Cloned C: using Norton Ghost - XP messed up

[Guest]

I cloned a perfectly running Windows XP Pro hard drive (Maxtor SATA) to a new
SATA 2 drive (Western Digital) using Norton Ghost 9.0. The source drive had a
31.9 C: partition and a D: partition and the copy operation said it completed
without error.

When I set the BIOS to boot off the new disk, it boots fine into XP, but a
LOT of stuff just doesn't work. For example, no Device Manager, unable to
change Windows features, can't run most Admin Tools etc. It says I have
administrator priveleges and I could even make a new user account.

Does this XP installation have to be somehow re-activated?

What else could cause this strange behavior? I also tried to clone the disk
using VCom Copy Commander and with Western Digital tools disk, with exactly
the same result.

 

[WM]

Is the drive the ONLY thing that changed? Does the new drive also retain
those two partitions? Which partition was XP installed on originally?

 

[Guest]

Yes, it's the only thing changed. Just tried it again, but this time used
Windows version of WD software, let it creat the two partitions & copy files
there. Then I swapped the SATA data cables for the two drives, checked to
make sure that the boot order also swapped drives (it did!) and rebooted. The
new (WD250) 1st partition became C, but D is the second partition on the old
drive (Maxtor 250) and it gave the 2nd WD partition the drive letter H. I
could change the drive letters if I could only run Disk Manager, but I can't!

That reminds me of something though. The 1st or 2nd time I tried cloning the
drive and it didn't work, I but the old Maxtor 250 drive back in as 1st in
the boot sequence and found that the system booted to the Maxtor drive, but
called it D instead of C. Of course, a lot of shortcuts were messed up. I
could run Disk Manager, but it wouldn't let me change the drive letter of the
boot drive. So I found a knowledgebase article that gave a way to do it by
editing the registry. That "fixed" the problem.

But now maybe that registry hack, when copied to a new C drive, just messes
up Windows.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I cloned a perfectly running Windows XP Pro hard drive (Maxtor SATA)
to a new SATA 2 drive (Western Digital) using Norton Ghost 9.0. The
source drive had a 31.9 C: partition and a D: partition and the copy
operation said it completed without error.

When I set the BIOS to boot off the new disk, it boots fine into XP, but
a LOT of stuff just doesn't work. For example, no Device Manager,
unable to change Windows features, can't run most Admin Tools etc.
It says I have administrator priveleges and I could even make a new
user account.

Does this XP installation have to be somehow re-activated?

What else could cause this strange behavior? I also tried to clone the
disk using VCom Copy Commander and with Western Digital tools
disk, with exactly the same result.

When you booted up the clone for the *first time*, was the
original "parent" system visible to the new clone? If so, that
may be the problem. Try recloning the system partition (telling
Ghost that the clone partition should be marked "active"), and
then hide the "parent" by unplugging it or by removing it and
putting the clone HD in its place (both operations will leave the
new clone HD at the head of the BIOS's hard drive boot order).
The boot.ini file in the clone will be a copy of the original, so
letting it take the default entry (or the usual manual input) should
work to boot the clone. After the clone has been booted up
for the first time, it takes on "adult" status, and subsequent
boot-ups can be done with the "parent" visible. The clone will,
of course, call itself the "C: Local Disk" and it will name the
"parent" something else, so if the "parent" remains around,
you'll have to adjust any shortcuts to ofther partitions accordingly.

*TimDaniels*