Weird actions after cloning XP-Pro disk...

[Bo Berglund]

I have bought a new 160 Gb drive for my HP NW8240 laptop since the old
ran out of space. I also purchased Ghost 10 in order to transfer my
XP-Pro system and data from the old to the new disk from within
Windows so I could use a USB connected target disk.

The new disk was attached to the laptop in one of these USB2 cabinets
for 2.5" drives you can buy and it sat there while Ghost made the
copy. Then I opened the laptop and replaced the old with the new drive
and then I powered it back up.

Now I reach the XP login prompt but when I enter my password it looks
like it accepts the login but it does not go to the desktop, instead
it sits for a couple of minutes on a blank screen and then it says
"logging off" and the synchronization window comes up (in vain because
I am not connected to the network at this time). Finally the login
prompt returns.
The same happens with domain as well as local account logins.
Shutting down the computer and the starting it again does not help.

What can have happened? And what can I do?
Of course I can return my old drive and start over but I would like to
know what I can do to not repeat this...
Seems to be something with the XP transfer or such.

Any ideas?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[DL]

I've done the same thing using Acronis and it went fine. When I had earlier
problems on verifying an image, which failed, it transpired that my memory
was iffy, though the process completed aparently OK.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have bought a new 160 Gb drive for my HP NW8240 laptop since the old
ran out of space. I also purchased Ghost 10 in order to transfer my
XP-Pro system and data from the old to the new disk from within
Windows so I could use a USB connected target disk.

The new disk was attached to the laptop in one of these USB2 cabinets
for 2.5" drives you can buy and it sat there while Ghost made the
copy. Then I opened the laptop and replaced the old with the new drive
and then I powered it back up.

Now I reach the XP login prompt but when I enter my password it looks
like it accepts the login but it does not go to the desktop, instead
it sits for a couple of minutes on a blank screen and then it says
"logging off" and the synchronization window comes up (in vain because
I am not connected to the network at this time). Finally the login
prompt returns.
The same happens with domain as well as local account logins.
Shutting down the computer and the starting it again does not help.

What can have happened? And what can I do?
Of course I can return my old drive and start over but I would like to
know what I can do to not repeat this...
Seems to be something with the XP transfer or such.

Any ideas?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

This is not weird at all. While cloning your system, your system
drive letter changed. It is no longer C: but perhaps D: or E:. The
result is that Windows is unable to locate userinit.exe, which then
prevents you from logging on.

The cure depends on your setup: If the machine is networked,
or if you have ready access to another WinXP desktop PC,
or if you have more than one formatted partition on your new
disk.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

This is not weird at all. While cloning your system, your system
drive letter changed. It is no longer C: but perhaps D: or E:.

Why would that happen? A clone is an EXACT byte-for-byte
copy of the "parent" partition. If the "parent" OS called its partition
"C:", so would its clone. What may have happened is that the
cloned partition was not set "active" or that the MBR was not
copied to the new HD. In previous versions of Ghost, those actions
were options to be selected by the user before the cloning began.
I would try the cloning again with those options selected.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Why would that happen? A clone is an EXACT byte-for-byte
copy of the "parent" partition. If the "parent" OS called its partition
"C:", so would its clone. What may have happened is that the
cloned partition was not set "active" or that the MBR was not
copied to the new HD. In previous versions of Ghost, those actions
were options to be selected by the user before the cloning began.
I would try the cloning again with those options selected.

*TimDaniels*

This can happen if the OP connected his disk prior to ghosting.
If so then the disk signature would be recorded in the registry.
After ghosting, the new disk would retain the drive letter it had
prior to ghosting, which is obviously not C:.

 

[Bo Berglund]

This can happen if the OP connected his disk prior to ghosting.
If so then the disk signature would be recorded in the registry.
After ghosting, the new disk would retain the drive letter it had
prior to ghosting, which is obviously not C:.

