Norton Ghost - Clone Won't Work

[Peter]

What makes you think the new drive is 'D'?

Because it's the only other HD on the system. At least that's how it
works with my setup. I have 2 HD's on the primary IDE and set to cable
select, allowing me to boot from either IDE. When I boot from one the
other becomes drive D and vice versa. Now, perhaps XP can mess things
up when assigning drive letters, but seeing as the original cloning
process was done from boot floppies then I can't see how this could
possibly happen.

 

[Peter]

Ed Coolidge wrote:

jimbo wrote:

Still no go. I cloned again using the external USB2.0 case with the
new drive mounted. No error messages from Ghost, but when I try to
boot to WinXP using the newly cloned drive, it gives a message
saying the drive needs to be checked and it goes through three
chkdsk checks, all of which pass, then it reboots and the same thing
happens again.

And when I boot from the WinXP CD, it asks which Windows to use and
has "D:\" as the only option. "Repair" takes me to the "D:\" prompt
which doesn't provide much. "Install" doesn't give a repair option,
only a new installation and if I start that option, it gives a
warning message about another OS being there and that it is a bad
idea to install two OSs on the same partition.

It appears that Ghost is not performing a proper clone.

Here is the boot.ini file from "C" root.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
C:\="Windows 98"

And the attempt to use the second IDE as described in another post,
fails to boot.

jimbo




So far it looks like you did everything right, which would lead me to
suspect that there might be something wrong with the new drive, or
the BIOS has the disk configured incorrectly. It's been awhile, but
does Ghost have an option to verify the contents of the cloned
drive? If it does I would use it to see if it checks out. If you
have Partition Magic, you can use it to check the new drive. It
should be able to detect any partition or BIOS configuration errors.



Well, I did a WinXP installation on the new drive with no problems.
But interesting, when I checked everything out with Partition Magic,
it reports "Bad Disk" for the old "D" drive! Even though it works
perfectly with my system, now and in the past. It shows up in Device
Manager as working, etc. No errors of any kind, boots the WinXP
installation, etc, etc. But for some reason Partition Magic thinks
there is something wrong with it and does not even show any partitions
on it.

Suggestions?

jimbo

Well, Partition Magic not liking the partition is disturbing. But, for now,

I see above you say you put the drive in a USB enclosure and cloned it.
I'm not concerned with that particular clone attempt but want to know if
you've had the new drive in the machine, regardless of the interface,
with your existing XP system running. And if you HAVE then it's been
'installed' by XP, given a unique GUID, and assigned a drive letter;
which will be faithfully copied to the new drive when you do a clone so
it will not be a 'new' drive when booting from that clone but will be
whatever letter it was assigned, so it won't be assigned the missing
'system drive' letter.

First, I'd like for you to boot the 'old' setup and record which letter
the two old drives are assigned. You are assuming the win98 boot drive
is c? So XP is installed on D and SAYS itself that D is it's system
drive? I.E. the XP windows directory is on D:\Windows?

Anyway, on the chances that a 'virgin' drive will get detected in the
same order, you need to get the new drive back to 'virgin' status. And
the easiest way to do that is put the new drive as master on the primary
IDE port, boot a win98 rescue disk, and fdisk /mbr it.

Writing a win98 boot record will wipe out the GUID.

Then, do not boot XP with that new drive installed. Do the clone with a
Ghost FLOPPY.

Then remove your old XP drive, place the new one in as slave with the
win98 master, and see if it boots up right (while crossing fingers that
it detects the drives in the original order).

Yes, Win98 is on "C" and WinXP is on "D". And "C" partition is on the
HD jumpered as master and is at the end of the ribbon cable and "D"
partition is on the HD jumpered as slave and is on the middle of the
ribbon cable.

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions. I will be away for a day,
so I will reply again when I get back and have a chance to do some
more work on this problem.

jimbo

So, how was the new, replacement HD originally partitioned again? I'm
not too familiar with Ghost, but does it also do the partitioning and
create the file system that is to be used?

If I were to clone an NTFS partition to another drive I'd want to make
sure that that drive was already formatted using the NTFS file system.
As a hypothetical question, what would happen if you tried to clone an
NTFS partitioned HD to a FAT32 formatted HD?

