Boot problem, copied Master

[William B. Lurie]

Just open Drive Image on the drive where you have the application installed,
choose restore, select the image, select the destination, note, you will
have to use the option to first delete the partition to which you wish to
restore the image as it will be restoring a partition. The option is a part
of the drive image application and a step in the restore process.

If everything works as planned, you shouldn't need to use Recovery Console
though, as "D" stated, since the clone will have the boot information from
the drive that is first in line, you may need to rebuild the boot config on
the new drive as follows:
NOTE: The instructions below explain getting to the Recovery Console from
the XP CD, I've never accessed the RC from the hard drive, I assume you do
it from within Windows and it then reboots the system to the RC. If you
can't for some reason, just follow the instructions below and then type the
command:

Place the XP CD in the drive, save your settings and exit. The system will
reboot and should boot from the CD. If you see a message to hit any key in
order to boot from the CD, do so, otherwise, assuming your system supports
it, the system should boot from the CD on its own as it can't find
an OS on the hard drive.

XP Setup will begin by examining your system, don't worry, just let it run,
it's just copying some files to a temp folder. Ultimately, you'll be
brought to a menu. Choose, "Repair a Windows XP installation using the
Recovery Console, press R.

You will be asked for an administrators password. This is not any of the
accounts you've created for XP. It's a hidden system account for which
users are asked only to create a password during setup. Most leave this
blank. If you left it blank, when asked for a password, just leave blank
and press enter.

At the prompt type bootcfg /rebuild and press enter.

Okay, Michael. Good news and bad news. I put the clone in as
Master/Single, and got to RC. I chose "R". Got to the prompt and
entered bootcfg /rebuild. It mumbled a bit and then asked:
Add installation to boot list? I said Yes.
It then asked me to Enter Load Identifier..... I just hit Enter.
It then asked me to enter OS Load Options..... I just hit Enter.
It took me back to the c:\windows prompt.
Bottom line is, I didn't know what to enter, and when I
restarted the system, the Slave drive is in exactly the same
condition I described....it boots past the black Windows Logo
screen, to the blue Windows XP logo screen, and then switches to
the Activation error message I reported before. Was I supposed to
enter something at thos eprompts? If so, what would you suggest?
I'd be happy to try again, before I go for the reformat and new
Drive Image run.
Bill L.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

It should have listed what was on the drive thus giving you the necessary
information. Try this, go back to the RC, at the prompt type bootcfg /scan,
that should tell you and the RC what is there, make note of it, then type
bootcfg /rebuild.

If you still can't get it going, try doing a repair install as that may
rebuild the MBR:
Repair install as follows:
Boot from the CD. If your system is set to be able to boot from the CD, it
should detect the disk and give a brief message, during the boot up, if you
wish to boot from the CD press any key.

Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.

Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console.

The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.

 

[William B. Lurie]

It should have listed what was on the drive thus giving you the necessary
information. Try this, go back to the RC, at the prompt type bootcfg /scan,
that should tell you and the RC what is there, make note of it, then type
bootcfg /rebuild.

If you still can't get it going, try doing a repair install as that may
rebuild the MBR:
Repair install as follows:
Boot from the CD. If your system is set to be able to boot from the CD, it
should detect the disk and give a brief message, during the boot up, if you
wish to boot from the CD press any key.

Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.

Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console.

The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.

Okay, Michael, more progress each time. Using one of the processes
you suggested, I got to the (1) Setup Windows option on the
Recovery Console. It proceeded to Setup Windows, and this time it
started with 39 minutes to go, and actually proceeded to load from
there, because the countdown actually proceeded. It got to about
33 minutes to go, and started asking the usual questions, and when
it got to entering my product key, I tried three different product
key. I was hoping that it would accept the Product Key of the XP
installation of which I had made a copy.......no, it wouldn't. I
then tried the Product Key of the XP Corporate CD that I borrowed
in order to get it to "boot to CD".......no, it wouldn't. I tried
the Product Key of the XP Home Edition I have lying around not
being used...again, no acceptance.

