copying boot drive from IDE to SATA hd ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RJK
  • Start date Start date
R

RJK

Could some kind soul review my half finished procedure to see if I'm missing
something.

I currently have 2 ide hd's 80gb/160gb, master & slave on IDE port 1
XP home ed. boot drive is currently on master hd - C:\

....have just fitted two SATA hd's to motherboard SATA ports 1 and 2
....all so far is lovely, new 80gb and 160gb SATA hd's detected.

If I use Norton Ghost to copy(mirror image) my XP C:\ (ide0) drive onto hd
SATA 1, and let Ghost set the new SATA/xp partition active, (...reboot and
set PC to boot from that SATA hd (1), ...will anything go "bang" because
XP can see an active partion left behind on IDE0 ?,
....or will Ghost mark the IDE0 had partition inactive for me ?

I sort of went best part of the way to doing it, and could see the check box
to set the copied partition "active," but, there didn't seem to be any check
box to set the "left behind" partion inactive, if you see what I mean :-)

TIA

regards, Richard
 
Hi RJK,

The bigger problem is that the system registry hive expects an IDE
boot device. I mean like in phase 2 of the boot process when the HAL
loads, also boot time device drivers are loaded and they are expecting
IDE not SATA. I think you will get in INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error
when the kernel startup (phase 3) begins.

Nothing will go bang provided that to protect your old "C" drive you
*unplug it* from IDE0!

Let us know what happens. I think a rebuild of XP on one of your SATA
drives will be more predictable. Dont panic on a rebuild if the 160
GB only shows 132 GB. You just need XP SP2 and then all the drive wil
be there.

Good luck,

CreateWindow
http://mymessagetaker.com
The while-you-were-out message program you have been looking for!
 
Ooooh ! ...BIG thanks for your post, ...I think I'll do a bit more
research !

.....as you can tell, I've never had very much to do with SATA hd's,
....I though it was all going to well, e.g. XP detecting the SATA hd's, i.e.
no third party/extra drivers required, (am not using or setting up RAID),
....I'm getting tooooooo old !
....btw my XP SP2 is pretty much up to date via automatic Windows update
service.
....and it has crossed my mind to just go on and do it, AND as you say -
unplug IDE0 before rebooting !

thanks again,

regards, Richard
 
Install the SATA drivers on the installation that you have now (on the
IDE disk) *before* you clone it.

*Very Important!* Do not boot the cloned drive with the old IDE drive
in place! Disconnect the parent drive before you attempt to boot the
clone! This is true with all cloning of boot drives, when you reboot
the computer if the parent drive is still in place there will be a
conflict with assigned drive letters and the cloned drive may adopt a
different drive letter, thus preventing the cloned Windows installation
from booting successfully. The letter assignment can be changed by way
of remote registry editing but it is usually easier to disconnect the
parent drive than it is to do the registry edit. Furthermore, if things
really blow up you can just put the parent drive back in its place and
reboot to the old installation as if nothing had ever happened. Once
you are satisfied that the cloned installation is running properly you
can bring the old disk back online, it will adopt a different drive letter.

Also, there may be a relatively easy to fix problem with the rdisk
assignment in the boot.ini ARC path. There is a possibility that ntldr
thinks of the new SATA as being a different rdisk ordinal than the old
IDE drive, this will prevent Windows from booting successfully. An easy
way around this is to add lines to the boot.ini file so that you have
different rdisk options when the computer boots. If you don't know how
to change the boot.ini file or if you are unsure as to what the rdisk
values the different lines should contain, post again and someone will
be able to suggest which lines and rdisk values to add to the boot.ini
file. You should change the boot.ini file *before* you clone the disk,
or if you have a floppy drive you should make a boot floppy and put an
all purpose boot.ini file on the floppy.

John
 
RJK said:
Could some kind soul review my half finished procedure
to see if I'm missing something.

I currently have 2 ide hd's 80gb/160gb, master & slave on
IDE port 1 XP home ed. boot drive is currently on master
hd - C:\

...have just fitted two SATA hd's to motherboard SATA
ports 1 and 2.....all so far is lovely, new 80gb and 160gb
SATA hd's detected.

