Cloned C Drive w/Ghost 10, Can't Log on to "New" Drive

[graham]

I have XP Pro with a 40GB HD (partitioned 20GB/20GB) NTFS. I installed
Ghost 10 and have attempted (4 times) to Clone the C drive to a new
160GB (partitioned 40GB/60GB/60GB). First attempt, following the
manual, was without partitioning the new drive. But, since I was
unable to partition afterwards I deleted it. Second Attempt was after
partitioning and formatting NTFS. Result: Boots fine but, at log on
(Ctrl/Alt/Del) it just goes immediately to Logging Off. I read that
Ghost won't clone to a NTFS formatted drive so, I started again.
Deleted partitions and re-partitioned ran Ghost 10 again. Result is
the same. Tried it again, 4th time and same result "Logging Off".

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anna, if you're reading
this, I thought this posted yesterday when replying to another thread
post by you but, I don't see it anywhere.

Graham

 

[Bryan Eckert]

I believe the problem you have is that windows is trying to boot to C:
drive, but the cloned drive will have a different drive number assigned to
it.

The easiest fix for this is to go into the registry at
localmachine->system->mounteddrives (forgive me I don't know the exact name
offhand, but you'll see it, or google it if you don't), and delete all the
entries. This is where the registry defines drive letters.

After you've delete those registry entries, then you can clone the drive,
and windows will reassign the drive letter when it boots off the cloned
drive. Just make sure to unplug the old drive when rebooting. This should
fix the problem.

 

[Anna]

I have XP Pro with a 40GB HD (partitioned 20GB/20GB) NTFS. I installed
Ghost 10 and have attempted (4 times) to Clone the C drive to a new
160GB (partitioned 40GB/60GB/60GB). First attempt, following the
manual, was without partitioning the new drive. But, since I was
unable to partition afterwards I deleted it. Second Attempt was after
partitioning and formatting NTFS. Result: Boots fine but, at log on
(Ctrl/Alt/Del) it just goes immediately to Logging Off. I read that
Ghost won't clone to a NTFS formatted drive so, I started again.
Deleted partitions and re-partitioned ran Ghost 10 again. Result is
the same. Tried it again, 4th time and same result "Logging Off".

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anna, if you're reading
this, I thought this posted yesterday when replying to another thread
post by you but, I don't see it anywhere.

Graham

Graham:
Wish I could help you but truth-to-tell we've not used Symantec's Ghost 10
for some time now so I'm loathe to advise you re your problem. After working
with the Ghost 2003 program for many years, we just weren't thrilled with
either Ghost's 9 or 10 versions as we seemed to encounter too many issues
affecting its reliability and user interface. Having said that, I know there
*are* satisfied users of at least one of those versions and I hope you'll
hear from them re solving your problem.

These days we've been working nearly exclusively with the Acronis True Image
program. By & large we've found it most reliable in an XP environment and
relatively easy to use.
Anna

 

[BR549]

I have XP Pro with a 40GB HD (partitioned 20GB/20GB) NTFS. I installed
Ghost 10 and have attempted (4 times) to Clone the C drive to a new
160GB (partitioned 40GB/60GB/60GB). First attempt, following the
manual, was without partitioning the new drive. But, since I was
unable to partition afterwards I deleted it. Second Attempt was after
partitioning and formatting NTFS. Result: Boots fine but, at log on
(Ctrl/Alt/Del) it just goes immediately to Logging Off. I read that
Ghost won't clone to a NTFS formatted drive so, I started again.
Deleted partitions and re-partitioned ran Ghost 10 again. Result is
the same. Tried it again, 4th time and same result "Logging Off".

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anna, if you're reading
this, I thought this posted yesterday when replying to another thread
post by you but, I don't see it anywhere.

Graham

I can't vouch for Ghost 10 as I don't have it, I've used Ghost 2003 for
years with no problems at all. I always boot from either floppy or cd and
can clone a drive with 20gb of data in around 10 minutes. I have removable
drive trays and periodically clone my C drive and then swap and run off the
clone, it's never failed to work.

 

[graham]

I can't vouch for Ghost 10 as I don't have it, I've used Ghost 2003 for
years with no problems at all. I always boot from either floppy or cd and
can clone a drive with 20gb of data in around 10 minutes. I have removable
drive trays and periodically clone my C drive and then swap and run off the
clone, it's never failed to work.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Bryan:
I'll check that out but, I did remove the original drive from the PC
before attempting to boot to the new drive. I would think the Windows
would have reassigned my "I" drive to my "C" drive. But I will check
this since it is relatively fast.

Anna:
If Bryan's option doesn't produce the desired result, no fault of
Bryan's, in your opinion would it just be more productive to Uninstall
Norton Ghost 10 and install Acronis True Image? Also, will I encounter
any registry issues doing this? Rouge entries that affect Acronis True
Image?

