Drive Cloning Problem

[Sid Knee]

I have a 20G boot drive and I'm trying to upgrade to an 80G drive. The
drive contains two partitions each having a win2K OS installed in a
multi-boot configuration. I'm using Ghost to make a drive image to
transfer to the new drive. (I also tried separately imaging the
partitions to no avail).

The first (boot) partition (C-drive) is no problem. After transfer I can
boot to it, windows goes through the motions of recognising the new
drive and asks me to reboot, after which it functions normally.

I cannot make the second partition work at all though. It goes through
the initial boot, network detect, user logon and gives me the (blank)
background colour. Then, after some delay it rapidly alternates between
"loading settings" and "saving settings" and sticks in that loop.

I feel sure the problem is related to Windows being confused about the
drive letter as follows:

Before the clone, that copy of Windows saw the following allocations
(Win2K-2 is the problem partition):

1st HD: P-1 Win2K Main (C, P-2 Win2K-2 (O

2nd HD: P-1 Data-1 (D, P-2 Data-2 (E, P-3 Data-3 (F + unallocated
space

(G is a USB drive (H: & I are CD/DVD drives

I'm not sure now, how the Win2K-2 installation ended up at drive O:. I
presumably had more hardware and/or more OS partitions when I installed
that one. In any event, I suspect that, when booting that partition
after cloning, Windows cannot allocate the proper drive letter until it
has detected the new drive and re-booted. Unfortunately, it can't
progress that far without allocating the drive letter (catch-22).

Does that sound like a reasonable diagnosis?

Is there any way out of this other than re-installing?

I still have the original drive with all the partitions and installs
intact (in fact, it's back in the system now). I also have a complete
drive image backup as well as individual backups of the two partitions
so I still have all my options open.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a 20G boot drive and I'm trying to upgrade to an 80G drive. The
drive contains two partitions each having a win2K OS installed in a
multi-boot configuration. I'm using Ghost to make a drive image to
transfer to the new drive. (I also tried separately imaging the
partitions to no avail).

The first (boot) partition (C-drive) is no problem. After transfer I can
boot to it, windows goes through the motions of recognising the new
drive and asks me to reboot, after which it functions normally.

I cannot make the second partition work at all though. It goes through
the initial boot, network detect, user logon and gives me the (blank)
background colour. Then, after some delay it rapidly alternates between
"loading settings" and "saving settings" and sticks in that loop.

I feel sure the problem is related to Windows being confused about the
drive letter as follows:

Before the clone, that copy of Windows saw the following allocations
(Win2K-2 is the problem partition):

1st HD: P-1 Win2K Main (C, P-2 Win2K-2 (O

2nd HD: P-1 Data-1 (D, P-2 Data-2 (E, P-3 Data-3 (F + unallocated
space

(G is a USB drive (H: & I are CD/DVD drives

I'm not sure now, how the Win2K-2 installation ended up at drive O:. I
presumably had more hardware and/or more OS partitions when I installed
that one. In any event, I suspect that, when booting that partition
after cloning, Windows cannot allocate the proper drive letter until it
has detected the new drive and re-booted. Unfortunately, it can't
progress that far without allocating the drive letter (catch-22).

Does that sound like a reasonable diagnosis?

Is there any way out of this other than re-installing?

I still have the original drive with all the partitions and installs
intact (in fact, it's back in the system now). I also have a complete
drive image backup as well as individual backups of the two partitions
so I still have all my options open.

Your diagnosis is correct. The problem happens because
Windows 2000 works by volume signature, not by drive
letter. You were lucky with your fist partition but Windows
decided to assign a different drive letter to your second
partition.

The cure is easy if the machine is networked, and a little
less easy if it is not. What is it?

 

[Sid Knee]

Your diagnosis is correct. The problem happens because
Windows 2000 works by volume signature, not by drive
letter. You were lucky with your fist partition but Windows
decided to assign a different drive letter to your second
partition.

The cure is easy if the machine is networked, and a little
less easy if it is not. What is it?

Sounds promising. It is networked.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Sounds promising. It is networked.

Great. Now do this:
1. Start the problem OS on the problem PC but do not log on.
2. Log on to the networked machine as a user with admin
privileges to the problem PC.
3. Start a Command Prompt and run this command:
psexec \\ProblemPC cmd
and make a note of the system drive letter. Let's assume it is X:.
4. Launch regedit.exe on the networked PC and open the
registry of the problem machine.
5. Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
6. Rename \DosDevices\X: to DosDevices\O:. If drive letter O:
is taken, delete that value.
7. Reboot the problem machine.