I'd have thought it would accept either the Master's PK, or that
of the CD that's in the reader......but no such luck.

Your advice and information have been very good. Can I impose
on you for the next bit?

Bill Lurie

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

All you should need is the key for the setup that is on that disk. If this
is a clone of the first disk, then whatever product key was used to set that
up should work here.

 

[William B. Lurie]

All you should need is the key for the setup that is on that disk. If this
is a clone of the first disk, then whatever product key was used to set that
up should work here.

Right, Michael. That's what I figured. But I checked with AIDA as
to what key is on the Master right now, and used that when
asked, and I got the error message. Well....I will try it again.
It's frustrating to have gotten over the next hurdle, the one
that is really the last one, and it won't accept it.
Bill L.

 

[Pop Rivet]

Hey Bill, got a quick suggestion for you: When you enter that code, be VERY
careful of similar letter/number characters. Been there done that! I
finally learned to NEVER write the key down in normal longhand; only block
print it in all caps. or better yet, print it out from something like AIDA.
When I first got my machine, I scanned the label to get the number copied
for convenience, but then I hand copied it to a business card and guess
what? Yup, 0 and O problem and C and G problems, PLUS I managed to screw a
1 vs and l at one point. Hmm, believe it or not, that's a (one) and a
(lower case l (ell)) back there! Holy crap Martha!! ~[ Why I thought
there would be a lower case L is still beyond me, but, ... .

You've sure had an interesting time of it. I'd call that patience and
perseverence! Hope this one's the winner fer ya!
Me? Doing pretty good - almost figured it out!! More news soon.

PopRivet

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Excellent suggestion, a major cause of key code issues and I was just about
to suggest it to him when I saw your post.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

Hey Bill, got a quick suggestion for you: When you enter that code, be
VERY
careful of similar letter/number characters. Been there done that! I
finally learned to NEVER write the key down in normal longhand; only block
print it in all caps. or better yet, print it out from something like
AIDA.
When I first got my machine, I scanned the label to get the number copied
for convenience, but then I hand copied it to a business card and guess
what? Yup, 0 and O problem and C and G problems, PLUS I managed to screw
a
1 vs and l at one point. Hmm, believe it or not, that's a (one) and a
(lower case l (ell)) back there! Holy crap Martha!! ~[ Why I
thought
there would be a lower case L is still beyond me, but, ... .

You've sure had an interesting time of it. I'd call that patience and
perseverence! Hope this one's the winner fer ya!
Me? Doing pretty good - almost figured it out!! More news soon.

PopRivet

Right, Michael. That's what I figured. But I checked with AIDA as
to what key is on the Master right now, and used that when
asked, and I got the error message. Well....I will try it again.
It's frustrating to have gotten over the next hurdle, the one
that is really the last one, and it won't accept it.
Bill L.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Excellent suggestion, a major cause of key code issues and I was just about
to suggest it to him when I saw your post.

Yes, thank you and Pop both, Michael, but I have been extremely
careful about that. Let me point out something to you about
Microsoft's choice of letters and numbers in those ProdKeys.
Look 'em over very carefully. I have five sets right here in
front of me. I see no 0 or O ... I see no 1 .....
I am certain that that is not my problem. Fellows, I have
decided that I am going to put aside this Drive-Image-Generated
"COPY" of my Master Drive, and this afternoon I made a
Drive Image 7.0.3 "IMAge", which you, Michael, have been
telling me is what I should have been doing all along.

I imaged Master to a separate partition on my Slave Hard Drive.
It is nowhere near the same size in Bytes as what it is supposed
to be an image of. It is maybe 80% as large. It's late to be
doing anything with it tonight, but tomorrow I'm going to study
it, and the Manual, and I'm going to ask for specific instructions
on how to recreate a duplicate of my Master which I can boot and
run. You know, that has been my goal all along.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Yes, thank you and Pop both, Michael, but I have been extremely
careful about that. Let me point out something to you about
Microsoft's choice of letters and numbers in those ProdKeys.
Look 'em over very carefully. I have five sets right here in
front of me. I see no 0 or O ... I see no 1 .....
I am certain that that is not my problem. Fellows, I have
decided that I am going to put aside this Drive-Image-Generated
"COPY" of my Master Drive, and this afternoon I made a
Drive Image 7.0.3 "IMAge", which you, Michael, have been
telling me is what I should have been doing all along.