If I use Norton Ghost to copy(mirror image) my XP
C:\ (ide0) drive onto hd SATA 1, and let Ghost set the
new SATA/xp partition active, (...reboot and set PC to
boot from that SATA hd (1), ...will anything go "bang"
because XP can see an active partion left behind on IDE0 ?,
...or will Ghost mark the IDE0 had partition inactive for me ?

I sort of went best part of the way to doing it, and could
see the check box to set the copied partition "active," but,
there didn't seem to be any check box to set the "left behind"
partion inactive, if you see what I mean :-)
Click to expand...


Richard: Don't let the troll play with you - the setting of the
"active" flags on HDs that don't control booting are
irrelevant. Once the BIOS detects which HD has been put
at the head of the Hard Drive Boot Order, it passes control
to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of that HD and ignores
the other HDs. The MBR that gets control then looks for
the Primary partition ON THAT HD that has its "active" flag
set and it passes control to the Boot Sector of tha partition.
(If there is only one Primary partition on the HD, it doesn't
even look for an "active" flag.) The ntldr file among those boot
files is started, and ntldr then looks to the boot.ini file for the
location of the OS to be booted (and that OS can reside in
any partition on any HD in the system, even on an Extended
partition).

In your situation, Ghost doesn't unset the "active" flag on the
source HD because there is no need to. In fact, if the clone
that is made will be used for archiving and the source HD
will continue to run as the resident HD for the OS, you WANT
the previously "active" partition to remain "active".

The only caveat in your case is that the clone OS not see its
"parent" OS when the clone is started up for the 1st time.
Therafter, it can be started up and see its "parent" with no ill
effects. The "parent", on the other hand, can be started up
at any time with a view of its clone with no ill effects. What
are the "ill effects"? The clone, when started for the 1st time
will set paths to its "parent's" corresponding files instead of
to its own copies. Sometimes this is not immediately apparent,
and things seem normal until you remove the HD containing
the "parent" OS, and suddenly files you thought were the
copies contained in the clone "disappear".

You can keep the clone from "seeing" its "parent" on this 1st
startup of the clone by simply disconnecting the "parent" OS's
HD before startup. You don't even have to diddle with jumpers
or adjust the Hard Drive Boot Order in the BIOS because the
clone HD, being the only HD left connected, will automatically
become the booting HD. After it's up and running, shut down
and reconnect the "parent" HD. To get the new HD to assume
the booting roll, go into the BIOS at startup and put the new HD
at the head of the list of HDs in the Hard Drive Boot Order
(NOT the *device* boot order). Thereafter, and until you again
adjust the Hard Drive Boot Order, the new HD will control
booting.

If you want to dual-boot between the 2 OSes, all you have to do
is to add another entry in the boot.ini file of the booting HD's
"active" Primary partition that points to the other OS. But that's
a topic for another thread.

*TimDaniels*
 
A clone will call its own partition by the same letter name as its
"parent" OS did. That is, if the "parent" OS called its own
partition "C:", the clone will also refer to its own partition as "C:".
In other words, each OS, WHEN IT IS RUNNING, will call its
own partition "C:", and it will call other partitions by other letter
names. This NOT a PROBLEM, as long as there are no
shortcuts in either OS that refer to other partitions. Specfically,
the running OS, if it calls its own partition "C:", might call the
other OS's partition "D:", but so what? It doesn't matter. When
the other OS runs, it will call its own partition "C:" again.

*TimDaniels*
 
Maaaaassive thanks to Tim Daniels !!!!

....yours was what one would call a "quality" post !!
....I'm going to print out your response and frame it, ....it's that good !
....I do thank you HUGELY for your response, and taking the time to explain
exactly what I wanted to know, ...which fully answered my "hesitations!"

It's soooo long since I fiddled with PQedit.exe etc, ...and cloned a drive,
....I thought I'd better bung in a post to see If I was missing anything.

Once again, ...many thanks.

regards, Richard
 
You misunderstood what I said, Tim. I fully understand that each disk
can have it's own C: drive and that each can be booted from its own
System partition and keep its system and boot volume drive letters, and
that it will cause no problems.