Both your help is very much apreciated.
Graham

 

[BR549]

Bryan:
I'll check that out but, I did remove the original drive from the PC
before attempting to boot to the new drive. I would think the Windows
would have reassigned my "I" drive to my "C" drive. But I will check
this since it is relatively fast.

Anna:
If Bryan's option doesn't produce the desired result, no fault of
Bryan's, in your opinion would it just be more productive to Uninstall
Norton Ghost 10 and install Acronis True Image? Also, will I encounter
any registry issues doing this? Rouge entries that affect Acronis True
Image?

Both your help is very much apreciated.
Graham

Graham, with Ghost 2003 there is no need to format or partition any drive
you clone to. It creates a mirror image if you do a copy so it overwrites
the disk and its files system. You can install an out of the box new disk
and make a copy to it without doing anything else to it. I don't know where
you heard that Ghost won't clone to an NTFS disk but I can guarantee you
that that is not the case with Ghost 2003.

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

I have XP Pro with a 40GB HD (partitioned 20GB/20GB) NTFS. I installed
Ghost 10 and have attempted (4 times) to Clone the C drive to a new
160GB (partitioned 40GB/60GB/60GB). First attempt, following the
manual, was without partitioning the new drive. But, since I was
unable to partition afterwards I deleted it. Second Attempt was after
partitioning and formatting NTFS. Result: Boots fine but, at log on
(Ctrl/Alt/Del) it just goes immediately to Logging Off. I read that
Ghost won't clone to a NTFS formatted drive so, I started again.
Deleted partitions and re-partitioned ran Ghost 10 again. Result is
the same. Tried it again, 4th time and same result "Logging Off".

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Anna, if you're reading
this, I thought this posted yesterday when replying to another thread
post by you but, I don't see it anywhere.

Graham

The one time I used Ghost to clone a system disk I had similar results
to you. I went into Safe mode and exited and everything worked fine. I
don't know if maybe Windows fixed itself while in Safe mode.

 

[Anna]

Graham, with Ghost 2003 there is no need to format or partition any drive
you clone to. It creates a mirror image if you do a copy so it overwrites
the disk and its files system. You can install an out of the box new disk
and make a copy to it without doing anything else to it. I don't know
where you heard that Ghost won't clone to an NTFS disk but I can guarantee
you that that is not the case with Ghost 2003.

Graham:
As "BR549" points out, you can use the Ghost 2003 program to undertake a
disk-to-disk cloning process. We've used the program for many years for this
purpose and it has served us well in an XP environment. In nearly every case
we used a Ghost 2003 bootable floppy disk or a Ghost 2003 bootable CD to
undertake the cloning process. We found that to be the most simple &
straightforward way to use the program as opposed to using Ghost's GUI
interface. We were never happy with that program's disk imaging capability,
so we used the program exclusively for disk-to-disk cloning.

Ghost 2003 as a standalone product has virtually disappeared from the
marketplace. Symantec has included it however with their retail boxed Ghost
versions 9 & 10, so if you have the 2003 version and want to give it a try
I can post step-by-step instructions for using the program - bearing in mind
that these instructions are oriented toward using a Ghost 2003 bootable
floppy disk or bootable CD to perform the disk cloning operation, and not
toward the Ghost 2003 GUI. So if you (or anyone) is interested in seeing
them, so indicate and I'll post them.

On the other hand you may want to try the Acronis True Image program
(Acronis has a 15-day trial version available for download -
http://www.acronis.com). As I previously indicated, we've been using that
program nearly exclusively over the past year or so. Acronis has the
capability of creating disk-to-disk clones together with its disk imaging
capability and it performs both operations very effectively through a
relatively simple process. I don't envision any problem if you would simply
install the Acronis program on your PC. There shouldn't be any untoward
conflict with your presently-installed Ghost program and I would see no need
to uninstall the latter program until if & when you definitely decide to
work exclusively with the Acronis program.

BTW, I also recently posted step-by-step instructions for using the Acronis
program on a number of MS XP-related newsgroups. One of these posts was to
this newsgroup on 2/13/07 under the thread "Re: Problem Finding Hard Drive
Involving Cloning". So you may want to take a look at it.
Anna

 

[Bryan Eckert]

Unfortunately in XP the drive letter is stored in the registry and linked to
the physical drive itself. So, it was still looking for "C:", when the drive
in there was "I:" according to you. When you clone the drive, you clone the
registry, and hence the drive letter stays assigned.

These cloning programs (like tru-image mentioned) *should* be making the
registry change after it clones the drive, but apparently that's not always
the case because I had the exact same problem with Acronis' software (Last
night as a matter of fact). Simply wiping the mounted drives out of the
registry before I cloned it allowed windows to re-issue the drive letters
upon booting the cloned drive.

Frankly I never give up hope that Microsoft will give the registry the boot,
it's very archaic IMO and causes countless unneeded headaches. Other
operating systems are much easier to deal with in terms of cloned drives and
booting across multiple systems.