 

[jimbo]

I was just curious. What error did Partition Magic give?
Also, have you tried installing the new drive XP with the other two? If
so was the new drive accessible?

Just the word "bad" after the drive 2 header and no partition
information. And yes, Partition Magic can and was used to create an NTFS
partition. When the new drive is placed in the external USB enclosure,
Windows Explorer could see it OK. It just wouldn't boot to WinXP when it
was placed in the old WinXP HD.

jimbo

 

[Bob Davis]

Well, the next thing I will try when I get back to my desktop is to do the
fdisk /mbr from Win98.

If you do this, pick up the latest version (bundled with ME, I think) from
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm. It handles big drives whereas earlier
versions may not.

When you return, try leaving the HD's in their original positions and remove
a CD-ROM to position the new drive for cloning. I don't see a reason to
swap drive positions around like you've been doing, and setting drives to
"cable select" should eliminate the need to worry about jumpers. That new
drive should clone perfectly and be asfunctional as your original D: drive
is. I've cloned almost every type of drive without problems, but never on a
dual-boot system, which is what has me (and everyone else) perplexed. You
might drop a message to the forum on the Symantec site, but I don't know how
responsive the Symantec techs will be.

 

[David Maynard]

David Maynard wrote:

jimbo wrote:


Ed Coolidge wrote:


jimbo wrote:


Still no go. I cloned again using the external USB2.0 case with the
new drive mounted. No error messages from Ghost, but when I try to
boot to WinXP using the newly cloned drive, it gives a message
saying the drive needs to be checked and it goes through three
chkdsk checks, all of which pass, then it reboots and the same thing
happens again.

And when I boot from the WinXP CD, it asks which Windows to use and
has "D:\" as the only option. "Repair" takes me to the "D:\" prompt
which doesn't provide much. "Install" doesn't give a repair option,
only a new installation and if I start that option, it gives a
warning message about another OS being there and that it is a bad
idea to install two OSs on the same partition.

It appears that Ghost is not performing a proper clone.

Here is the boot.ini file from "C" root.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
C:\="Windows 98"

And the attempt to use the second IDE as described in another post,
fails to boot.

jimbo




So far it looks like you did everything right, which would lead me to
suspect that there might be something wrong with the new drive, or
the BIOS has the disk configured incorrectly. It's been awhile, but
does Ghost have an option to verify the contents of the cloned
drive? If it does I would use it to see if it checks out. If you
have Partition Magic, you can use it to check the new drive. It
should be able to detect any partition or BIOS configuration errors.



Well, I did a WinXP installation on the new drive with no problems.
But interesting, when I checked everything out with Partition Magic,
it reports "Bad Disk" for the old "D" drive! Even though it works
perfectly with my system, now and in the past. It shows up in Device
Manager as working, etc. No errors of any kind, boots the WinXP
installation, etc, etc. But for some reason Partition Magic thinks
there is something wrong with it and does not even show any partitions
on it.

Suggestions?

jimbo


Well, Partition Magic not liking the partition is disturbing. But, for now,

I see above you say you put the drive in a USB enclosure and cloned it.
I'm not concerned with that particular clone attempt but want to know if
you've had the new drive in the machine, regardless of the interface,
with your existing XP system running. And if you HAVE then it's been
'installed' by XP, given a unique GUID, and assigned a drive letter;
which will be faithfully copied to the new drive when you do a clone so
it will not be a 'new' drive when booting from that clone but will be
whatever letter it was assigned, so it won't be assigned the missing
'system drive' letter.

First, I'd like for you to boot the 'old' setup and record which letter
the two old drives are assigned. You are assuming the win98 boot drive
is c? So XP is installed on D and SAYS itself that D is it's system
drive? I.E. the XP windows directory is on D:\Windows?

Anyway, on the chances that a 'virgin' drive will get detected in the
same order, you need to get the new drive back to 'virgin' status. And
the easiest way to do that is put the new drive as master on the primary
IDE port, boot a win98 rescue disk, and fdisk /mbr it.

Writing a win98 boot record will wipe out the GUID.

Then, do not boot XP with that new drive installed. Do the clone with a
Ghost FLOPPY.

