Old Dude said:
Hello, I know this is an older thread but I am trying something like this
with very similar software and hardware and have hit a wall. I'll start by
listing my hardware and software and finish with what I've done:
Running XP Home on an older PIII
Have Norton Ghost 2003 installed
Have a Seagate 20 GB HD (ATA)
Bought a Western Digital 80GB HD to replace it (ATA)
Purchased Belkin dual drive master/Slave cable
I have connected the new drive in series and formatted it NTFS and is
designated drive E. I made the appropriate master/slave pin changes with
my
old SG drive (C) the master and WD (E) as the slave. I went into the
cloning
option on
Norton Ghost, followed the prompts to clone C to E and got all the way to
the message about the system will restart once completed and then ......
error message: "Unable to defragment the virtual partition. This is
probably
due to you disc being too fragmented. We suggest you run the windows disc
defragmentation and run this task again ... yadda, yadda. Well, I ran the
disc defragmentation over and over trying the cloning in-between ... no
joy
... same error message. I brought out the big guns and used my Norton
speedisk which takes hours upon hours to defragment .... still no joy.
HELP!
P.S. You can prob tell I am barely above a novice so feel free to giggle
amongst yourselves and use "duh" liberaly ... just help!
Thanks,
Neal
Neal:
First of all I'm not at all familiar with a "Belkin dual drive master/Slave
cable" so I have no idea whether my comments/suggestions will have any
relevancy to your situation if you are employing a type of cable I'm
unfamiliar with. Similarly, I won't address the error message you receive
that relates to defragging your present 20 GB HDD.
First of all, before getting into the disk cloning process, and assuming
your 80 GB HDD is non-defective...
Would it not simplify matters if you would merely install a fresh copy of
the XP OS onto that new HDD and then copy over whatever data you need from
your relatively small 20 GB HDD? Or is this impractical because there are
programs/applications on that latter drive that can only be installed on the
new 80 GB HDD through a disk cloning operation? Surely, at this stage, it
seems to me a fresh install of the XP OS onto the new HDD together with a
subsequent data-copying operation from the old to the new drive would be a
sensible way to initially go assuming you have the media at hand to install
whatever programs you need onto the new HDD.
But if, for one reason or another, you need to pursue a disk cloning
operation...
We'll make the basic assumption that your source HDD (the 20 GB HDD that you
will clone) is non-defective in all respects, i.e., it boots without
incident and functions without any problems. Because if it defective and/or
contains system files that are corrupt, read no further. You must correct
that situation before proceeding with a disk-cloning operation.
And we'll further assume that your destination drive - the HDD you're
cloning to - the 80 GB one - is similarly non-defective and that you've
correctly connected & configured that disk in your machine.
When using the Ghost 2003 program, we prefer to work with the Ghost bootable
floppy disk to undertake the disk-to-disk cloning process. I'm assuming that
you're working with a desktop machine that has a floppy disk drive. For a
variety of reasons we find that media easier to work with and most reliable.
So the following instructions are based on using a Ghost 2003 bootable
floppy disk to undertake the disk cloning process.
Here are step-by-step instructions for using the program...
Creating the bootable Ghost floppy disk (in case you haven't already done
so):
1. Install the Ghost 2003 program on your computer.
2. Insert a blank floppy disk (it need not be formatted) and access your
Ghost program.
3. Click on Ghost Utilities.
4. Click on Norton Ghost Boot Wizard.
5. Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk. A dialog box will appear.
a. Select the USB 2.0 Support option (assuming you have that
capability).
b. Select the Assign DOS drive letters option and click Next.
6. Select the Use PC-DOS option.
7. Complete the process following the screen prompts.
8. Remove floppy and label accordingly.
That's it. Now you have a Ghost bootable floppy disk which you can use now
and in the future to undertake your disk-cloning operations. Now when you
want to clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD you simply insert the
Ghost bootable floppy disk in your floppy drive and boot up with both drives
connected.
NOTE: After creating the Ghost bootable floppy disk, you can create a Ghost
bootable CD from it using the Roxio or Nero CD burning programs, or most
other CD burning programs that allow you to create a bootable CD.
Unfortunately I know of no way to *directly* create this bootable CD from
within the Ghost program (as you can do, for example, with the Acronis True
Image program).
Before undertaking the disk cloning operation, ensure that the only storage
devices connected are the two HDDs that will be involved in the cloning
process, i.e., your source and destination disks. Disconnect any flash
drives, ZIP drives, etc.
Here's how to perform the cloning operation...
1. With both drives connected, boot up with the Ghost bootable floppy (or
Ghost bootable CD). You'll get an initial screen that displays "License
agreement warning". Right-arrow (or tab) over to the "Continue without
marking drives" button and press Enter.
2. The "About Norton Ghost" screen appears. Click OK.
3. Right-arrow twice over to the "To Disk" button and press Enter.
4. The next screen will list both your drives - the Drive 1 (source disk)
and Drive 2 (destination disk). MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Drive 1 IS INDEED
YOUR SOURCE DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING *FROM*! Drive 1 will be
highlighted. Press Enter.
5. The next screen will have Drive 2 (destination disk) highlighted. AGAIN,
ENSURE THAT Drive 2 IS YOUR DESTINATION DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING
*TO*! Press Enter.
6. The next screen is the "Destination Drive Details" window, and reflects
your ultimate destination disk, i.e., your current Drive 2. Press your Tab
key to highlight the OK button and press Enter.
7. The "Proceed with disk clone?" dialog box will open. Left-arrow over to
the Yes button and press Enter.
8. The cloning process will begin. The data transfer speed will vary
depending upon the speed of your processor and the HDDs involved. On a
medium to high-powered system you should get transfer speeds ranging from
800 MB/min nearly 2.0 GB/min should you be cloning internal drives. It will
be considerably slower if you're cloning to a USB external HDD.
9. After you get the "Clone Completed Successfully" message, left-arrow over
to the Continue button and press Enter.
10. Down-arrow to Quit and press Enter.
11. Click Yes at the "Are you sure you want to quit?" message.
12. Remove the Ghost floppy and shut down the computer.
13. Disconnect your source disk and boot up with the cloned drive. In most
cases (but not always), a Windows "Found New Hardware" message will appear
in the Desktop's Notification Area shortly followed by a "System Settings
Change" message window informing you that new hardware has been found and
asks "Do you want to restart your computer now?" Click Yes for the reboot.
14. BTW, the reboot of the newly-cloned drive usually takes a longer time
than usual, so one must be patient. On rare occasions the system will fail
to reboot - the system will hang before reaching the Windows XP Welcome
screen. It's a rare occurrence, but you may experience it from time-to-time.
If that does occur, simply use the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys to reboot.
Assuming you've cloned the contents of your working drive to your second
internal HDD, that second drive will be bootable (after disconnecting your
primary one, of course) as indicated above. You also have the option of
cloning your working drive to a USB external hard drive. In that case the
USBEHD is *not* bootable (at least we haven't been able to boot the XP OS
from a USBEHD), but you could clone the contents back to your internal drive
for restoration purposes should the need arise.
Just one other point I wish to emphasize with respect to the disk-cloning
operation involving internal hard drives. Immediately following the cloning
operation and the shutdown of your machine, disconnect your source drive and
boot ONLY to the newly-cloned drive (as indicated in step 13. above). DO NOT
BOOT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLONING OPERATION WITH BOTH DRIVES CONNECTED.
Doing so may possibly cause future boot problems with the newly-cloned HDD.
Obviously there is no problem in this area should a USBEHD be involved in
the cloning process since that device is not bootable in an XP environment.
Anna
