copying an entire hd with windows to an empty hard drive..?

theDarkness · TweakNOOB Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 47

I formatted the empty Maxtor hard drive, and then used Norton Ghost 2003 to clone my Seagate (with XP installed) hard drive. The problem is that when I try to use the Maxtor drive with the copied windows, windows shows the normal loading bar screen, and then when thats finished just shows a blue screen with the windows xp logo in the corner, and nothing seems to happen.

There arent that many options in Norton Ghost so I dont think theres anything there that I may have done very wrong, and it did say the entire drive was copied successfully. Can anyone help? Is there something I missed that I shouldve done first so that I can enter Windows on the maxtor?...

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HoseB · SirTweaksabit Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 260

While you're waiting for someone to help with the Norton Ghost, you might want to try using Maxtor's disk copy software... it's called Maxblast 4 and can be downloaded free from their website. I've used it many times. (Seagate has disk copy software too, but it's cumbersome.)

theDarkness · TweakNOOB Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 47

I think I tried Maxblast, and now XXClone, but the logon screen stays the same with just the xp logo in the corner of the blue screen, as if windows cannot be entered or activated for some reason. thanks very much anyway for your reply

fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763

Cloning a hard drive is only good if it's a recent, clean install, and even then, it might not work.

Things to check::

Are the jumpers set correctly? With most cloning software, you leave the old master drive in place, put the new drive in as a slave, run the software off of a boot floppy or CD, wait for the process to finish, shut down, then set the new drive as master, and REMOVE the old drive. Reboot, make sure everything works, THEN reinstall the old drive as a slave.

Did you install the new drive using the Maxblast software? If you didn't, and tried to install and partition/format it with Windows Drive MisManagement, then you need to use Maxblast. NEVER use Windows to install a factory-fresh drive, it's not reliable enough.

Did you switch the cable, so each drive is on the proper connector? (Master is the end connector, slave is the one in the middle of the cable) You mentioned that your drive cable had a "tear" in it, replace it. Try again.

If it still doesn't work, install JUST your new Maxtor, run MaxBlast off of the boot floppy (NO OLD DRIVE INSTALLED), follow the instructions to install a new drive, and install Windows from scratch. Test it, and if it boots fine, install all the software you want, THEN install the old drive as a slave, and copy over any files you want.

REMOVE the old drive when you're done, don't just let it sit there. A failing drive can continue to work, but will draw more power to try to keep the platters spinning. If it's a badly failing drive, that's enough to drop the voltage to where the new drive will puke on you due to lack of power.

If I'm reading your posts right, you had the new Maxtor in as a slave, then made it master (dunno if you cloned it or not), and put all your music on your old drive.............but now, you're saying the old drive has Windows back on it again, and you're trying to clone again? Bro...........never clone back and forth, you WILL screw up Windows. I don't even recommend cloning a GOOD drive to a new drive, there's just too many things that can screw up, and all it takes is a 1 where a 0 is supposed to be, and Windows will go wonky on you.
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HoseB · SirTweaksabit Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 260

theDarkness · TweakNOOB Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 47

on cloning I had windows running off my seagate (set as a primary slave), and had copied the entire drive onto the maxtor (set as a primary master).

It didnt work and was stuck on that blue xp screen (I tried swapping round the drives with the maxtor as the slave but the same screen came up again), so I just gave up completely and decided to just install xp from scratch onto the maxtor instead of copying the seagates contents.

But..... (and this is a big BUT!) after than ripped cable mishap, xp will no longer install onto my maxtor, even if I give it a proper formatting.... I can now only use my seagate for windows.. I try to install xp from scratch onto the newly formatted maxtor... and the first few installing screens come up as they should -loading from my xp install CD- and then when the pc reboots to continue with part 2 of the loading procedure, the black screen displays 'reading error' message which is bound to be a reference to the maxtor drive and not the xp disc as it is not scratched.. could the drive now be knackered as a result of that IDE cable tear?

......just my luck....... now I need a new case and two new hds (maxtor wont load windows... seagate overheats and clicks.......wohooOO LOL)

zhensem · Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:44 pm Post subject:

2old2care · Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 3:27 pm Post subject:

Yep...clone from a dos boot when using ghost.
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Noxide · Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:19 pm Post subject:

Damn.....That explains y i tried to transfer to a new HDD (Seagate to WD) and some of my files didnt work....
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fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763