Then remove your old XP drive, place the new one in as slave with the
win98 master, and see if it boots up right (while crossing fingers that
it detects the drives in the original order).

Yes, Win98 is on "C" and WinXP is on "D". And "C" partition is on the
HD jumpered as master and is at the end of the ribbon cable and "D"
partition is on the HD jumpered as slave and is on the middle of the
ribbon cable.

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions. I will be away for a day,
so I will reply again when I get back and have a chance to do some
more work on this problem.

jimbo

So, how was the new, replacement HD originally partitioned again? I'm
not too familiar with Ghost, but does it also do the partitioning and
create the file system that is to be used?

That's what making a clone is all about. You end up with a disk like the
one you cloned.

If I were to clone an NTFS partition to another drive I'd want to make
sure that that drive was already formatted using the NTFS file system.
As a hypothetical question, what would happen if you tried to clone an
NTFS partitioned HD to a FAT32 formatted HD?

I doesn't matter how, or if, the destination drive is formatted as Ghost is
going to wipe them out if you're doing a disk to disk copy. If it's a
partition to partition copy it'll either replace the existing partition or
create a new one, depending on what you tell it to do.

 

[David Maynard]

Because it's the only other HD on the system.

But it's partitions and logical drives inside of partitions that get
assigned letters, not 'hard drives'.

At least that's how it
works with my setup. I have 2 HD's on the primary IDE and set to cable
select, allowing me to boot from either IDE. When I boot from one the
other becomes drive D and vice versa.

That would depend on the operating system and how it assigns drive letters.
Windows 98 assigns them as it loads but XP does not. Once XP has installed
the drive, assigned it a GUID and identified the partitions, swapping them
around will make no difference (to the letter assignment, that is), unless
you wipe out the GUID forcing it to redetect them (or edit the registry).

XP's PnP ordering is also different. While not common it isn't unheard of
for XP to call a drive on the secondary IDE port 'C' and a drive on the
primary IDE port 'D', the reverse of what Windows98 would do. (not
applicable in this case as he indicated both were on the primary port, but
it's an example of how Windows98 assumptions don't necessarily apply to XP)

Now, perhaps XP can mess things
up when assigning drive letters, but seeing as the original cloning
process was done from boot floppies then I can't see how this could
possibly happen.

Under 'normal' circumstances that would probably be a good guess since we
would naturally assume everything else is pretty much 'the same' as when
the old drives were originally installed so we presume the new drive would
replicate a similar detection process. However, since it didn't work there
must be something else going on. And with that knowledge it raises
questions about what else might have happened, or changed. For example,
while he didn't mention doing so, if he installed the new drive, and booted
XP, to 'check it out' before doing the clone then XP is aware of the drive
and subsequent cloning would copy that awareness, and perhaps cause the
drive letters to not get assigned as expected.

Or perhaps there is something odd about the partition information on the
old drives. Something that's, for some unknown reason, changed from when
they were originally installed so that partition letter assignments don't
work the same as the original, before they changed, drives when the new
drive is redetected.

 

[Ed Coolidge]

Just the word "bad" after the drive 2 header and no partition
information. And yes, Partition Magic can and was used to create an NTFS
partition. When the new drive is placed in the external USB enclosure,
Windows Explorer could see it OK. It just wouldn't boot to WinXP when it
was placed in the old WinXP HD.

jimbo

No error number? That's odd! It's been awhile since I've used Magic, and it's
been even longer since I've actually seen it give a complaint, but I think that
it still lets you check the drive's configuration for errors. It should be an
option somewhere under the Tools menu. Otherwise, I'll have to use fdisk to
wipe the partitions off the new drive and try again as it should have no
problems examining a blank drive.

 

[jimbo]

I have physical hard drive "C" with Win98 and physical hard drive "D"
with WinXP in a dual boot setup. I want to injstall a new, larger
physical hard drive "D". I have tried to follow the procedure for
cloning a drive using Norton Ghost. I disconnected the cables from "C"
and connected the new hard drive. (I set the new drive's jumper to
"master" the same as the "C" drive.) Then Norton Ghost was booted from
floppies and I cloned drive 2 to drive 1. This all seemed to OK. Then I
disconnected the new drive and changed the jumper to "slave". Then I
reconnected the "C" drive. Then I disconnected the "D" drive and
connected the new drive in it's place. Now when I boot to WinXP it fails
just after the WinXP splash screen. A blue screen with an error message
appears and the system reboots.