You can get psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.

 

[Sid Knee]

Great. Now do this:
1. Start the problem OS on the problem PC but do not log on.
2. Log on to the networked machine as a user with admin
privileges to the problem PC.
3. Start a Command Prompt and run this command:
psexec \\ProblemPC cmd
and make a note of the system drive letter. Let's assume it is X:.
4. Launch regedit.exe on the networked PC and open the
registry of the problem machine.
5. Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
6. Rename \DosDevices\X: to DosDevices\O:. If drive letter O:
is taken, delete that value.
7. Reboot the problem machine.

You can get psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.

Hmm ... I think I understand but I wonder if I misled you. When I said
it's "networked" I meant that I do run a network and this machine is
part of it.

However, when I boot the problem partition, I've no idea whether it gets
far enough to actually join the network. What I end up with is a blank
screen (with the colour of) and rapidly alternating windows saying
"loading settings" and "saving settings".

I do, during the bootup period see the logon screen come and go but it's
set for automatic logon so if it happens it happens. Is that a problem?

 

[Sid Knee]

Hmm ... I think I understand but I wonder if I misled you. When I said
it's "networked" I meant that I do run a network and this machine is
part of it.

However, when I boot the problem partition, I've no idea whether it gets
far enough to actually join the network. What I end up with is a blank
screen (with the colour of) and rapidly alternating windows saying
"loading settings" and "saving settings".

I do, during the bootup period see the logon screen come and go but it's
set for automatic logon so if it happens it happens. Is that a problem?

One more thing: I do have a Bart's PE Boot disk if that helps.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

One more thing: I do have a Bart's PE Boot disk if that helps.

"Networked" means that the problem machine is accessible
from an other machine, provided that the network was
configured prior to the cloning effort. There is no need for
anyone to be logged on at the problem PC. Can you ping the
problem machine from the networked machine? Can you
reach it with psexec.exe? If so then you can open its registry
from within regedit.exe!

You can modify the problem registry when booting the
machine with a Bart PE boot CD. It's just much harder
and requires a lot more explanation, unless you are right
on top of off-line registry editing.

 

[Sid Knee]

"Networked" means that the problem machine is accessible
from an other machine, provided that the network was
configured prior to the cloning effort. There is no need for
anyone to be logged on at the problem PC. Can you ping the
problem machine from the networked machine? Can you
reach it with psexec.exe? If so then you can open its registry
from within regedit.exe!

You can modify the problem registry when booting the
machine with a Bart PE boot CD. It's just much harder
and requires a lot more explanation, unless you are right
on top of off-line registry editing.

I was just off to bed when I wrote that last night and it occurred to me
afterwards that, since I have the old HD currently installed, it's
simple to change it to require entry of login password and redo the
clone. I'm doing that right now and then I'll follow your previous
instructions and let you know how I get on.

 

[Sid Knee]

Great. Now do this:
1. Start the problem OS on the problem PC but do not log on.
2. Log on to the networked machine as a user with admin
privileges to the problem PC.
3. Start a Command Prompt and run this command:
psexec \\ProblemPC cmd
and make a note of the system drive letter. Let's assume it is X:.
4. Launch regedit.exe on the networked PC and open the
registry of the problem machine.
5. Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
6. Rename \DosDevices\X: to DosDevices\O:. If drive letter O:
is taken, delete that value.
7. Reboot the problem machine.

You can get psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.

Pegasus, that worked absolutely perfectly! Thanks a bunch.

Normally, I'm fairly philosophical about re-installing in a case like
this. If you go about it right, it doesn't take that much time, you can
clean out a lot of dead wood and you end up with a nice "mean-lean" system.

In this case, however, that partition was set up explicitly to run a
particular application in a more-or-less dedicated installation. Which
should have made a re-install even easier except that when installing
the app it needs to call home and get validated before it will run ....
and the vendor is now out of business :-(

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Pegasus, that worked absolutely perfectly! Thanks a bunch.

Normally, I'm fairly philosophical about re-installing in a case like
this. If you go about it right, it doesn't take that much time, you can
clean out a lot of dead wood and you end up with a nice "mean-lean" system.

In this case, however, that partition was set up explicitly to run a
particular application in a more-or-less dedicated installation. Which
should have made a re-install even easier except that when installing
the app it needs to call home and get validated before it will run ....
and the vendor is now out of business :-(

Thanks for the feedback. I was quite sure that your own
initial diagnosis was correct and that it was just a matter
of setting the correct system drive letter.