When I installed Ghost I read the install instructions and it told me
to attach the USB drive *before* I installed Ghost 10. Then I used the
function in Ghost to clone a disk. It actually purports to do exactly
what I want, namely to copy my entire ystem over to the new disk. It
outlines the process where after the copy is done I should remove the
old and put the new drive in its place.
Windows XP Pro boots up but it then fails to log me in so it looks
like at least it finds the main bulk of the files it needs, how can
that happen if the drive letter changed?
And the drive is now the *only* drive in the system too, why would it
be anything else but C:?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[Bo Berglund]

Why would that happen? A clone is an EXACT byte-for-byte
copy of the "parent" partition. If the "parent" OS called its partition
"C:", so would its clone. What may have happened is that the
cloned partition was not set "active" or that the MBR was not
copied to the new HD. In previous versions of Ghost, those actions
were options to be selected by the user before the cloning began.
I would try the cloning again with those options selected.

In Ghost10 the MBR copy was an option that I had not set because I had
already initialized and formatted the drive to NTFS before I bagan.
But after the process failed like described I started over and
repeated the clone copy but this time I checked the MBR copy checkbox
too. But that was a bad choice!
Now after cloning the drive will no longer boot at all! And it is not
recognized via the USB connection either.
So I had to download the Seagate tools to reset the MBR and zero the
drive contents so I can start over yet again. That's where I am now.
I have an unconnected zeroed drive and WinXP is running. Now I will
first start Ghost10 and then connect the drive (as the other responder
suggested) and repeat the clone copy. Without copying the MBR...

Can my problems be caused by some incompatibilities between my HP
NW8240 laptop and the Seagate ST9160821A 160 Gb drive?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

When I installed Ghost I read the install instructions and it told me
to attach the USB drive *before* I installed Ghost 10. Then I used the
function in Ghost to clone a disk. It actually purports to do exactly
what I want, namely to copy my entire ystem over to the new disk. It
outlines the process where after the copy is done I should remove the
old and put the new drive in its place.
Windows XP Pro boots up but it then fails to log me in so it looks
like at least it finds the main bulk of the files it needs, how can
that happen if the drive letter changed?
And the drive is now the *only* drive in the system too, why would it
be anything else but C:?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

Arguing that the drive letter cannot possibly be anything other
than drive C: will not make your problem go away. If you try
to answer the questions I asked in my first reply then I may
be able to help you fix your problem. Din tur!

 

[Bo Berglund]

In Ghost10 the MBR copy was an option that I had not set because I had
already initialized and formatted the drive to NTFS before I bagan.
But after the process failed like described I started over and
repeated the clone copy but this time I checked the MBR copy checkbox
too. But that was a bad choice!
Now after cloning the drive will no longer boot at all! And it is not
recognized via the USB connection either.
So I had to download the Seagate tools to reset the MBR and zero the
drive contents so I can start over yet again. That's where I am now.
I have an unconnected zeroed drive and WinXP is running. Now I will
first start Ghost10 and then connect the drive (as the other responder
suggested) and repeat the clone copy. Without copying the MBR...

Can my problems be caused by some incompatibilities between my HP
NW8240 laptop and the Seagate ST9160821A 160 Gb drive?

Yikes!!!
Now I have repeated the cloning on a drive that has been reset and
after the cloning I have checked that the new drive appears in
ComputerManagement/DiskManagement as a drive that is 15o some
Gigabytes with NTFS file system and "healthy".
But the darned thing won't boot!
How can I make it bootable?????
I did check the checkbox in Ghost to make the drive bootable....


Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[Bo Berglund]

Now entering requested information (see later post by Pegasus):

This is not weird at all. While cloning your system, your system
drive letter changed. It is no longer C: but perhaps D: or E:.

Well that seems not to have happened, when I return my original drive
into the laptop it boots just fine and it also is still on C:

The
result is that Windows is unable to locate userinit.exe, which then
prevents you from logging on.

If you mean that the Ghosting operation changed system settings inside
the files that were transferred to the new drive thus setting the new
drive to a drive letter that will survive when I put it into the main
drive bay, then I don't understand how XP can boot at all.
I also do not understand how this can happen since Gost:s objective is
to move the data from one disk to another, not to change some file's
contents....