Any insight will be appreciated.

jimbo

OK, here is the last chapter. Things got much worse, couldn't boot at
all after an aborted atempt at a repair installation. I finally decided
to punt and do a new installation. I never use Win98, so I decided to
just do a new WinXP install on "C". First, I copied all files on "C" to
the new hard drive. Then I changed all jumpers to cable select and
installed the old "C" drive to the master position, with nothing in
slave position. I used a Win98 boot floppy to delete all partitions,
then created one new partition. The new WinXP installation stalled while
searching for devices. So, I basically gutted my case, one hard drive,
one DVD drive, video card, mouse and keyboard was all that was left.
WinXP installed without a problem.

Then I copied old files to the current WinXP partition and to the new
hard drive which I placed in the slave position. Finally I had a new
WinXP installation on one of my old 40 GB hard drives (master) and all
of the old files from my old "C" and "D" drives on the new 200 GB hard
drive (slave).

Then I reinstalled hardware and software step by step until I am almost
back to where I want to be with a new 200 GB hard drive as slave and an
old 40 GB hard drive as master.

Just a few comments. I think Norton Ghost caused most of my problems. I
also think there was some basic problem with my original installation.
Even though everything appeared to work perfectly, something, somewhere
was not right. And throughout all of the hard drive swapping that I did
while getting all of my files saved on the new hard drive, WinXP always
assigned correct drive letters, etc. No confusion about what drive was
where. So I think my original procedure was OK, just a glitch with Ghost
and the original installation. And with 99% of my programs reinstalled,
the system is much more responsive and seems much faster than before
this ordeal. So, even though it was more work than I wanted the results
are worth the effort.

Thanks to all who help me through this task.

jimbo

 

[jaster]

OK, here is the last chapter. Things got much worse, couldn't boot at
all after an aborted atempt at a repair installation. I finally decided
to punt and do a new installation. I never use Win98, so I decided to
just do a new WinXP install on "C". First, I copied all files on "C" to
the new hard drive. Then I changed all jumpers to cable select and
installed the old "C" drive to the master position, with nothing in
slave position. I used a Win98 boot floppy to delete all partitions,
then created one new partition. The new WinXP installation stalled while
searching for devices. So, I basically gutted my case, one hard drive,
one DVD drive, video card, mouse and keyboard was all that was left.
WinXP installed without a problem.

Then I copied old files to the current WinXP partition and to the new
hard drive which I placed in the slave position. Finally I had a new
WinXP installation on one of my old 40 GB hard drives (master) and all
of the old files from my old "C" and "D" drives on the new 200 GB hard
drive (slave).

Then I reinstalled hardware and software step by step until I am almost
back to where I want to be with a new 200 GB hard drive as slave and an
old 40 GB hard drive as master.

Just a few comments. I think Norton Ghost caused most of my problems. I
also think there was some basic problem with my original installation.
Even though everything appeared to work perfectly, something, somewhere
was not right. And throughout all of the hard drive swapping that I did
while getting all of my files saved on the new hard drive, WinXP always
assigned correct drive letters, etc. No confusion about what drive was
where. So I think my original procedure was OK, just a glitch with Ghost
and the original installation. And with 99% of my programs reinstalled,
the system is much more responsive and seems much faster than before
this ordeal. So, even though it was more work than I wanted the results
are worth the effort.

Thanks to all who help me through this task.

jimbo

For what it's worth, maybe the problem with Ghost was you moved the D to
C used the new drive as D for the clone. Maybe you should have added new
drive as E then cloned D to E.

IMHO your final solution is right except I would have made the new drive
the C instead of D since you've removed Win98. I used the vendor utility
to clone drives and it hasn't failed to clone a drive yet.

 

[jimbo]

For what it's worth, maybe the problem with Ghost was you moved the D to
C used the new drive as D for the clone. Maybe you should have added new
drive as E then cloned D to E.

IMHO your final solution is right except I would have made the new drive
the C instead of D since you've removed Win98. I used the vendor utility
to clone drives and it hasn't failed to clone a drive yet.

