Imaged to new Drive...now problems...help!

Question

I copied my HD image over to a larger faster HD and made the new drive the boot drive. The copy was made using the utility that comes with Western Digital drive which creates a bootable image on the new drive.

Everything boots up an looks good but as I started to use some of the apps problems arose.

I noticed Outlook was not working. I cant even get into email account setting. I tried reinstalling Office XP but it asked me for a file thats not on the CD and wont install.

Norton Ghost asked me to register the software.

I tried to update Windows XP but none of the updates will download.
I tried to reinstall windows from CD but it wont allow that because the version on HD is newer.

When I try to use Restore, it crashes and sends a report to MS.

I changed the name of the HD. You think that had anything to do with it? I can put the old drive back in worse case, but sure would like to have this bigger drive.

Any thoughts really appreciated

GreyMack · Answer

Ouch, it doesn't sound very much like a successful transfer.   As long as your original drive remains unaffected, you may wish to try again.   Did you have Roxio/Norton Go Back installed, or security software running during the transfer?   Did the copy software run in DOS or Windows? Does it offer the option to copy individual partitions?   Did you partition and format the new drive before running the copy?   Does the copy software offer the capability of verifying the image after the transfer?   Which version of Ghost do you have, or is WD's copy software supplied by Symantec?   Is this a compact or notebook system with a limited number of empty slots, or why isn't the worst case adding the second drive to an empty bay? How were the drives installed in the system for the copy?   Most of these questions aren't helpful for resolving your problem, but I'm curious about the wider picture.   GM

rkruz · Answer

Thank you for the help. Here are the steps I took:   1st I formatted the new drive when installed as a slave. Then I imaged to slave using Ghost 9.0 setting the image as an active OS. Made that drive the only drive (swappin jumper on disk),  and removed original drive When booting , Windows would not proceed past the Welcome window. I then reinstalled the original disk. And did another transfer, this time using the Western digital tool (I dont know who makes it). I did not do a format before that. It seemed to boot ok and everything looked good except for when I started to run the programs. Its almost as if Windows believes its not on the same PC anylonger and wants everthing to be registered or re-installed.   To exacerbate the confusion, I removed 2 unused PCI cards (USB and modem) and moved the ethernet card to another slot. Also disconnnect an old tape backup that was connected to the IDE cable before attaching the slave drive.   I probably did the PCIs before the boot with the 2nd image attempt.   I also changed the BIOS to enable quick boot and changed sequence of boot devices.   In the past, when I have made major hardware changes, like motherboard, Windows would ask to be registered again.  So maybe something related to windows seeing large hardware changes.   So next I will try these steps:   Configure PC back to orginal state, reinstall PCI boards and original Hard Disk and reboot make sure everything works well. Then install new drive as slave and do a fresh format of it. Then do an image via the Western Digital software and make the new drive the master. If everything is good, then remove PCI cards.   Any thoughts why Ghost did not work?   thanks

GreyMack · Answer

Ghosting to CD and restoring the image to the new drive from there worked fine for me. It was the initial attempt to Ghost drive-to-drive, or more accurately, partition-to-partition that stumped me, and seemed to be related to drive letter assignment.

GM

jmwills · Answer

I've used Ghost 2003 for about 18 months now and have images XP Pro, XP Media Center , Server 2003, and SBS 2003 and have not had one single bit of problem with any of the 4 OS's.   I always get a base install of the OS, image the drive, and store that image to one of the servers.  I can't see why Ghost 9.x would be that much different.

GreyMack · Answer

I have no good ideas why Ghost didn't work, but these forums are where I come to learn. I did a Ghost image a while back to a second drive on my notebook, and after installing the new drive as the primary, I couldn't get past the welcome screen. It wouldn't show my user accounts, so I was unable to log on as I recall. I think I found the system identifying it as drive E: and F: or something like that when I installed the old drive as a secondary drive in my notebook's modular bay and the system booted to it, then offering the user log-on. I didn't realize at first that it was booting successfully to the old drive, but I found the old drive in the modular bay was still identified as C:.

(I've been led to believe my primary drive is the master on IDE Ch. 0, my fixed optical drive is the slave on the same channel, and my modular bay is the only device on IDE Ch.1.)

I scratched my head for a bit, then I just started over and burned the Ghost image to a set of three CDs and used them to restore the image on the new drive. (I was only transferring around 6GB to an 8GB system partition, and the compressed images are relatively small compared to the large collections of music and video files I've accumulated on a separate partition, which I can transfer and backup without imaging software.)

I haven't tried a drive-to-drive image transfer since. XP and Ghost were both new to me then. I couldn't boot completely with only the new drive installed, and the old drive was in the process of dying. I couldn't figure out how to change the designation of the new drive without first changing the designation of the old drive, and that I wasn't prepared to do without knowing for sure the new drive would then successfully boot.

Since I've had time to think about it since then, and this is your system, I'd be willing to try anything now. I'm still not sure whether the E: and F: designation was applied by partitioning and formatting the new drive while it was installed as the secondary. If I had removed the old drive and then installed the new drive as primary before I partitioned and formatted it, would it have become C: and E:, as it is now, and how would the system react to an attempt to image from a primary C: drive to a secondary C: partition? It doesn't seem likely that the two drives would be allowed simultaneous identical designations, but I expected the designation to change when I installed the new drive in the primary position. So I got lost. Did I fail to make the new system partition active, but then why did it start to boot and fail to deliver user accounts? I was simply expecting the new drive to be identified as C: (and E:) when I installed it in the primary position.

Your symptoms with Ghost appear to match those I had before installing the original drive in the modular bay, which resulted in an unexpected boot-up, and a suprising revelation that it started booting to the new drive but finished booting from the old drive when it had to locate the C: drive to access the user accounts.

GM

PS - I should add that the transfer I attempted was partition to partition rather than drive to drive, and I believe that leaves out the MBR. I may have had several problems going at once.

PPS - I was using Ghost 2003, which I set up using the wizard in Windows, but it re-boots and executes in DOS.

Message Edited by GreyMack on 02-09-2005 10:29 AM

osprey4 · Answer

I'll just add a note to your comments. In my experience, Ghosting your drive over to a new drive in Windows XP will not always work. I've personally had this happen twice in two different systems. With 98 and ME, I've never had trouble, but with XP, I've nver gotten it work. Restoring a Ghost image to the same drive is no problem, but Ghosting to a new drive doesn't work. The system will boot and everything will appear normal, but the more you use the system, the more quirks will appear.

Windows General

Imaged to new Drive...now problems...help!

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