I imaged Master to a separate partition on my Slave Hard Drive.
It is nowhere near the same size in Bytes as what it is supposed
to be an image of. It is maybe 80% as large. It's late to be
doing anything with it tonight, but tomorrow I'm going to study
it, and the Manual, and I'm going to ask for specific instructions
on how to recreate a duplicate of my Master which I can boot and
run. You know, that has been my goal all along.

And now continuing next morning, I hate this thread being so long,
but it is continuing logically, I guess.

When I started this morning, my Master had C: as 5306 MB, Active/Primary.
My Slave had G: as the new Drive Image, 4128.7 MB, only logical.
Slave also had I: old D-I 'Copy', 4188 MB, Active/Primary
I deleted the partion containing the 'Copy' which I have been
unable to make operational all this time.
I then used Partition Magic to set the newly-created Drive Image
as Active and Primary. It is now the only partition on that
drive, except for what is unused ('extended') space.
If need be, I will delete that, too, and format that whole drive,
and make a new Drive Image of the Master on that hard drive.
Notice that I finally got around to doing what you've been telling
me I should have done in the first place.

I am, of course, on my Master drive, and looking at the partition
on the Slave with Windows Explorer, all that is there other than
a few SysInfo files and the like, is one file....4192 MB,
and it is the PowerQuest Image file. You told me that is the clone
of my Master Hard Drive XP. So now what do I do with that drive,
that partition, that file, to make it so that I can use it as a
clone of my Master Drive, and substitute it in place of my
Master Drive (literally and operationally)?

 

[William B. Lurie]

And now continuing next morning, I hate this thread being so long,
but it is continuing logically, I guess.

When I started this morning, my Master had C: as 5306 MB, Active/Primary.
My Slave had G: as the new Drive Image, 4128.7 MB, only logical.
Slave also had I: old D-I 'Copy', 4188 MB, Active/Primary
I deleted the partion containing the 'Copy' which I have been
unable to make operational all this time.
I then used Partition Magic to set the newly-created Drive Image
as Active and Primary. It is now the only partition on that
drive, except for what is unused ('extended') space.
If need be, I will delete that, too, and format that whole drive,
and make a new Drive Image of the Master on that hard drive.
Notice that I finally got around to doing what you've been telling
me I should have done in the first place.

I am, of course, on my Master drive, and looking at the partition
on the Slave with Windows Explorer, all that is there other than
a few SysInfo files and the like, is one file....4192 MB,
and it is the PowerQuest Image file. You told me that is the clone
of my Master Hard Drive XP. So now what do I do with that drive,
that partition, that file, to make it so that I can use it as a
clone of my Master Drive, and substitute it in place of my
Master Drive (literally and operationally)?

Just to continue this thread, and get some practice, and make
sure I did what I was supposed to, I reformatted my Slave dive,
took everything off it in the process, created one new full
sized partition, and then did a Drive Image image/backup creation
on that drive. I did not do a 'Drive Copy' but a Drive Image Backup.
I hope that's what I was supposed to do, Michael and Pop.

The size of the XP partition on the Master, which I imaged, is
16000 MB with 5373 in use, 'active---primary'..... 'C:'.
The size of the Slave is 38154 MB partition (G with now 4207 MB
in use. I hope I did it right, and I hope somebody will tell me
now how to make the Slave Drive bootable and a true clone of the
XP partition of the Master Drive.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Drive Image compresses the image file so there might be a size differential.

It certainly should be operational on the master drive and all you should
have to do is use Drive Image to restore it to that drive.

As far as the restoration process is concerned, the same holds true for the
secondary drive. That said, I don't know if that will make it bootable as
I've never done this operation to a separate hard drive on the same system.
I would think if you are replacing one drive with the other there should be
no problem but if you have both drives installed, there might be an issue.