Well, I made "C" my boot drive for WinXP. The new drive will be used for
data, backups, etc.

In getting to where I am now, I swapped drives several times to get
everything copied, verified, etc. Every time I did a swap, WinXP
recognized the new drive properly and assigned a drive letter
appropriate for it's position. So, I think it doesn't matter where the
drive is when it is cloned, but the final location is important. For
example if I clone a "C" drive, it doesn't matter where it is during the
cloning, but it then must be used in a "C" position. Just my thoughts.

I am going to try the Western Digital utility to copy my "C" drive to my
spare 40 GB hard drive. In theory, I should then be able to swap it out
for my current "C" drive and boot to a system that is the same as I now
boot to.

jimbo

 

[jaster]

jaster wrote: [snip]

For what it's worth, maybe the problem with Ghost was you moved the D to
C used the new drive as D for the clone. Maybe you should have added
new drive as E then cloned D to E.

IMHO your final solution is right except I would have made the new drive
the C instead of D since you've removed Win98. I used the vendor
utility to clone drives and it hasn't failed to clone a drive yet.

Well, I made "C" my boot drive for WinXP. The new drive will be used for
data, backups, etc.

In getting to where I am now, I swapped drives several times to get
everything copied, verified, etc. Every time I did a swap, WinXP
recognized the new drive properly and assigned a drive letter appropriate
for it's position. So, I think it doesn't matter where the drive is when
it is cloned, but the final location is important. For example if I clone
a "C" drive, it doesn't matter where it is during the cloning, but it then
must be used in a "C" position. Just my thoughts.

I am going to try the Western Digital utility to copy my "C" drive to my
spare 40 GB hard drive. In theory, I should then be able to swap it out
for my current "C" drive and boot to a system that is the same as I now
boot to.

jimbo

Yes good luck. What I meant was maybe Ghost looked at the new drive as
"THE C:" drive and set up WinXP programs to the new drive instead of to
the Win98 C:\.

 

[Ed Coolidge]

Yes good luck. What I meant was maybe Ghost looked at the new drive as
"THE C:" drive and set up WinXP programs to the new drive instead of to
the Win98 C:\.

I don't think that Ghost or any other cloning utility will alter any of the data
from the original drive unless you tell it to.

 

[jimbo]

Well, I made "C" my boot drive for WinXP. The new drive will be used for
data, backups, etc.

In getting to where I am now, I swapped drives several times to get
everything copied, verified, etc. Every time I did a swap, WinXP
recognized the new drive properly and assigned a drive letter
appropriate for it's position. So, I think it doesn't matter where the
drive is when it is cloned, but the final location is important. For
example if I clone a "C" drive, it doesn't matter where it is during the
cloning, but it then must be used in a "C" position. Just my thoughts.

I am going to try the Western Digital utility to copy my "C" drive to my
spare 40 GB hard drive. In theory, I should then be able to swap it out
for my current "C" drive and boot to a system that is the same as I now
boot to.

jimbo

This getting to be a disaster! I used the Western Digital Data Guard
utility to clone my "C" drive to the old, now spare hard drive using the
DOS floppy option. It took 3 hours to complete! And when I booted to
WinXP, Windows Explorer reported the drive as un-formatted! Partition
Magic showed a drive with file type 7, not NTFS. Needless to say it
won't boot.

What am I doing wrong???? What other software could I use to make a
clone of my "C" drive that will boot?

jimbo

 

[jaster]

This getting to be a disaster! I used the Western Digital Data Guard
utility to clone my "C" drive to the old, now spare hard drive using the
DOS floppy option. It took 3 hours to complete! And when I booted to
WinXP, Windows Explorer reported the drive as un-formatted! Partition
Magic showed a drive with file type 7, not NTFS. Needless to say it won't
boot.

What am I doing wrong???? What other software could I use to make a clone
of my "C" drive that will boot?

jimbo

You're using the utility clone your 200gb to your 40gb is that
correct? And your 200gb is using how much space?
DataLife asks whether you want to resize the partition and tries to create
a partition in the same portions as the disk being copied.

