drives are connected, and start up from the bootable media. Then select the "clone your drive" option.

If that doesn't work, try this: download Gparted, burn it to cd and boot into it with your 500GB drive connected. Create two partitions, one of ~200GB (lets call this D) and one taking up the remaining space (let's call this E)

Then connect both drives, boot into the DiscWizard software, and choose the "Create Disk Image" option. Select your 1TB drive as the source, and save the image to E. This should take somewhere between 15 and 30 mins depending on your system. When this finishes, choose "Restore from Disk Image". Select the image you've just created on E, then select D as the target. Let it run through, and shut down when you finish. Remove the 1TB drive, test the 500GB drive to see if it boots, and if it doesn't - boot with the Windows 7 media and do a startup repair. You should then be able to boot your new D partition. Once that's working, you can boot into GParted, delete E, and expand D to fill the whole drive. You'll need to do startup repair again after doing this (because Windows Vista & 7 react badly to partitions being resized), but it work.

Sniipe

just finished using Norton Ghost again. I've the new hard drive only in and the old is unplugged.

I throw in the windows repair CD. The one I created from windows 7 itself and asks you to brand it: "Repair Disc 64bit Windows 7"

First message i get is
"System Recovery options
Windows found problems with your computer's startup options.
Do you want to apply repairs and restart your computer?"
I select Repair and restart.

This does nothing.

I'm still facing "BOOTMGR is missing"

What should I try now?

Sniipe

For sh1ts and giggles I throw in the windows 7 disc itself.
It loads up the Windows Boot Manager. Instead of going into setup I opt for F8 which is advanced options. (this doesn't give me much - except boot in safe mode, safe mode with networking, etc... I didn't expect this for a setup) I pick boot normally.

I click repair windows and it brings me back to the same screen that I had for system recovery options. This time instead of telling me straight away that I need to repair it lets me select the operating system to repair... I click next... hold my breath.

I get the screen of recovery tools:
Startup repair
System Restore
System Image Recovery
Windows Memory Diagnostic
Command prompt.

I select startup repair.

It searches for problems and attempts repairs. On completion I click finish to restart immediately.

Bingo... I get into windows I am a happy bunny. Thanks all - I probably wouldn't have tried ghost again if it weren't for ye. I hope this hybrid hard drive is worth it.

Quick final question:
If I want to erase the old hard drive - ie use it as a second hard drive but blank - how would I do that? Wouldn't there now be 2 MBR's on both hard drives vying to be the booting drive?

RoyalMarine

the startup repair would have remade the mbr (master boot record) for windows 7.

sorry about my vague steps above, never done it with win 7. i did it with win xp, and i had to manually select repair the mbr.

glad you got it sorted! most would have decided to abandon the idea and re-install instead.

RoyalMarine

Sniipe wrote: »

Quick final question:
If I want to erase the old hard drive - ie use it as a second hard drive but blank - how would I do that? Wouldn't there now be 2 MBR's on both hard drives vying to be the booting drive?

sneaky edit there

your right, the mbr might possibly confict with each other and cause problems.

you have a few options.

connect both drives.
put in windows 7 installation disk.
go through the basic installation until you get to where you want to install windows 7 onto.
delete all partitions relating to your disk you want to wipe.

once deleted, restart and hey presto. your drive has no mbr.

or, plug both drives in, go to bios, select boot order as the new drive, pray it doesnt conflict with the mbr on the second drive and format it in windows if it boots.

or third, connect the drive as an external drive using a sata to usb adapter.