Re: Copy and swap hard drive

Seeing that Anna does not seem to be around, I'll try to
answer your questions - see below.


"Greg Maxey" <gmaxey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eJWeRhmFGHA.1260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Anna/Pegasus
>
> I am replying to you both from one place. I will also apologize for being
> stupid in this arena.
>
> Here is the current situation Drive 0 contains a 160G drive with:
> C: the system drive
> D: Programs
> E: Data
> F: Swap Files
>
> Drive 1 Contains a 250G drive with:
> J: exact copy of C: with MBR
> K: exact copy of D:
> L: exact copy of E:
> M: exact copy of F;
>
> End state that I want:
>
> Drive 0 Contains the larger 250G drive with the following partitions:
> C:
> D:
> E:
> F:
>
> I then want to but the old smaller drive back in the system and remame its
> partition letters.
>
> I was at this same state earlier and I did this:
> I did boot the machine immediately after the copying. When I did, windows
> booted up normally expect for ChkDsk scanned the drive J;
> I then removed the smaller drive in 0 and moved the larger drive to 0. I
> left the smaller drive out of the system.
> I tried to boot the machine and it froze at the windows welcome screen. I
> think I know why it did this now.
> I next tried to boot with the WindowsXP disk to do a repair. While doing
> so, the repair process asked for a file on C:\something or another and
then
> it froze. It was my sound card driver I think and I think it is why
windows
> froze on the welcome screen.
>
> At this point I realized that I was in deep doodoo. Fortunately I was
able
> to but the old smaller drive back in the system and reboot. I figure that
> the attempted repair had boogered up my copy of C:\ on the new larger
drive,
> so I have recreated my exact copy and ready for the next step.
>
> Anna, unfortunately I no longer have your 13 steps available.
>
> I understand now that I am not to boot with both disks in the system after
> making the copy. However, I am not sure exactly what it is that I do need
> to do. Here are some quesitions:
>
> Anna you say:
>
> Immediately following the cloning operation and the shutdown of your
> machine, disconnect your source drive and
> boot ONLY to the newly-cloned drive (as indicated in step 13. above). DO
NOT
> BOOT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLONING OPERATION WITH BOTH DRIVES
CONNECTED.
>
> 1. When I disconnect the source drive, do I move the cloned or copied
drive
> cable to the Disk 0 position now or later?

After cloning the source drive, you make the target
disk the primary master disk.

> 2. When I do boot with the source drive removed, I know from the
exerience
> earlier that Windows is going to be looking for my Sound Card Driver with
a
> pointer looking in drive C:\.

No need to worry about a sound card driver at this stage.

> Will I need to first perform the fixmbr
> procedure that Pegasus mentions

Fixmbr is a repair step. You only perform it if the machine
fails to boot.

> or will the simple act of rebooting with
> just the cloned drive intalled result in fixing the mbr.

No. Rebooting with the cloned drive will not do what fixmbr does.

> 3. When I am up and running with the new larger drive, how do I then
change
> its drive letters to C:, D:, E:, and F? When that is done, is there
another
> process to fixmbr?

Once you're up and running, run diskmgmt.msc via Start / Run,
then use it to fix your drive letters.

> 4. When I do get the new drive partition renamed, what happens when I put
> the old drive back in? I will have two drive with the same partition
> labels. How to I correct that.

There is no problem in reconnecting the old disk after the
first successful boot with the new disk. It would be a good
idea to relabel your drives to avoid confusion. Just right-click
them in My Computer.

> Anna I will try search google groups for your earlier post, but I am
afraid
> I need more detailed help from one of your experts here before I brave the
> deep water again.

I have seen a few posts from people who used Ghost where
the logon process looped continuously: Log on, brief desktop,
back to the logon prompt. This is a well-understood problem
that is not too hard to fix.

> --
> Greg Maxey/Word MVP
> See:
> http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tips.htm
> For some helpful tips using Word.
>
>
> Greg Maxey wrote:
> > I have a 160G hard drive in the disk 0 position of my controller. I
> > bought a 250G hard drive that I want to make my primary drive (in
> > disk 0 postion) and move the 160G to drive position 1 to use for
> > storing backups, images, etc.
> >
> > The current 160G drive has four partitions. System C:, Programs D:,
> > Data E:, and Swap File F:,
> >
> > Using Norton Ghost I copied C:, D:, E: and F;< to the 250G drive that
> > I put in Disk 1 position temporarilly. Now I have an exact copy of
> > the small disk on the larger disk. This part was easy (an perhaps a
> > complete waste of time).
> >
> > The 250G drive now has four partitions J:, K:, L:, and M: I set J:
> > to be an active drive and loaded the Master Boot Record files to it.
> >
> > Now I am in a log jam. How do I change the drive letters on the
> > larger drive that I want to be primary to and how do I get XP to boot
> > up on the new drive (I want it in Position 0 ultimately).
> >
> > I tried taking the smaller drive out of the system and moving the new
> > larger drive to position 0 and then rebooting the machine. I thought
> > that once booted that I could change the drive letters. For some
> > reason WindowsXP froze on the welcome screen. I even tried to repair
> > the installation on the new drive but the reinstallation froze at the
> > 27 minute mark.
> > Can anyone direct me to how to achieve this. Thanks.
>
>


.

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