HDD Swapping Woes = (

[Guest]

Hello all,

Thank you in advance for the assistance. I posted this elsewhere prior to
seeing this section. Sorry about that. I am currently going insane as I have
a soon to be dead WD 120 GB HD and I received a replacement one from WD. Now
before I send the defective one back to WD, I am transferring all my info
from the old to the new drive. I partitioned the drive in the same size and
amounts as the original and used Norton Ghost 2003 to individually clone each
partition onto the new drive. Everything in that dept is perfect. Now I tried
cloning the OS partition and it will not work…well the cloning works but the
drive will not boot up. So np, I will do a fresh install. So I put my new 120
as the master and my 80 GB as the slave. I load up the XP Pro CD and when it
shows me the drives, it sees the partitions and they are all labeled and
perfect except right above that, it tells me the 120 is an “unknown drive�?
I have the drive set as a basic disc with C: being active but after I format
and install the necessary XP Pro files and the system reboots to start
installing XP, I get a message “Error Loading OS� Anyone know why this is
happening? I have the BIOS set up to “master boot device HDD 0†and it should
detect the installed XP that was just put on there and start up the 30 min
install but it just keeps giving me that message?! Of course when I put my
old drive as the master and the new one as a slave, it boots up off my old
one fine. Both the new and old are set as basic disc’s and are identical in
every regard but why the PC will not boot up off the new disc with the fresh
XP install (and my WD 80 as the slave-which it always is) is a mystery to
me!? Any clues before my head explodes? Cheers!

CHOUT

 

[Glenn]

Hello all,

Thank you in advance for the assistance. I posted this elsewhere prior to
seeing this section. Sorry about that. I am currently going insane as I have
a soon to be dead WD 120 GB HD and I received a replacement one from WD. Now
before I send the defective one back to WD, I am transferring all my info
from the old to the new drive. I partitioned the drive in the same size and
amounts as the original and used Norton Ghost 2003 to individually clone each
partition onto the new drive. Everything in that dept is perfect. Now I tried
cloning the OS partition and it will not work…well the cloning works but the
drive will not boot up. So np, I will do a fresh install. So I put my new 120
as the master and my 80 GB as the slave. I load up the XP Pro CD and when it
shows me the drives, it sees the partitions and they are all labeled and
perfect except right above that, it tells me the 120 is an “unknown drive�?
I have the drive set as a basic disc with C: being active but after I format
and install the necessary XP Pro files and the system reboots to start
installing XP, I get a message “Error Loading OS� Anyone know why this is
happening? I have the BIOS set up to “master boot device HDD 0†and it should
detect the installed XP that was just put on there and start up the 30 min
install but it just keeps giving me that message?! Of course when I put my
old drive as the master and the new one as a slave, it boots up off my old
one fine. Both the new and old are set as basic disc’s and are identical in
every regard but why the PC will not boot up off the new disc with the fresh
XP install (and my WD 80 as the slave-which it always is) is a mystery to
me!? Any clues before my head explodes? Cheers!

CHOUT

Have you tried using Western Digitals data lifeguard program to transfer
the contents of the drive ?

--
"*-344-*Never Forgotten"
Is for the New York City Firemen who lost their lives on September 11,2001.
The official count is 343, but there was also a volunteer who lost his life
aiding in the initial rescue efforts. And I will never forget them as
long as I live,
nor should any American.
"Mow Green"

 

[Guest]

Hey Glenn,

Thanks for the response. Ya I did but still no luck. What I do not
understand is, both drives are now identical with my new one now in as the
slave. My new drives C: equivalent is "active". The really odd thing is...
why, even when I do a clean install, does it still give me an "error loading
OS" upon reboot??? My new drive is the master and my 80 GB, which has always
been the slave, is hooked up as the slave but still after installing the
files off the XP CD, it boots up to the same DOS message?? Argh!!

CHOUT

 

[RonK]

Leave the old drive disconnected untill after you have done the clean
install on the new drive.
..

 

[Guest]

Hello,

Do you mean my old 80 GB? I did try that and still I get that message
"unidentified drive" and XP installs then upon reboot, the same old "error
loading operating system" rears it ugly head....is the new drive defective
you think??

 

[Guest]

Try booting to xp cd,recovery,press enter for password,then type:diskPart,
locate the new drive,delete partition,then create one,then press Esc Back in
cmd,type:FORMAT D: /FS:ntfs D: being the new drive,when its thru,type:EXIT
Restart xp,remove cd.On desktop,go to run,type:XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r
In the DOS window agree to all,when its thru,C: is copied to D:,shutdown,set
D: as master,start xp,if it wont start,boot to xp cd,install xp,then
select,repair
this copy.It should work fine,however xp doesnt copy very well.

 

[Guest]

Hey Andrew,

Thanks, I am trying it now. The only thing is, I just completely formatted
my drive, prior to reading this, to the whole 120 gigs. Left it raw and let
XP, in the install, do the formatting and install the OS. Well it installed
it and upon restart, it still tells me the same message...."Error Loading
Operating System" Also, while in the XP CD blue screen DOS based install, it
shows my hard drive but says right above it, "Unknown Disk" and then below
that..."There is no disk in this drive"...what the hell is that? What is your
opinion? I have done this before, about a year ago with Norton GHost 2003 and
it worked perfectly except I had to run a repair to eset my SID"s etc.
Otherwise it was perfect. THis time...I have no clue...dead new 120 GB
replacement HD...nice quality control Western Digital!


CHOUT

 

[Guest]

OK...update...still no go, the drive will not under any circumstances boot
up. I think it is fried. = (

 

[RonK]

Go to Western Digitals site and check the hard drive jumper settings. There
are 2 different settings for Master - 1 for a Single Drive and 1 for a more
than 1 drive connected.

 

[cmb99]

For those in a similar predicament, here is what I had to do:

Run MBRTool. Delete the boot sector and wipe the MBR.

Run the Western Digital windows utility for initialising new disks.
Initialize to OS of choice, e.g. XP.

Install OS as normal.