One thought occurred to me, as oppose to setting the second drive as slave,
have you considered making it a secondary master; this is only for the
purpose of having both drives installed at the same time as your previous
configuration seemed to be. If it is simply replacing the master, then I
would think setting it as the master drive would be the way to go.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Ah, so you simply imaged directly to the slave. I've never used Drive Image
that way so I can't be much help. It's possible that Drive Image ignores
the pagefile. I'm not sure about this as its been awhile since I've checked
the manual as well as PowerQuest's website documentation.

As to setting it bootable, again, I can't be much help as I've never imaged
to a second drive on the same system. However, I'm pretty sure I've
replaced hard drives and restored an image of the previous drive to that
drive and it booted fine. I can't say for sure about a second hard drive
connected at the same time as the original.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Drive Image compresses the image file so there might be a size differential.

It certainly should be operational on the master drive and all you should
have to do is use Drive Image to restore it to that drive.

As far as the restoration process is concerned, the same holds true for the
secondary drive. That said, I don't know if that will make it bootable as
I've never done this operation to a separate hard drive on the same system.
I would think if you are replacing one drive with the other there should be
no problem but if you have both drives installed, there might be an issue.

One thought occurred to me, as oppose to setting the second drive as slave,
have you considered making it a secondary master; this is only for the
purpose of having both drives installed at the same time as your previous
configuration seemed to be. If it is simply replacing the master, then I
would think setting it as the master drive would be the way to go.

Thanks, Michael. I'll study your advice some more later.
Meanwhile---POP---- I believe you said you have done this
exact operation numerous times. I have the Drive Image (NOT
created by doing a 'copy') and it is all alone on a hard
drive. I want to recreate the original from which I
made that 'copy'. Can you tell me exactly how it is done?
I believe the D-I manual says to boot to their PQRE
(Recovery Environment) but my CD doesn't do that. I've messaged
PQ asking what to do, but they are molasses in January at
the North Pole when it comes to answers.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Ah, so you simply imaged directly to the slave. I've never used Drive Image
that way so I can't be much help. It's possible that Drive Image ignores
the pagefile. I'm not sure about this as its been awhile since I've checked
the manual as well as PowerQuest's website documentation.

As to setting it bootable, again, I can't be much help as I've never imaged
to a second drive on the same system. However, I'm pretty sure I've
replaced hard drives and restored an image of the previous drive to that
drive and it booted fine. I can't say for sure about a second hard drive
connected at the same time as the original.

POP----maybe your advice is what I need since you've
done it. The Drive Image file is, I believe, one
big file many GB in size, with their own peculiar
V2I extension, and I'd be surprised if
anything other than PQ's own software will unravel
it. It sure doesn't look like anything that would
'restore to a hard drive and boot fine'.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

If the image file is in a location where the first drive can see it and get
to it, open Drive Image on that drive, your current master I guess, and then
run restore from there. Drive Image has a full GUI, you just need to click
restore, you'll need to choose the destination and delete any partition that
is currently located there, then, still within drive image, navigate or
browse to the image file and click restore or OK or whatever appears there
to get it started.

You may receive a message that it must reboot the system to perform one or
more of the tasks, let it do so and once finished it should reboot.

 

[Richard]

Thanks, Michael. I'll study your advice some more later.
Meanwhile---POP---- I believe you said you have done this
exact operation numerous times. I have the Drive Image (NOT
created by doing a 'copy') and it is all alone on a hard
drive. I want to recreate the original from which I
made that 'copy'. Can you tell me exactly how it is done?
I believe the D-I manual says to boot to their PQRE
(Recovery Environment) but my CD doesn't do that. I've messaged
PQ asking what to do, but they are molasses in January at
the North Pole when it comes to answers.