 

[jimbo]

You're using the utility clone your 200gb to your 40gb is that
correct? And your 200gb is using how much space?
DataLife asks whether you want to resize the partition and tries to create
a partition in the same portions as the disk being copied.

Nope, I installed WinXP on one of the old 40 GB hard drives as "C",
and I installed the new 200 GB hard drive as slave "D". The "C" WinXP
installation is a new fresh installation. And I managed to copy all of
the critical files to the new 200 GB hard drive before I started. Then I
reinstalled my applications under the new WinXP and got everything setup
the way I wanted. Everything works just as I want.

Then I decided to make a clone of "C" on the old, unused 40 GB hard
drive. So, I disconnected "D" and connected the old HD in the "D"
position. I used the Western Digital DOS boot floppy method of using
Data Guard. The "clone" operation took three hours. I left the clone in
"D" position and booted into WinXP where "D" was reported as unformatted
by Windows Explorer and as type 7 by Partition Magic.

Latest chapter. I used the DOS boot floppy method of Norton Ghost. The
"clone" operation took less than 30 minutes. I again left the clone in
"D" position and booted to WinXP, where "D" showed up as a normal
partition. So being extra cautious, I removed the new clone and
reinstalled the 200 GB HD in "D" position and booted to WinXP.
Everything looked and acted normal. So, I took the plunge and swapped
out the clone for the "C" drive. It booted to WinXP with no problems. So
now I have two 40 GB hard drives that boot to a fully operational WinXP
installation.

Thanks for all of the help and advice. I am still puzzled by why the
clone of the dual boot system wouldn't work.

jimbo

 

[jaster]

Nope, I installed WinXP on one of the old 40 GB hard drives as "C",
and I installed the new 200 GB hard drive as slave "D". The "C" WinXP
installation is a new fresh installation. And I managed to copy all of the
critical files to the new 200 GB hard drive before I started. Then I
reinstalled my applications under the new WinXP and got everything setup
the way I wanted. Everything works just as I want.

Then I decided to make a clone of "C" on the old, unused 40 GB hard drive.
So, I disconnected "D" and connected the old HD in the "D" position. I
used the Western Digital DOS boot floppy method of using Data Guard. The
"clone" operation took three hours. I left the clone in "D" position and
booted into WinXP where "D" was reported as unformatted by Windows
Explorer and as type 7 by Partition Magic.

Latest chapter. I used the DOS boot floppy method of Norton Ghost. The
"clone" operation took less than 30 minutes. I again left the clone in "D"
position and booted to WinXP, where "D" showed up as a normal partition.
So being extra cautious, I removed the new clone and reinstalled the 200
GB HD in "D" position and booted to WinXP. Everything looked and acted
normal. So, I took the plunge and swapped out the clone for the "C" drive.
It booted to WinXP with no problems. So now I have two 40 GB hard drives
that boot to a fully operational WinXP installation.

Thanks for all of the help and advice. I am still puzzled by why the clone
of the dual boot system wouldn't work.

jimbo

Me either or why it took 3 hrs unless that was the formatting HD.
But WD recommends using the Data LifeGuard Windows interface
instead of the floppy for W98 or newer OS. The floppy stuff is no-OS
installation.

Congrats. The best news you're done and you got a back-up HD for a
multimedia system though you'll have to reinstall XP anyway (new cpus are
detected by XP).

 

[Bob Davis]

OK, here is the last chapter. Things got much worse, couldn't boot at all
after an aborted atempt at a repair installation. I finally decided to
punt and do a new installation. I never use Win98, so I decided to just do
a new WinXP install on "C". First, I copied all files on "C" to the new
hard drive. Then I changed all jumpers to cable select and installed the
old "C" drive to the master position, with nothing in slave position. I
used a Win98 boot floppy to delete all partitions, then created one new
partition. The new WinXP installation stalled while searching for devices.
So, I basically gutted my case, one hard drive, one DVD drive, video card,
mouse and keyboard was all that was left. WinXP installed without a
problem.

I would keep C: by itself as master (end of cable) on one controller and put
the old drive (master) and DVD (slave) on the other. You should always keep
the devices to a minimum when installing XP, as on two systems recently I've
seen it pick up card readers, etc., as C: and placing the boot HD as O: or
some other unacceptable letter.

