Re: Copy and swap hard drive

Pegasus,

Thanks for your offer to help. Both drive are SATA drives. As I mentioned
the smaller, older drive is in Disk 0 position.

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

I don't know a) what that means. b) how to do it.

Do you mean that here is where I physically move the cable? I want the
larger disk to ultimately be the Disk 0 disk.

I worry about the sound card, because the last time I tried to boot in
Windows with just the new drive it hung at the Windows start up screen. It
is lookin for something.

I appreciate your help, but I can't go forward without more detailed
intstructions.

Remember folks I alreadys freely admitted ignorance in this area. So
please, if you can give me steps like: Make the cloned disk the primary
disk by doing:

a.
b
c
d
etc.

Thanks


--
Greg Maxey/Word MVP
See:
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tips.htm
For some helpful tips using Word.


Pegasus wrote:
> 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.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dual boot disk replacement
    ... >>> I am trying to replace a failing disk on a Windows dual boot system ... This disk is not being replaced. ... I've looked at the drives in the disk manager and this ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)
  • Re: XP Home SP3 -- FAT32 vs NTFS boot disk question
    ... I'd like to use my 80GB as my boot ... enough space on the boot disk to attempt a NTFS conversion. ... Looking at your situaion and desire (assuming this is a Windows XP only ... Highlight one of your drives and click on ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Boot Problem
    ... Was either disk set up as a Microsoft dynamic disk? ... Do not change the boot sector signature. ... I ensure all OK by swapping over drives. ... installing XP as it insisted there was no drive to install itself on! ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
    ... Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows ... and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. ... By the way, the BIOS recognizes both optical drives, and even in Device ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: 2 drives needed to boot - how to fix
    ... my cloned drive and my system won't boot. ... seems my system wants both hard drives to be able to boot. ... Which is your primary master disk - the old or the new disk? ... Could you, in effect, start over by making a fresh install of the XP OS ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
Loading