Hi all,
Just bought new 120Gb WD Caviar HDD, to replace failing 80Gb Seagate. Installed drive, partitioned as 1 partition, so now drive H. Old drive is partitioned as C,Dand E.
Copied all of C partition(which includes Windows XP) to H drive using clone command in Norton Ghost. Successful.

However, can't get H drive to boot system on it's own as Primary Master, (i.e. with old drive disconnected), just freezes on Dos screen.
If I re-connect old drive it all works again.

Can fully access new drive in My Computer.
What do I do to solve this? Do I have to re-name the drive as "C"?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'm sure it's a simple one if you've done it before!

Steve W

Have you set the jumper settings so that it's the master?

aye sounds like you havnt set the jumpers?

when you copied the drive did you make sure all boot files and info were copied aswell?

How have you prepared the new disk ?

Have you for instance run "format /mbr" on the new disk to rebuild the master boot record ?

Cheers

Ian

Will XP not recognise the disk signature as dirve H - then fail to boot very far as everything is set to boot of drive C ?

Sure I've fallen over that before.....

Deano

Wow,
too busy working to see replies.

Jumpers are set to "cable select" so that I can swap the drives on the grey or black connector. Is this OK?

Norton Ghost, afaik, copies all the boot files etc when cloning.

The drive was prepared using "compmgmt.msc", Drive management, to partition as a primary drive then formatted using the same programme. Windows then labelled it as "New Volume H".
I cloned the "C" drive onto it and it was automatically recoginsed by Windows as "BOOT H".

Deano, I think this may be the problem. If I rename the "H" drive as "C" using Drive Management, I suppose this could work.

Any thoughts anyone?


Steve W


[Edited by Steve PPP - 1/15/2004 4:26:38 PM]

install bootmagic on one of your other partitions/drives set that up n then give it a try...?

Hobo_Jojo,
Sorry never heard of Bootmagic, is it freeware?
What does it do?
Steve W

not freeware, available at 'usual sources' tho, comes with partition magic, also partition magic allows you to format/make drives active drive, change drive letters etc

Windows XP is an absolute NIGHTMARE to clone. It seems to decide itself whether it wants to boot or not!

You need to perform a bit-by-bit copy of the disk.

There are 3 ways I would suggest:

1. Use the dd command in linux.
2. Use a Solo hardware device.
3. Use Casper XP

we have to clone / copy all kinds of hard disks day in, day out, and these are the only reliable methods I can suggest.

Norton Ghost seems fine on all other OS's, but not WinXP - its hit and miss.

if i were you i'd just back up all your needed data, make a list of the software you have/want installed and re install it all on the new hdd from scratch

BuRR,
Thanks for that, I'll try the re-naming first, as I don't possess any of your options.
It's doubly annoying that I bought Norton ghost just to do this disc swap, so if it's dodgy for XP I'm not best pleased with them.
The pc is at home, so I'll try the letter swap tonight, fingers crossed.

Steve W

Another option could be Knoppix?

Its a bootable CDROM that gives you a working version of Linux without affecting your operating system.

Finally, this is a bit of a long shot, but if you can get over to Wakefield and you have about 2 hours to spare, I'll do it for you.

How's that?

BuRR, Fantastic!
May take you up on that in about 2 weeks if no joy, as I am away next week.
Very generous offer though, will try other solutions first.
Thanks again for the offer.
Steve W

I'm sure the way we got round it (It was a Win 2K server) was with a DOS (or Win98) bootable Floppy

Orig Drive =A, New Drive = B

Remove Drive B then ensure the XP install on Drive A has No knowledge of Drive B at all. You may have to dig around in the regsitry to get rid of the Drive Sig/Drive Letter mapping. -

Boot machine to DOS Floppy With A and B in the machine. Use Ghost (on floppy) to Clone A to B.

Now remove floppy and drive A, make B master and boot to B. XP will just about cope, with making this "new" drive "C:" and then the boot will continue.

Deano

email me when you're ready, mate.

No problem.