Just a few comments. I think Norton Ghost caused most of my problems.

I don't think so, as I've cloned with Ghost dozens (hundreds?) of times and
restored on at least 10 occasions, and never had a glitch. Admittedly, I've
never tried to clone or restore on a dual-boot system, but I suspect XP was
having a drive-letter crisis that lead to your problems. I think once you
get XP running smoothly, if you haven't already, I'm sure you'll be able to
clone the drive reliably. I do it weekly rotating six drives in mobil
racks, and once it a while it has been a lifesaver when some driver or
installation goes awry and there's no way to otherwise recover.

This happened just recently when horrific noises started coming out of the
PC speaker at shutdown or restart, as if the CPU was overheating (it
wasn't), but happening only sporadically. I couldn't figure it out so I
restored a recent clone and incremental backups I make hourly to D: through
a batch file running via Task Scheduler, and in 15 or 20 minutes was up and
running again.

And with 99% of my programs reinstalled, the system is much more
responsive and seems much faster than before this ordeal. So, even though
it was more work than I wanted the results are worth the effort.

Keep the spyware out with Spybot or AdAware SE, SpywareBlaster, and a custom
HOSTS file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm), and keep the
registry free of clutter with a cleaner like Registry First Aid
(http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/reg1aid/). That'll help keep things lean
and clean over the long haul that may help you avoid reinstalls of XP. I've
had XP installed here for 15 months without a reinstall and it runs as fast
as it ever did without crashes.

 

[jimbo]

I would keep C: by itself as master (end of cable) on one controller and put
the old drive (master) and DVD (slave) on the other. You should always keep
the devices to a minimum when installing XP, as on two systems recently I've
seen it pick up card readers, etc., as C: and placing the boot HD as O: or
some other unacceptable letter.




I don't think so, as I've cloned with Ghost dozens (hundreds?) of times and
restored on at least 10 occasions, and never had a glitch. Admittedly, I've
never tried to clone or restore on a dual-boot system, but I suspect XP was
having a drive-letter crisis that lead to your problems. I think once you
get XP running smoothly, if you haven't already, I'm sure you'll be able to
clone the drive reliably. I do it weekly rotating six drives in mobil
racks, and once it a while it has been a lifesaver when some driver or
installation goes awry and there's no way to otherwise recover.

This happened just recently when horrific noises started coming out of the
PC speaker at shutdown or restart, as if the CPU was overheating (it
wasn't), but happening only sporadically. I couldn't figure it out so I
restored a recent clone and incremental backups I make hourly to D: through
a batch file running via Task Scheduler, and in 15 or 20 minutes was up and
running again.




Keep the spyware out with Spybot or AdAware SE, SpywareBlaster, and a custom
HOSTS file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm), and keep the
registry free of clutter with a cleaner like Registry First Aid
(http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/reg1aid/). That'll help keep things lean
and clean over the long haul that may help you avoid reinstalls of XP. I've
had XP installed here for 15 months without a reinstall and it runs as fast
as it ever did without crashes.

Thanks for the reply. Well, I used Ghost to make a working clone of my
current 40 GB "C" drive to my old, now spare 40 GB drive. Everything
worked perfectly and the clone boots to WinXP just fine. So Ghost works
on a vanilla system with the OS on "C". But Ghost didn't seem to get it
right on my dual boot setup with WinXP on "D" drive. The original clone
with Ghost seemed to be OK, files and directories appeared to be the
same on the clone as on the original "D". But it wouldn't boot to WinXP.

Anyway, I almost never used Win98, so I am better off with Win98 gone
and WinXP as my only OS on "C" drive.

And I use Spybot and Ace Utilities on a regular basis. And I use NOD32
in an active role and Avast! in a passive role and I practice safe Hex.
And I check running applications and services on a regular basis, so my
system stays as clean as I know how to keep it. But despite the
precautions, the system had slowed down significantly since April 2003.

