Possible to restore a boot partition without overwriting the whole disk?

H

HS Crow

I've been using Ghost 2003 successfully to clone a bootable partition
to DVD-R. If I try restoring the partition to a partition on a disk,
it fails to boot. However, I can restore the partition to a whole
disk and it will then boot. I would like to be able to restore the
partition to the first physical partition on a disk, without loosing
the data on the other partitions. Do I need to use different software
or am I using Ghost incorrectly for my needs?

I have been using the Clone function in Ghost in the following way:

Clone the C: Partition to a DVD-R. The drive in question has at least
two partitions and the C: drive is the first physical disk.
I then boot from the DVD-R and restore the DVD-R as a Disk; restoring
as a partition leaves me with an unbootable system.

I am cloning Windows 2000 Pro & XP Pro.

I have too much data on the other partitions to make it practical to
clone them every time I want to clone the C drive; more than 200 GB.

Help appreciated.
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

HS Crow said:
I've been using Ghost 2003 successfully to clone a bootable partition
to DVD-R. If I try restoring the partition to a partition on a disk,
it fails to boot. However, I can restore the partition to a whole
disk and it will then boot. I would like to be able to restore the
partition to the first physical partition on a disk, without loosing
the data on the other partitions. Do I need to use different software
or am I using Ghost incorrectly for my needs?

I have been using the Clone function in Ghost in the following way:

Clone the C: Partition to a DVD-R. The drive in question has at least
two partitions and the C: drive is the first physical disk.
I then boot from the DVD-R and restore the DVD-R as a Disk; restoring
as a partition leaves me with an unbootable system.

I am cloning Windows 2000 Pro & XP Pro.

I have too much data on the other partitions to make it practical to
clone them every time I want to clone the C drive; more than 200 GB.

Help appreciated.

It is fairly easy to make a partition bootable. The exact method
depends on the error message you see when WinXP fails to
boot. What is it?
 
H

HS Crow

It is fairly easy to make a partition bootable. The exact method
depends on the error message you see when WinXP fails to
boot. What is it?

Thanks. I don't remember off hand and it applies to Win2k and XP, in
case there are different solutions. I'm not going to be able to
attempt another restore until tomorrow, so if you have any brief
pointers you can give now I'd be grateful. Can I use the Repair
feature from the Windows Install process?
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

HS Crow said:
Thanks. I don't remember off hand and it applies to Win2k and XP, in
case there are different solutions. I'm not going to be able to
attempt another restore until tomorrow, so if you have any brief
pointers you can give now I'd be grateful. Can I use the Repair
feature from the Windows Install process?

OK, here are some pointers. Your machine may be unbootable because

- The boot partition is not set active.
- The MBR is incorrect.
- The boot sector is incorrect.
- The system drive letter is incorrect.
- Boot.ini is incorrect.
- The boot files are missing.
 
H

HS Crow

OK, here are some pointers. Your machine may be unbootable because

- The boot partition is not set active.
Thanks. The partition was not set as active. I used Partition Magic
to view it and change it.
 

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