You certainly should be able to boot from the Drive Image 7 CD into the
recovery environment. However this will not work if you do not already have
Microsoft .Net Framework installed on your computer.
With the CD in the drive boot up and wait. There will be a white progress
bar at the bottom of the screen followed by some black and some blue
screens. At some point you may be told that a network adapter was not found.
Press OK. Do the same for the network interface screen. Now wait a bit
longer and the recovery environment screen will appear with the various
options that are available.

The above procedure should be gone through as a test that you can get into
and use the PQRE since this is the way to recover your complete system from
saved images in the event of a disaster happening to your computer.

A point that has not been mentioned hitherto is that an image cannot be
restored to a drive partition smaller than the one from whence it came. In
other words an original drive of say 20 GB must be restored either to the
same drive or to one of the same size or larger even though only 10 GB has
been used.

I guess that the image you have made of your master drive used the standard
compression and if, like me, you are a bit of a pessimist you will have
ticked the verify boxes.

Richard.

 

[William B. Lurie]

You certainly should be able to boot from the Drive Image 7 CD into the
recovery environment. However this will not work if you do not already have
Microsoft .Net Framework installed on your computer.
With the CD in the drive boot up and wait. There will be a white progress
bar at the bottom of the screen followed by some black and some blue
screens. At some point you may be told that a network adapter was not found.
Press OK. Do the same for the network interface screen. Now wait a bit
longer and the recovery environment screen will appear with the various
options that are available.

The above procedure should be gone through as a test that you can get into
and use the PQRE since this is the way to recover your complete system from
saved images in the event of a disaster happening to your computer.
*********************************************************************

Part of my restoring problem is that my DI-7 CD is supposed
to boot right to the PQRE and it definitely does not. So I
am unable to restore using the PQRE. The CD runs and gives the
DI-7 but I have no way to get to PQRE. Remember, I need to get there
COLD, not from Windows. I've bucked this problem to PowerQuest
Symantec but they have managed to avoid responding to it.
***********************************************************************

A point that has not been mentioned hitherto is that an image cannot be
restored to a drive partition smaller than the one from whence it came. In
other words an original drive of say 20 GB must be restored either to the
same drive or to one of the same size or larger even though only 10 GB has
been used.

******************************************************
Yes, thank you, I knew that.
*******************************************************

I guess that the image you have made of your master drive used the standard
compression and if, like me, you are a bit of a pessimist you will have
ticked the verify boxes.
******************************************************

Yes, indeed. Thank you.
W B Lurie

 

[William B. Lurie]

If the image file is in a location where the first drive can see it and get
to it, open Drive Image on that drive, your current master I guess, and then
run restore from there. Drive Image has a full GUI, you just need to click
restore, you'll need to choose the destination and delete any partition that
is currently located there, then, still within drive image, navigate or
browse to the image file and click restore or OK or whatever appears there
to get it started.

***********************************************************
Okay, Michael. The Image is all that is on my Slave drive.
I can create a second partition on the Slave drive, as large
as the original. Then I can open D-I on the Master and call
for it to restore the original XP in that new partition,
using the Image that is on that same drive, in its own
partition, as the source. Should that work? If it does, the
next step will be to make it active and primary, which I
think I can do......abd then you think it will be bootable, eh?
W B L

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Place the compressed image file on the master or on a separate partition on
the slave because you cannot restore the image to the same partition on
which you are storing that image file.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Place the compressed image file on the master or on a separate partition on
the slave because you cannot restore the image to the same partition on
which you are storing that image file.

Yes, Michael. I did just that. And of course, I started it up and
it ran 4 minutes and then gave me an unintelligible error message
and halted. For the record, on the Slave Drive, I have
G:\C_Drive.v2i, a logical file 16002.2 MB and also
I:\ no name, a logical file, 22152 MB
I execute Drive Image, Restore etcetera, first try
I get error message about destination being in use
(obviously it is not in use!!!), so I hit Ignore.
Error message says Can't copy data from ..file to destination,
Error E0BB0097. Volume xyzpdqblah cannot be locked.
Error 00000005, access denied, 0XE0BB0097.

So I aborted and will try moving the image over to the master drive
and try restoring from there. Any comments, Michael or POP??
(Grrrrrr).