Good luck!

 

[graham]

Unfortunately in XP the drive letter is stored in the registry and linked to
the physical drive itself. So, it was still looking for "C:", when the drive
in there was "I:" according to you. When you clone the drive, you clone the
registry, and hence the drive letter stays assigned.

These cloning programs (like tru-image mentioned) *should* be making the
registry change after it clones the drive, but apparently that's not always
the case because I had the exact same problem with Acronis' software (Last
night as a matter of fact). Simply wiping the mounted drives out of the
registry before I cloned it allowed windows to re-issue the drive letters
upon booting the cloned drive.

Frankly I never give up hope that Microsoft will give the registry the boot,
it's very archaic IMO and causes countless unneeded headaches. Other
operating systems are much easier to deal with in terms of cloned drives and
booting across multiple systems.

Good luck!






- Show quoted text -

Bryan
I'm going to give it a go. It won't be until the weekend though. This
is my tax week and have to get everything together for my annual
meeting on Friday. Once that is completed I'll take on the "risk".
I'll follow up with the results.

Thanks to everyone for your help.
Graham

 

[Bryan Eckert]

Good going, I found the registry entry I mentioned before:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices

Simply delete all entries under that key and then clone the drive and you
should be good to go.

As an aside, here's a good web link describing the trouble and how to go
around it:

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

Best of luck!

 

[Machinedoc]

Had the same problem - and found a much easier fix, but it requires a Win 98 startup disk.
Don't mess with the Registry -
Clone the drive and then install the cloned drive as the primary and boot your machine from the Win 98 startup disk. At the A:\ prompt type

fdisk /mbr <enter>

Remove the floppy and re-boot - all will be well.

See http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsifs.htm

The above is Method # 3

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Rob]

Just wondering if there was any resolution to the above problem? I am having the same problem. It's not clear to me if you are using the same physical machine or not. In my case, I am upgrading machines and just want to clone the hard drive for use in the new machine. But I can't get past the logon screen.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Gordon]

Just wondering if there was any resolution to the above problem?

WHAT "above problem"?

Please note:
This is NOT a chat room and You are NOT posting to a forum run by
Eggheadcafe - you are actually posting to a global Usenet Newsgroup hosted
by Microsoft. You will get a far better experience if you use a newsreader
and subscribe to these groups directly, rather than through Eggheadcafe.

If you must stay with Egghheadcafe then please follow Usenet custom by
quoting the post you are replying to, and replying to the thread.

Thank you.

 

[Jim Macklin]

Gee, when you start a new post and don't copy any of the
previous posts, who knows what you're talking about?


<Rob> wrote in message
| Just wondering if there was any resolution to the above
problem? I am having the same problem. It's not clear to
me if you are using the same physical machine or not. In my
case, I am upgrading machines and just want to clone the
hard drive for use in the new machine. But I can't get past
the logon screen.
|
| EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
| http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Gordon]

Gee, when you start a new post and don't copy any of the
previous posts, who knows what you're talking about?

EggheadCafe - they are a PITA!

 

[graham]

EggheadCafe - they are a PITA!

I haven't been able to get to it yet. I got the flu right before I was
going to attempt it. Then this past weekend I had to fix the washing
machine and the shower door fell off. When it rain it pours!!! Always
something. I'm going to do it this week as I can't keep putting it
off. Will follow up.....

 

[BuckyKing]

Had the same issue after Ghosting an XP machine and as soon as I logged in, it logged me off.

Went in to the registry and deleted all the keys in mappeddrives and it worked great.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Gordon]

Had the same issue after Ghosting an XP machine and as soon as I logged in, it logged me off.

Went in to the registry and deleted all the keys in mappeddrives and it worked great.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

WHAT "same issue"?

Please note:
This is NOT a chat room and You are NOT posting to a forum run by
Eggheadcafe - you are actually posting to a global Usenet Newsgroup. You
will get a far better experience if you use a newsreader and subscribe
to these groups directly, rather than through Eggheadcafe.

If you must stay with Egghheadcafe then please follow Usenet custom by
quoting the post you are replying to, and replying to the thread.

Thank you.

 

[graham]

"Jim Macklin" <p51mustang[threeX12]@xxxhotmail.calm> wrote in message

EggheadCafe - they are a PITA!

I haven't been able to get to it yet. I got the flu right before I was
going to attempt it. Then this past weekend I had to fix the washing
machine and the shower door fell off. When it rain it pours!!! Always
something. I'm going to do it this week as I can't keep putting it
off. Will follow up.....

Update: Used the WIN98 boot floppy method. First tried it with the new
drive as master and original drive jumpered as a slave. This did not
work as Windows still saw the original as "C" and lots of issues.
Disconnected the original, ran fdisk/mbr again, and everything is
working perfectly.

Once again, I just want to say thank you to everyone for your input
and help. I was very much appreciated.

Graham