Using Ghost 2003 to clone XP

[Greg Lansing]

I have a HD 120GB IDE and a 37GB SATA HD. I want to clone the C: partition
of the IDE HD to take over all of the new SATA HD and make that my C drive.
The is Win XP Pro. When I select CLONE from windows and choose
source/destination parameters it reboots the PC into DOS mode and when I get
to the GRAY GHOST dos screen nothing happens. It just sits there. Any
suggestions?

 

[Chris Lanier]

Please contact Norton for support with their applications. Microsoft can't
help support them.

 

[Greg Lansing]

Well I was just looking to see if someone who might have experienced this
could offer some insight. I realize its not a MS issue. Just looking for
someone that might have experienced it in the past.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Greg.

Where do you find the CLONE selection? So far as I know, there's nothing
like this in Windows - or any other Microsoft product.

You could just use good old Xcopy.exe in a "DOS" window to move the files.
Of course, you'll need to get the right switches and do the transfer steps
in the right sequence. And you probably will need to reinstall WinXP onto
your new HD, using the F6 key early in Setup to install the SATA drivers
from a floppy. I've never had a SATA and haven't learned much about them
yet. But, the general idea works like this:

Shut down your computer and physically install your new drive, leaving your
old drive as primary master, making sure all the cables, jumpers, etc., are
correct. Use Disk Management to partition your new HD, creating at least
the primary partition that will become Drive C:. (It will have a different
drive letter at this point, but that is only temporary, so don't worry about
it; let's call it X: for now.) Format the new partition. Then open a "DOS"
window and type:
xcopy c:\ x:\ /c /h /e /r /k

This will copy ALL the files from C: to X:, including the system files. But
the boot sector is not a file, so it won't be copied. Then shut down,
physically remove your old drive and LEAVE IT OUT for now. Install your new
drive as primary master. It won't boot at this point because of the missing
boot sector. So, boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose to Repair it, using
the Recovery Console. Run FixMBR and FixBoot. Then you should be able to
boot into WinXP on your new Drive C:. Use Disk Management to create, assign
drive letters, and format any volumes you want in addition to Drive C:.
Once WinXP is running right on your new HD, shut down once more and install
your old HD as secondary, if you like, and use Disk Management to
repartition and/or reformat it to your heart's content. First, of course,
copy any files that you want to save onto your new HD.

The only fly in this ointment will be if the SATA drive requires that its
drivers be installed during WinXP Setup. Installing a new HD as a secondary
drive is usually no big deal, but installing one as the boot device often
requires that WinXP be re-customized to fit the new hardware environment.
In that case, rather than simply using the Recovery Console to Repair WinXP,
you will need to do the full Repair Reinstall, followed by a visit to
Windows Update to reinstall SP1 and other fixes, which adds up to a half-day
project. For details, see this KB article:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341

RC

 

[Greg Lansing]

Hi R. C.!!
Thanks for the tips!
I have never used XCOPY, although I have read about it, just never used it.
I bought Nortons Ghost 2003 for this one project and because I also wanted
to learn it. The clone selection is under advanced in the ghost program to
answer your question. I'll have to learn more about XCOPY, seems like a
nifty tool.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Please contact Norton for support with their applications. Microsoft
can't help support them.

Although that's true, we are not Microsoft here. There's nothing
wrong, in my view, with someone asking such a question here, and
there may well be be someone who is able to help. (Sorry, Greg, I
personally can't help--I know next to nothing about Ghost--but
maybe someone else can).

 

[Greg Lansing]

Well Was able to do a complete XCOPY but it doesn't seem like its going to
let me go ahead and boot off it. I have run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR but when I
reboot I get invalid system disk. BIOS is set to bootfrom A, CDROM, then HD.

Any other suggestions?

 

[John and Pat Ochenduszko]

I have a HD 120GB IDE and a 37GB SATA HD. I want to clone the C: partition
of the IDE HD to take over all of the new SATA HD and make that my C drive.
The is Win XP Pro. When I select CLONE from windows and choose
source/destination parameters it reboots the PC into DOS mode and when I get
to the GRAY GHOST dos screen nothing happens. It just sits there. Any
suggestions?

The system boots into DOS since that is where Ghost must run. You have to
select the drive to clone and the destination drive, it will not be done
automatically for you. At least my Ghost experience is such.

Regards,
John O.

 

[Alex Nichol]

You could just use good old Xcopy.exe in a "DOS" window to move the files.
Of course, you'll need to get the right switches and do the transfer steps

That is not adequate in XP - it will in particular *not* copy the
registry. You need a third party image/clone tool. Ghost ought to do
it, though I avoid all Symantec products myself, so I don't know the
detail

 

[W7TI]

Ghost ought to do
it, though I avoid all Symantec products myself

_________________________________________________________

Surprised to hear that. May I ask what you recommend for imaging?

The one time I actually needed to use DriveImage for a restore, it gave
me an error message about not being able to read the .pqi file. Darn
near gave me a heart attack! Finally after much fooling around, got it
to work and did the restore ok. Never trusted it afterwards though, and
switched to Norton Ghost 2003, which has been excellent. Being
paranoid, I exercised NG on several HDs just to be sure it would work,
and it did, just as advertised.

 

[Brian]

You could just use good old Xcopy.exe in a "DOS" window to move the files.
Of course, you'll need to get the right switches and do the transfer steps

That is not adequate in XP - it will in particular *not* copy the
registry. You need a third party image/clone tool. Ghost ought to do
it, though I avoid all Symantec products myself, so I don't know the
detail


One of the features of Ghost is that it can make a 100% clone copy of one HD
to another.

Brian

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Greg.

As you can see from the other messages in the thread, MVP Alex Nichol
reminded me that Xcopy can't copy the Registry of the WinXP that is actually
running at the time. That means there are TWO flies in the ointment, not
just the one about the boot sector. :>(

The /h switch for Xcopy copies "hidden and system files", so it copies
everything else, including the backup copies of the Registry files.
However, the actual Registry files are in use, of course, so they can't be
copied so long as the current copy of WinXP is running. In other words, you
must boot from the CD-ROM, or a floppy, or a different copy of WinXP in
order to copy those Registry files.

The Registry for WinXP is held in 5 files, all in the folder
\Windows\system32\config. They are named default, sam, security, software
and system, all without extensions. The system keeps recent backups of some
or all of these files with the .sav extension, and these get Xcopied, but
the real Registry files do not.

I've been dual-booting WinXP (and predecessors) for years and have a second
copy of WinXP installed on my computer. I can just "Restart" and select the
other installation from the boot menu; then the Registry files on my main
installation are not in use and can be copied easily. But most users don't
have multiple copies of WinXP installed - and it's not worth the trouble to
install a second copy just for your current project.

Booting from a floppy will work IF both your old and new Drive C: are
formatted FAT32; you can run Xcopy from MS-DOS and have it copy the Registry
files from C: to X:. But this won't work if either drive is formatted NTFS.

The Recovery Console includes a Copy command, so booting from the WinXP
CD-ROM and running the RC MIGHT work, but I haven't tried it. If it works,
it could be your quickest recovery from where you are now. If it were my
system, I would take a few minutes and try it before giving up, since
everything else is already copied.

I apologize if I caused you extra headaches in getting your new HD installed
and working, Greg. Looks like your original plan to use Ghost is your best
option.

Let us know how all this works out for you.

RC

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Alex.

Oops! TWO flies in the ointment! 8>(

I guess the reason that it worked for me was that I had dual-booted to a
second copy of WinXP. To that second WinXP, the Registry files in the copy
I was moving were "just files".

To copy those Registry files, Greg will have to be booted into something
other than the WinXP being moved. PERHAPS he could boot from the CD into
the Recovery Console and use the Copy command from there, but I haven't
tried it and don't know the answer.

Thanks for the catch.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

You could just use good old Xcopy.exe in a "DOS" window to move the files.
Of course, you'll need to get the right switches and do the transfer steps

That is not adequate in XP - it will in particular *not* copy the
registry. You need a third party image/clone tool. Ghost ought to do
it, though I avoid all Symantec products myself, so I don't know the
detail