XP fails to boot from cloned hard disk

[Missiong]

I have been trying to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop by cloning the
existing drive onto a new, larger drive using Apricorn's EZ-Gig. After
repeated failures to clone, I followed the advice in another forum and
switched the hard drives before cloning (put the original in the
external enclosure and the new drive internally). After the cloning
operation was completed, I disconnected the external (old) hard drive
and attempted to boot the new drive. The good the clone was
(finally) recognized, but the bad the Windows start-up routine
got as far as the log-in screen and no further. What's more, the log-in
screen was not displaying correctly: the Windows logo was shifted to the
right, the vertical line far to the right, and the user(s) accounts did
not appear at all. The HDD would spin for a little, then nothing.

I tried rebooting in safe mode, with essentially the same problem.

Could someone please give some insight as to what's happening here?
This is the fourth or fifth attempt to clone the disk (the first ones
ended with the computer not booting at all from the drive, though when
I booted from the original drive and attached the new drive externally,
I could open and view the files on it), and it's very confusing as to
why it's not working.

Technical details:

Laptop: Acer TravelMate 8100 (8104, actually) with 2 GB of RAM
Old HDD: Seagate 100GB SATA
New HDD: Western Digital 160GB SATA
OS: Windows XP Professional
No other devices connected to computer
In the BIOS, the new HDD is listed.

 

[db]

the o.s. is highly integrated with
the hardware. the o.s. that you
cloned was configured for that
exact harddrive size. These are
new security features to keep
windows from being cloned all
over town and distributed by
pirates.

therefore the clone you have cannot be
exactly restored to a larger harddrive,
because the new configuration cannot be
recognized by the cloned o.s.

cloning usually works best with
exact equipment.

however, it might be possible
to resnyc the cloned o.s. to
the new harddrive.

to do this you need to do a
repair installation with your
windows cd via the upgrade/install
option. when the cd searches
your pc it will find that o.s. and
ask if you want to repair it....

maybe this method can be helpful..

- db

I have been trying to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop by cloning the
existing drive onto a new, larger drive using Apricorn's EZ-Gig. After
repeated failures to clone, I followed the advice in another forum and
switched the hard drives before cloning (put the original in the
external enclosure and the new drive internally). After the cloning
operation was completed, I disconnected the external (old) hard drive
and attempted to boot the new drive. The good the clone was
(finally) recognized, but the bad the Windows start-up routine
got as far as the log-in screen and no further. What's more, the log-in
screen was not displaying correctly: the Windows logo was shifted to the
right, the vertical line far to the right, and the user(s) accounts did
not appear at all. The HDD would spin for a little, then nothing.

I tried rebooting in safe mode, with essentially the same problem.

Could someone please give some insight as to what's happening here?
This is the fourth or fifth attempt to clone the disk (the first ones
ended with the computer not booting at all from the drive, though when
I booted from the original drive and attached the new drive externally,
I could open and view the files on it), and it's very confusing as to
why it's not working.

Technical details:

Laptop: Acer TravelMate 8100 (8104, actually) with 2 GB of RAM
Old HDD: Seagate 100GB SATA
New HDD: Western Digital 160GB SATA
OS: Windows XP Professional
No other devices connected to computer
In the BIOS, the new HDD is listed.

 

[nesredep egrob]

the o.s. is highly integrated with
the hardware. the o.s. that you
cloned was configured for that
exact harddrive size. These are
new security features to keep
windows from being cloned all
over town and distributed by
pirates.

I had a xp pro with a 80 GB drive. It went wrong but I did have an Aconis image
of both drive C: and Drive:

I installed the new 320GB disk (Aus$139) and transferred the Images from the
external drive to the new disk. That happend just 3 weeks ago but everything has
worked well since then. I think that the exchance and update of a disk might be
in order but major surgery to the computer may just not be permissible.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[Missiong]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:08:37 -0500, "db"
databaseben.discussions.microsoft.com
wrote:
-
the o.s. is highly integrated with
the hardware. the o.s. that you
cloned was configured for that
exact harddrive size. These are
new security features to keep
windows from being cloned all
over town and distributed by
pirates.
-
I had a xp pro with a 80 GB drive. It went wrong but I did have an
Aconis image
of both drive C: and Drive:

I installed the new 320GB disk (Aus$139) and transferred the Images
from the
external drive to the new disk. That happend just 3 weeks ago but
everything has
worked well since then. I think that the exchance and update of a disk
might be
in order but major surgery to the computer may just not be
permissible.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

Thanks to the two previous posters for their thoughts.

I find it unlikely that the problem is just that of Microsoft somehow
fixing HDD size; if this were the case, then I am certain that
Apricorn's tech support would have been aware of the issue and advised
me accordingly.

If anyone else has any ideas of what might be going wrong...or better
yet, how to fix the problem...I'd be very appreciative. Acer's System
Restore disks seem designed to erase the HDD and restore it to the
original factory condition...if they work at all (my experience to date
has been that their disks don't work). They do not seem to allow a
repair without reformatting, which will never do at all.

