Cloning a Vista Drive

[Len Mattix]

Have tried using both Acronis and Ghost to clone a drive which has Vista
installed. After 6 or 7 attempts I am running XP just because I am pissed
off!!

Recently purchased two new SATA2 Seagate drives from Newegg and setup a RAID
0 array on my Asus board. Next using previously mentioned software cloned
my current installation (on much smaller drive) to the large 456GB RAID
array. When attempting to start it will consistently come back with a
missing or corrupt winload.exe and fail to start.

As noted on screen I then boot of of my Vista installation media and ask it
to trouble shoot the start up problem. Sure enough it finds that problem
and gives me a repair and restart option which I use. Upon reboot windows
actually loads... in part. Vista will come up with a totally useless screen
stating it is "preparing your desktop" and promply stays there!!

Just for the heck of it took my XP SP2 installation and used Acronis to
clone it to the RAID 0 array and am using it now to type this email. Vista
was kind of fun to use but was not fast and now not cloneable (if there is
such a word). The beta/RC's wouldn't upgrade and now the final can not be
cloned.

BTW yes I have done this multiple times with various systems from the Win9x
era as well as with XP. It should not have to be rocket science!! With the
ever larger size of programs there will be need periodically to upgrade
older and smaller HDs. The thought of not being able to do so is not a
pleasant one...

Len

 

[Kerry Brown]

Have tried using both Acronis and Ghost to clone a drive which has Vista
installed. After 6 or 7 attempts I am running XP just because I am pissed
off!!

Recently purchased two new SATA2 Seagate drives from Newegg and setup a
RAID 0 array on my Asus board. Next using previously mentioned software
cloned my current installation (on much smaller drive) to the large 456GB
RAID array. When attempting to start it will consistently come back with
a missing or corrupt winload.exe and fail to start.

As noted on screen I then boot of of my Vista installation media and ask
it to trouble shoot the start up problem. Sure enough it finds that
problem and gives me a repair and restart option which I use. Upon reboot
windows actually loads... in part. Vista will come up with a totally
useless screen stating it is "preparing your desktop" and promply stays
there!!

Just for the heck of it took my XP SP2 installation and used Acronis to
clone it to the RAID 0 array and am using it now to type this email.
Vista was kind of fun to use but was not fast and now not cloneable (if
there is such a word). The beta/RC's wouldn't upgrade and now the final
can not be cloned.

BTW yes I have done this multiple times with various systems from the
Win9x era as well as with XP. It should not have to be rocket science!!
With the ever larger size of programs there will be need periodically to
upgrade older and smaller HDs. The thought of not being able to do so is
not a pleasant one...

Have you tried a clean install on the RAID 0 array? It sounds like a driver
problem.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Have tried using both Acronis and Ghost to clone a drive which has Vista
installed. After 6 or 7 attempts I am running XP just because I am pissed
off!!

Recently purchased two new SATA2 Seagate drives from Newegg and setup a
RAID 0 array on my Asus board. Next using previously mentioned software
cloned my current installation (on much smaller drive) to the large 456GB
RAID array. When attempting to start it will consistently come back with
a missing or corrupt winload.exe and fail to start.

As noted on screen I then boot of of my Vista installation media and ask
it to trouble shoot the start up problem. Sure enough it finds that
problem and gives me a repair and restart option which I use. Upon reboot
windows actually loads... in part. Vista will come up with a totally
useless screen stating it is "preparing your desktop" and promply stays
there!!

Just for the heck of it took my XP SP2 installation and used Acronis to
clone it to the RAID 0 array and am using it now to type this email.
Vista was kind of fun to use but was not fast and now not cloneable (if
there is such a word). The beta/RC's wouldn't upgrade and now the final
can not be cloned.

BTW yes I have done this multiple times with various systems from the
Win9x era as well as with XP. It should not have to be rocket science!!
With the ever larger size of programs there will be need periodically to
upgrade older and smaller HDs. The thought of not being able to do so is
not a pleasant one...

Did you install the RAID drivers on the OS before copying it to the array?

ss.

 

[Tiberius]

I will note your problem down as number: one trillion, five hundred billion,
four hundred and sixty five million, two hundred and five thousand, eight
hundredth and sixty nineth problem of vista

 

[seven]

I will note your problem down as number: one trillion, five hundred
billion, four hundred and sixty five million, two hundred and five
thousand, eight hundredth and sixty nineth problem of vista

Its One trillion, five hundred billion, four hundred sixty five million, two
hundred five thousand, eight hundred sixty ninth.
And is for the decimal point

 

[John Barnes]

What version of Aconis or Ghost are you using. Are they the latest Vista
compatible versions. Ghost just came out a couple weeks ago. Acronis
earlier this year.

 

[Rick]

Len try the DiskWizard software which is free for downloading from the Seagate Website. Only Ghost 12 and
Acronis 10 are Vista compatable. Hope this helps
Rick

 

[Len Mattix]

Was using Acronis 10 for this process and an older version of Ghost. Both
programs will clone from single partition image to single parttition without
the error. Found that out the hard way as I created a problem with my Vista
install and had to restore it from an image.

However, that same exact image would not work with the RAID 0 array. I
don't feel like investing in the latest and greatest Ghost as well as
Acronis 10 on the off chance it may work. So far no attempt has been
successful in cloning a Vista drive with single or multiple partitions to a
new RAID 0 array to my knowledge. I will D/L the Disk Wizard software as
your suggest but it should not be this big of an issue.

Thanks for your response!

Len

 

[John Barnes]

Since you have Acronis, you should make sure to upgrade to the latest
version. If you cannot get it to make a clone to your RAID 0 array, I would
contact Acronis technical support. You can download a trial of BootItNG,
which I have found to be a better product, and see if it works. You have a
30 day trial period before you have to decide on purchase. Good luck.