I wonder if all of the Windows updates that I allowed to be installed
since April 2003 had anything to do with the slow down? The current
WinXP is SP1 as installed from the CD.

jimbo

 

[Bob Davis]

Thanks for the reply. Well, I used Ghost to make a working clone of my
current 40 GB "C" drive to my old, now spare 40 GB drive. Everything
worked perfectly and the clone boots to WinXP just fine. So Ghost works on
a vanilla system with the OS on "C". But Ghost didn't seem to get it
right on my dual boot setup with WinXP on "D" drive. The original clone
with Ghost seemed to be OK, files and directories appeared to be the same
on the clone as on the original "D". But it wouldn't boot to WinXP.

Since Ghost is making an exact clone of the drive, I still think XP is
experiencing some sort of drive-letter confusion, although I can't put my
finger on it.

I have noticed that when I restore XP from one of my clones that I always
get a "Windows is installing your new hardware...." window when I boot up
fresh after the restore operation. There is no hint of what hardware it
refers to, but when I reboot again all is back to normal. Does XP see the
C: drive as a new drive? If so, how could it? I made a clone from the same
drive, then restored it, so how would it even know the difference?

Anyway, I almost never used Win98, so I am better off with Win98 gone and
WinXP as my only OS on "C" drive.

I agree, as I used Win98SE up until June 2003 and although it was a stable
platform for me I don't miss its resource limitations and other
disadvantages.

And I use Spybot and Ace Utilities on a regular basis. And I use NOD32 in
an active role and Avast! in a passive role and I practice safe Hex. And I
check running applications and services on a regular basis, so my system
stays as clean as I know how to keep it. But despite the precautions, the
system had slowed down significantly since April 2003.

I wonder if all of the Windows updates that I allowed to be installed
since April 2003 had anything to do with the slow down? The current WinXP
is SP1 as installed from the CD.

Try running a registry cleaner regularly to keep it clean, or otherwise
it'll clutter up increasingly on a daily basis. It's amazing the junk RFA
cleans out, things like reg entries for downloaded files I've deleted, etc.
Even run daily I usually get 20-50 hits. PC Magazine tested some of these
cleaners and although RFA scored well another program (RegistryFixer) fared
better, though RFA's "Member Rating" was five stars. See
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1585438,00.asp for more info. If you
run RFA for the first time I guarantee you'll likely see hundreds of useless
registry entries that can be safely deleted, even on a new install of XP.

But be careful and check what RFA wants to delete, as I've seen it list
entries that point to non-existent folders that if deleted cause some
programs to malfunction. One example is Winfax v10.02, which has entries
pointing to folders that don't exist, but if I delete these entries it will
generate a GPF when I try to import from my scanner the next time I'm using
Winfax. Such entries theoretically should be deleted, but not in this case.
In another example, Nero v5 has the same situation, but when this entry is
deleted Nero doesn't faulter and only creates the registry entry again. I
now have both programs on my exclude list.

I've installed all Windows updates and never experienced any slow-downs with
any of them, even those that had reports of problems. Again, this
installation of XP Pro is the original from June 2004 and it runs as well
now as before, actually better with newer, faster HD's installed. I've had
a few glitches, primarily from installing software, that were fixed by
restoring a Ghost clone created just days before. Since I also do hourly
incremental backups to D: on all important files (photos, documents,
business databases, etc.), and do IE and Outlook backups daily with eBackup.
I also keep one of my six cloned drives in mobile racks off site.

 

[David Maynard]

Since Ghost is making an exact clone of the drive, I still think XP is
experiencing some sort of drive-letter confusion, although I can't put my
finger on it.

I'm convinced it was a drive letter assignment issue too. Perhaps because
he had a partition problem on the drive he was cloning.

I have noticed that when I restore XP from one of my clones that I always
get a "Windows is installing your new hardware...." window when I boot up
fresh after the restore operation. There is no hint of what hardware it
refers to, but when I reboot again all is back to normal. Does XP see the
C: drive as a new drive?

A new "C" drive is likely what it's "installing."

If so, how could it? I made a clone from the same
drive, then restored it, so how would it even know the difference?

I don't know if by clone you mean really a clone or a ghost image. And an
image of what and when.

XP serializes the drives and partitions so it knows which one is which and
those 'serialized' partitions are what get assigned drive letters. If the
serials don't match then it's going to 'install' the 'new' one and assign
drive letters.

So it depends on when you made the clone/image, whether the drive had been
previously installed, if it was installed afterwards, and what state it's
in when you 'clone' it back.

<snip>