The cure depends on your setup: If the machine is networked,

I have the laptop standalone while Ghosting etc, but it can be
connected to my home LAN

or if you have ready access to another WinXP desktop PC,

Writing this on my home XP-Pro desktop (a DELL Dimension 9100 if that
matters)

or if you have more than one formatted partition on your new
disk.

Ghost transferred the data from my old disk to the new disk and then
expanded its size to the full drive (which is what I wanted in the
first place).
More info,
I have repeated the Ghost copy now 3 times and I get different
results:
1) I used DiskManager in Computer Management to remove the partition
on the destination drive, then ran Ghost to transfer the drive data. I
also checked the "copy MBR" checkbox.
Result: Disk was copied good but when returned to the drive bay the
laptop does not boot up, it just hangs on a blank screen with the DOS
prompt in the upper left corner.

2) So I booted up with Seagate Disk Wizard CD and zeroed out the drive
and re-initialized the MBR. Then I switched drives again (sigh),
booted up the laptop to XP-Pro, started Ghost, attached the
destination drive via USB and started a copy again. This time without
checking the copy MBR checkbox.
When I was all done I returned to DiskManagement to check that the
drive was there and I found it to be with a healthy NTFS partition and
NO drive letter attached at all. Looked fine to me in the view of your
post that a rogue drive letter may make the drive unusable.
But when it was put into the laptop bay and I rebooted again I got the
same result as above. No boot and the DOS cursor sitting in the upper
right corner.

I would really need some advice now, by all I know the drive got the
data written all right every time, but for some reason only the first
try when I started on a preformatted NTFS drive (with no data) the
disk actually booted. But then I was not able to log in even though
the login prompt appeared as normal.

In the Ghost manual they say that the drive can be non-initialized and
Ghost will handle the nitty-gritty parts and make the drive a bootable
XP drive. But it failed miserably on all cases...


Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Now entering requested information (see later post by Pegasus):

Well that seems not to have happened, when I return my original drive
into the laptop it boots just fine and it also is still on C:

If you mean that the Ghosting operation changed system settings inside
the files that were transferred to the new drive thus setting the new
drive to a drive letter that will survive when I put it into the main
drive bay, then I don't understand how XP can boot at all.
I also do not understand how this can happen since Gost:s objective is
to move the data from one disk to another, not to change some file's
contents....

I have the laptop standalone while Ghosting etc, but it can be
connected to my home LAN

Writing this on my home XP-Pro desktop (a DELL Dimension 9100 if that
matters)

Ghost transferred the data from my old disk to the new disk and then
expanded its size to the full drive (which is what I wanted in the
first place).

More info,
I have repeated the Ghost copy now 3 times and I get different
results:
1) I used DiskManager in Computer Management to remove the partition
on the destination drive, then ran Ghost to transfer the drive data. I
also checked the "copy MBR" checkbox.
Result: Disk was copied good but when returned to the drive bay the
laptop does not boot up, it just hangs on a blank screen with the DOS
prompt in the upper left corner.

2) So I booted up with Seagate Disk Wizard CD and zeroed out the drive
and re-initialized the MBR. Then I switched drives again (sigh),
booted up the laptop to XP-Pro, started Ghost, attached the
destination drive via USB and started a copy again. This time without
checking the copy MBR checkbox.
When I was all done I returned to DiskManagement to check that the
drive was there and I found it to be with a healthy NTFS partition and
NO drive letter attached at all. Looked fine to me in the view of your
post that a rogue drive letter may make the drive unusable.
But when it was put into the laptop bay and I rebooted again I got the
same result as above. No boot and the DOS cursor sitting in the upper
right corner.

I would really need some advice now, by all I know the drive got the
data written all right every time, but for some reason only the first
try when I started on a preformatted NTFS drive (with no data) the
disk actually booted. But then I was not able to log in even though
the login prompt appeared as normal.

In the Ghost manual they say that the drive can be non-initialized and
Ghost will handle the nitty-gritty parts and make the drive a bootable
XP drive. But it failed miserably on all cases...


Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

Seeing that the machine is networked, a single command would
have told you on your first attempt if the boot drive letter had
changed or not. It appears that it's too late now to confirm this.

Flashing cursors at boot time in the top left-hand corner are
usually caused by the boot drive not being marked "active".
You can use a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com) to run
fdisk.exe to set the active flag. AFAIK, it will work for
NTFS partitions too.

 

[Bo Berglund]

Seeing that the machine is networked, a single command would
have told you on your first attempt if the boot drive letter had
changed or not. It appears that it's too late now to confirm this.

I don't really see what networking has to do with a hard disk,
though...

Flashing cursors at boot time in the top left-hand corner are
usually caused by the boot drive not being marked "active".
You can use a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com) to run
fdisk.exe to set the active flag. AFAIK, it will work for
NTFS partitions too.

Since the laptop does not have a floppy I can't boot that. I do have a
Ghost 2003 CD on which I have copied in FDISK as well.

But would it not be possible to do this from within Windows since I
have now (again) put the original drive in the bay if I connect the
cloned drive via USB2? I mean using "Disk Management" from "Computer
Management"???

On the other hand, when I look in DM the drive is there all right and
it is:

149 Gb NTFS
Healthy (Active)
No drive letter...

So what else need there to be done to get it to boot?
Do I need a BIOS upgrade to make the laptop recognize it as a boot
drive? Maybe the partition is too big? But it *is* visible from the
Disk Manager on the other hand....



Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[Rez]

Bo Berglund wrote:
<snip long discussion>

Are you sure your laptop supports HDs larger than 128GB?? If not, this
could be the root of the problem (in that situation, sometimes the
system will go thru the motions, but nothing works right).

Ghost isn't always smart enough to truncate partitions down to the size
the system BIOS actually supports, especially if there is a BIOS bug
present that makes *actual* HD size support smaller than it's purported
to be. Such bugs are fairly common, in my experience, especially with
Phoenix/Award BIOSs.

~REZ~

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't really see what networking has to do with a hard disk,
though...

Maybe you don't but if you had told me that the machine was
networked then I would have explained two things:
a) How to determine the system drive letter via your laptop, and
b) How to fix the drive letter via the laptop, in case it was wrong.

The process would have taken less than five minutes. I've done
it many times.

Since the laptop does not have a floppy I can't boot that. I do have a
Ghost 2003 CD on which I have copied in FDISK as well.

But would it not be possible to do this from within Windows since I
have now (again) put the original drive in the bay if I connect the
cloned drive via USB2? I mean using "Disk Management" from "Computer
Management"???
Yes.

On the other hand, when I look in DM the drive is there all right and
it is:

149 Gb NTFS
Healthy (Active)
No drive letter...

So what else need there to be done to get it to boot?

You could try the commands fixboot and fixmbr from
the Recovery Console.

Do I need a BIOS upgrade to make the laptop recognize it as a boot
drive? Maybe the partition is too big? But it *is* visible from the
Disk Manager on the other hand....

I would never make a WinXP boot partition larger than
20 GBytes. IMHO, the system partiton should have
Windows plus all applications, and all data should be
on a different drive.

Another reason for boot failures is an exessively large
system registry file (> 12 MBytes) - see here:
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/277301.htm

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

I have never used Ghost - I prefer different products. If you cannot
get your machine to boot with the new disk then you can try this:
1. Install the new disk as a slave disk.
2. Create a primary active NTFS partition of 20 GBytes.
3. Delete the drive letter for the new disk from the
registry (e.g. HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\E
4. Boot the machine with a Bart PE CD.
5. Use xcopy.exe to copy the following folders:
c:\Windows
c:\Program Files
c:\Documents and Settings
and also c:\ntldr, c:\ntdetect.com, c:\boot.ini
Make sure to include all hidden files, system files and
permissions.
6. Disconnect the old disk.
7. Make the new disk the primary master.
8. Reboot.

 

[Bo Berglund]

I updated the BIOS but it did not change anything...

I would never make a WinXP boot partition larger than
20 GBytes. IMHO, the system partiton should have
Windows plus all applications, and all data should be
on a different drive.

Not much I can do about that philosophy, I got the laptop a year ago
with the 80Gb disk configured as C: and XP-Pro already running...

Another reason for boot failures is an exessively large
system registry file (> 12 MBytes) - see here:
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/277301.htm

My %SystemRoot%\system32\config\system file is 5.8 Mb...

I have never used Ghost - I prefer different products. If you cannot
get your machine to boot with the new disk then you can try this:

Looks like a completely manual system move....

1. Install the new disk as a slave disk.
2. Create a primary active NTFS partition of 20 GBytes.
3. Delete the drive letter for the new disk from the
registry (e.g. HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\E
4. Boot the machine with a Bart PE CD.

What is this "Bart PE CD"???

5. Use xcopy.exe to copy the following folders:

c:\Windows = 5.46 Gb
c:\Program Files = 4.75 Gb
c:\Documents and Settings = 6.55 Gb

I have lots of programs that did not install into Program Files:
c:\Programs = 3.17 Gb
c:\<various locations> = 0.6 Gb (probably more)

This is a development machine so my source tree contain many
registered binaries (COM servers and such):
c:\Projects = 8.0 Gb

All in all summed up to 28.5 Gb and counting..

and also c:\ntldr, c:\ntdetect.com, c:\boot.ini
Make sure to include all hidden files, system files and
permissions.
6. Disconnect the old disk.
7. Make the new disk the primary master.
8. Reboot.

This would be a really last resort and I would have to change a *lot*
of settings to get my environment working again. :-(

FINAL SHOT
----------
I did a few iterations after my last post the last of these cut the
mustard but was not really what I had wanted:

- Erased all partitions (again) on the target disk
- Let Ghost copy my source drive to the empty disk
- Set parameters to make the new drive bootable but did *not* let
Ghost expand the size of the drive. Ghost gives only two options,
expand to the full drive or not.
- After copy and drive bay replacements etc XP actually booted up and
let me log in. It stopped for a long time in the process but
eventually finished with a message that new settings had been
installed and that it would now need a restart.
- After the restart I was again able to log in!

What I now have is exactly the same size C: drive as before but with
an extra 75 Gb unpartitioned space that I really would like to use....

Two options come to mind:
1) Expand the C: drive to use the unused space
Tools for this are not shipped with XP so again it looks like I would
need to use something like Partition Magic (is it still around?). An
extra item to buy...
And will my laptop boot afterwards? Noone knows.

2) Create a new partition and logical drive in the unused part and
then move my data over to this drive, thus giving my system drive a
bit more headroom. This is more like your philosophy, I guess.

I will probably go for 2).


Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

 

[DL]

PM is still available, on the occassions I have used it there have been no
problems
(Used to modify partition sizes)

 

[Anna]

I have bought a new 160 Gb drive for my HP NW8240 laptop since the old
ran out of space. I also purchased Ghost 10 in order to transfer my
XP-Pro system and data from the old to the new disk from within
Windows so I could use a USB connected target disk.

The new disk was attached to the laptop in one of these USB2 cabinets
for 2.5" drives you can buy and it sat there while Ghost made the
copy. Then I opened the laptop and replaced the old with the new drive
and then I powered it back up.

Now I reach the XP login prompt but when I enter my password it looks
like it accepts the login but it does not go to the desktop, instead
it sits for a couple of minutes on a blank screen and then it says
"logging off" and the synchronization window comes up (in vain because
I am not connected to the network at this time). Finally the login
prompt returns.
The same happens with domain as well as local account logins.
Shutting down the computer and the starting it again does not help.

What can have happened? And what can I do?
Of course I can return my old drive and start over but I would like to
know what I can do to not repeat this...
Seems to be something with the XP transfer or such.

Any ideas?

Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com

Bo:
Have you resolved your problem? If not, might I suggest you take a look at
my postings in connection with the thread in this newsgroup having the
subject "Re: Boot from C:\prompt?" dtd 12/17/06?

If you do, you'll note that my comments center on using the Ghost 2003
program to undertake disk-to-disk cloning. If you purchased a retail, boxed
copy of Ghost 10, the Ghost 2003 program is included in the package.

If you're interested in making a "fresh start" so to speak, and might
consider using the Ghost 2003 program along the lines I've described, so
indicate and we can go on from there if you want.
Anna

Re: Boot from C:\prompt?