The problem I am referring to is when a drive is cloned, if the user
tries to boot the cloned drive while the parent drive is still attached
there may be drive letter problems on the first boot. This is a well
known issue with Ghost and cloned drives, there may be problems on the
first boot if the parent drive is still attached, the computer may not
boot or there may be "Pagefile.sys is too small or does not exist"
errors. After the first boot the parent drive may be brought back
online and both operating systems will keep their independent system
drives and boot volume drive letters. The problem is documented on the
Symantec site:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/docid/1999012611140625

Regards;

John
 
RJK said:
Maaaaassive thanks to Tim Daniels !!!!
Click to expand...

And a maaaaaaasive thanks, RJK, for replying.
Very many times, people helping out fellow PC
users here never know if their posts are even
read or whether they helped anyone. If you
come upon a "fix" for any problems or if you
develope some helpful extertise or just some
trick way of doing something that might help
someone else out of a jam, please share it with
us.

*TimDaniels*
 
My objection was to "will" in your statement:
"when you reboot the computer if the parent drive is still in place there
will be a conflict with assigned drive letters..."

That may happen sometimes, but I have never seen that to happen,
so "there will be a conflict" was too determinate in my opinion.
Even Symantec says:
"The problem happens because Windows sometimes reassigns the
drive letters..."
They are correct in saying "sometimes" because I have never seen it
happen! What I have seen is that the clone gets screwed up in various
and sometimes very subtle ways that may not become apparent until
much later. It's also quite possible that sometimes, or even most times,
it doesn't get screwed up at all. That's the insidious nature of this problem.

BTW, this problem probably happens with all clones of the NT/2K/XP
family of OSes. If you want to be conspiratorial, Microsoft designed
this "feature" into those OSes to thwart software pirating. I would really
like to hear if cloners of Vista have found the same difficulty.

*TimDaniels*
 
thanks John ...John ?

....I did it !
....see post below where you're arguing with Timothy Daniels ! ..(just
kidding!)

regards, Richard
 
....thank you both.

....I have experienced what you're both on about - in the distant past, i.e.
after Ghosting IDE C:\ boot drive - active partition to another hd, forgot
to switch off and as soon as Windows caught sight of two platforms -
everything collapsed, ....or was that W98se ...anyhoo long time ago...

anyhoo, ..on with "my" 'transfer' from IDE to SATA hd's !!!!! !!
1st ATTEMPT (yesterday), I "quick" NTSF formatted SATA 1 and SATA 2 hd's
....just to see what they looked like !
Ghost imaged IDE C:\ onto SATA 1 , and couldn't resist putting a tick in
Ghosts' "Copy MBR" check-box. (I know..unnecessary and daft!).
....tweaked bios | i.e. switched off IDE controller, inc. IDE port 2 - DVD/CD
drives !
....selected SATA1 as boot drive, and then allowed PC to boot-up ...I'm sure
that the damned thing booted from hd IDE0,
....perhaps I hadn't "Save'd and Exit'ed" bios, collapsed in heap, ...gave up
and went to bed ! :-)

2nd ATTEMPT (today), ...an hour or so ago I again ghosted, ('copy mbr'
unchecked), my Windows drive IDE C:\ onto SATA hd 1 | Shut Down | unplugged
mobo IDE ribbon | rebooted and Windows loaded okay from SATA hd 1 ...indeed
all seems fine, ...though I quickly discovered that AVG "Resident Shield"
wouldn't switch on, - I had turned it off prior to ghosting - as you know it
/ /a/v progs. intercept all hd reads/writes, ...and a/v progs. often
interfere with software/driver installs etc., ...I digress...
.... (all options on that "AVG Resident Shield" properties box greyed out!),
so uninstalled AVG, rushed off to Grisoft and got the latest free version
and installed it and it's now okay. So it looks like AVG didn't survive
being "ghosted," for some strange and obviously exotic reason, (that I would
have loved to have spent THREE WEEKS tracking down) !

AT LAST ! ...I can pull my IDE drives out and put the 160gb one, (where my
Windows XP ended up on backalong), into an IcyBox external hd case ((IcyBox
version - for IDE drive (with Firewire and USB ports)),

....that's going to be a laugh and half ! ...which reminds me I've got to
connect that 1394a pin header up, ...which means that I've got to get tester
out again, and review that chart that Paul recently helped me with.

....thanks to both of you, for all your help,

regards, Richard
 
It's *conceivable* that AVG won't run because the MBR wasn't copied.
Some boot loaders put logic into the MBR, so I know it's not sacred.

*TimDaniels*
 
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