Sorry, I should have provided more detail.

I believe the error message was something like "HDD not found" when the cloned drive was installed in place of the original drive.

The original drive was working perfectly when the clone was made. The original drive works perfectly most of the time, but every couple of days displays the BSoD, sometimes while make a clapping sound. One time when the Inspiron was bumped, the disk made a few sounds, froze and displayed the BSoD. That's why I am now almost certain it is an intermittent hardware gremlin.

The clone itself was made on a separate system with the original drive and the cloned drive both attached using Norton Ghost, I believe. When the two drives were low-level compared on that system, they were identical.

When the cloned drive was installed in the Inspiron, I got the "HDD not found" message (I think). When the original was put back in, the Inspiron booted normally.

So there has pnly ever been a single disk drive at a time connected to the Inspiron.

Thanks,
Al

Does the BIOS (F2) see the new drive?

Excellent question, and I wish I could remember accurately. As I recall, BIOS did not see the drive, but I could be wrong.

The reason I think it is a software/firmware/security setting of some kind is that, as I said, the CLONED drive would not boot on the Inspiron. I then installed Windows XP from CD onto the new (formerly cloned) drive, and the Inspiron would successfully boot from the new drive. However, all my documents, settings and programs were gone. So, I am now nervously running again on the old flaky drive.

So it seems that BIOS refuses to recognize this drive with the O/S that had been installed on a different physical drive. That may be what we need to overcome.

Another way of asking would be, Should a cloned drive be able to run in an Inspiron 6000 just like the original drive?

I just found a scribble by the technician who did the cloning: "Replaced HD with Ghost Image. HD will not boot OS due to Licensed hardware difference. Clone is Fujitsu, original is Maxtor, both 80 GB"

Thanks,
Al

If the BIOS won't see the drive, there is a hardware issue with the system, the drive or both. Unless a BIOS hard drive password is in place, there's nothing that would prevent the drive replacement - i.e., there's nothing unique to the drive or system that ties one to the other.

What program (and version) was used to clone the drive?

I may have been wrong about BIOS not seeing the drive. I also seem to remember errors relating to 'PBR'? Please don't quote me on those recollections.

But what confuses me is that BIOS did see the NEW drive and it re-booted successfully after I formatted it and loaded Windows XP Home from CD onto the new drive. However, when the same drive was cloned to be identical to the original, then it would not boot.

Doesn't that eliminate a hardware problem?

Was there something set on the drive by my loading Windows from CD that I need to set on the cloned drive to make it work?

Al

The drive was cloned using Norton Ghost 9.0, according to the technician.

Thanks,
Al