 

[Anna]

I have been trying to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop by cloning the
existing drive onto a new, larger drive using Apricorn's EZ-Gig. After
repeated failures to clone, I followed the advice in another forum and
switched the hard drives before cloning (put the original in the
external enclosure and the new drive internally). After the cloning
operation was completed, I disconnected the external (old) hard drive
and attempted to boot the new drive. The good the clone was
(finally) recognized, but the bad the Windows start-up routine
got as far as the log-in screen and no further. What's more, the log-in
screen was not displaying correctly: the Windows logo was shifted to the
right, the vertical line far to the right, and the user(s) accounts did
not appear at all. The HDD would spin for a little, then nothing.

I tried rebooting in safe mode, with essentially the same problem.

Could someone please give some insight as to what's happening here?
This is the fourth or fifth attempt to clone the disk (the first ones
ended with the computer not booting at all from the drive, though when
I booted from the original drive and attached the new drive externally,
I could open and view the files on it), and it's very confusing as to
why it's not working.

Technical details:

Laptop: Acer TravelMate 8100 (8104, actually) with 2 GB of RAM
Old HDD: Seagate 100GB SATA
New HDD: Western Digital 160GB SATA
OS: Windows XP Professional
No other devices connected to computer
In the BIOS, the new HDD is listed.

Missiong:
It's really not clear from the information you provided (at least not clear
to me) just where things stand at this point. It would seem that following
the unsuccessful disk-cloning operation you were left with two dysfunctional
HDDs - the original source HDD and your destination HDD (the external one).
Is that actually the case at this point? Or do you have at the present time
at least one functioning bootable HDD that you can use as the source disk
for trying another disk-cloning operation?

Unless someone has had direct experience with that Apricorn disk-cloning
program I really don't think you can get any substantive help in determining
what went awry with your disk-cloning attempt and more importantly - how you
can resolve your problem in this area. I am not familiar with that Apricorn
program so I can't offer you any help with that program. I take it (from
your later post) that you've been in touch with their tech support but
haven't rec'd any help there.

So...

Assuming that you *do* have a bootable functioning HDD - presumably your
Seagate HDD - whose contents are available to be cloned to your new WD HDD,
you might want to consider using the WD disk-copying program that can be
downloaded from WD, or if you purchased a retail boxed version of the WD
drive, the program will be available on the included CD.
Anna

 

[db]

i thought acer had
hidden partitions on the
hd with the program for the
restore disks.

inaddition to the restore disks,
i thought that the
by initiating the winnt32.exe
under the i386 folder on the hd,
the repair installation would be
provided from there.

you might want to double
check with acer website and
look up faq's or contact their
customer service....

in regards to that clone program, this
you might want to check with
the website since it failed to do
what you thought it should
have done.

there may be a trick that you
can use. you might want to
utilize someone else's winxp
cd's for the repair.

if i'm not mistaken it will
likely ask you for that product
key and you can use it, but
you can change the keys later
as long as you don't try to activate
it or be connected to the net at
the time.

the other is to simply buy
a box version of winxp that
you can install on any computer
any harddrive, etc.


- db

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:08:37 -0500, "db"
databaseben.discussions.microsoft.com
wrote:
-
the o.s. is highly integrated with
the hardware. the o.s. that you
cloned was configured for that
exact harddrive size. These are
new security features to keep
windows from being cloned all
over town and distributed by
pirates.
-
I had a xp pro with a 80 GB drive. It went wrong but I did have an
Aconis image
of both drive C: and Drive:

I installed the new 320GB disk (Aus$139) and transferred the Images
from the
external drive to the new disk. That happend just 3 weeks ago but
everything has
worked well since then. I think that the exchance and update of a disk
might be
in order but major surgery to the computer may just not be
permissible.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

Thanks to the two previous posters for their thoughts.

I find it unlikely that the problem is just that of Microsoft somehow
fixing HDD size; if this were the case, then I am certain that
Apricorn's tech support would have been aware of the issue and advised
me accordingly.

If anyone else has any ideas of what might be going wrong...or better
yet, how to fix the problem...I'd be very appreciative. Acer's System
Restore disks seem designed to erase the HDD and restore it to the
original factory condition...if they work at all (my experience to date
has been that their disks don't work). They do not seem to allow a
repair without reformatting, which will never do at all.

 

[Missiong]

I have finally been able to make my hard drive work. Acer tech support
was not very useful, and in general, I can honestly say that I cannot
recommend that anyone purchase an Acer computer (among other things,
Acer claims that "it only the supports its systems as shipped," meaning
they don't do anything for upgrades, even for things like BIOS; they
also directed me to go to the website of the BIOS provider for any
updates, but the website for Phoenix BIOS clearly states that, for
updates, you have to go to the computer manufacturer's site).

The Apricorn tech support guy suggested that I perform a clone "as is";
that is, that I clone an exact copy of the original partition,
essentially splitting my new hard drive into two partitions--one the
same size as my original hard drive, the other made up of the remaining
space.

I performed the clone using the Apricorn EZ-Gig II hardware/software
combo, with the hard drives in reverse position (new hard drive
installed internally, original hard drive installed in the external
Apricorn case). The cloning took about 9 hours (Apricorn was suprised
at this, as my Acer laptop supposedly has USB2 ports--but with Acer, as
I've come to learn, expect the least). When I went to boot from the new
hard drive, everything worked pretty much as hoped for, except for a
new 15-20 second delay after logging in between the time the desktop
background image appeared and the desktop icons and task bar appeared
(subsequent reboots still have this same delay). I was then able to
format the new partition from within Windows, and now use it to store
my ever-growing photo/media bank.

Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions.