The Cloning Wars
Posted 09/15/08 at 06:35:51 PM by The Maximum PC Staff
Comments
Print
Email
I’m trying to upgrade my boot disc drive, which uses XP as the OS. I’d failed twice and hen turned to Norton Ghost 12 to copy my C drive to my new disc. During the clone, everything seemed to be working until about 70 percent of the way through the procedure. At that point, a message appeared stating that my computer was trying to communicate with Microsoft. After about two minutes another message appeared stating that the attempt to communicate failed. Then the computer crashed.
I had some difficulty rebooting and then found that XP failed to recognize the new disc drive. It took me some time to figure out that this drive had to be reformatted. I’ve upgraded discs before but never encountered difficulties like this. I called Microsoft and they suggested I buy a copy of Vista and rebuild from scratch. I don’t want to do this. Am I missing something?
—Marvin Burke
Obviously, Windows is interrupting your clone procedure. It’s surprising that the operating system is crashing entirely. If this happens repeatedly, you should back up your critical files (documents, saved games, etc.) and reinstall Windows XP.
If not, the Doctor has a solution for your cloning procedure. Ditch Ghost and pick up the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (www.ubcd4win.com). Put it in your optical drive and boot off the CD. Once the UI fires up, find the included DriveImage XML program and use it to clone one drive to the other. The procedure should complete without Windows bothering you, given that you’re running the entire operation off a bootable CD.
Running DriveImage XML on a custom Windows boot disk is a great alternative to using Norton Ghost
Ghost used to give you the option to make such a CD. You could run Ghost outside of the Windows environment yet still accomplish the same tasks as if you were in the operating system: backups, restores, clones, etc. Alas, those days are behind us.
 |
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes. |
The clonning wars and Gparted
Submitted by Olmec on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 9:30am
I think the only way to do it successfully is cloning
outside windows with the software you mention. I want to ad something,
you can use gparted to do it. The following link is a detailed guide of
the process, I am sure it works because I did it step by step and
migrated all my stuff (I mean OS and files) from an 80 gb ide hd to a
250 gb sata hd.
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=149328Hope it helps
The Olmec
Submitted by anonuser on Wed, 09/17/2008 - 3:13pm
Tried every tactic in the book; Acronis TI, Acronis Migrate, Norton Partition Magic, Ghost v11-14, Paragon Series of tools, numerous freeware utilities(UBCD and Hiren's Boot Cd included)... to clone or backup & restore this Dell drive, the end result every time is a corrupt MFT and failure to boot-BSOD. The drive does not feature a Restore partition like many recent Dell products, but does have the hidden Dell Utility part. Have tried copying partitions over with and without the Dell Utility part. and changing needed options in Boot.ini, but always same result. Have tried many tools and many drives(thinking it was bad hard drive) and even eliminating the Dell from the process using a surrogate to do the clone or backup/restore and still no go. Asked dell if they could give me some insight on what may be the problem and they were overwhelmingly unhelpful.
Submitted by rfinefrock on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 5:31pm
I agree with the True Image Recomendation. How does $10 sound?
Check out this link for Gizmo's Tech News:
www.techsupportalert.com/acronis-true-image-11-home.htm
The Acronis offer is good only until Friday September 19th.
I have been using True Image since version 9. I like to test out shareware and freeware and True Image keeps me safe. It's "Try & Decide" feature is really great. The next version (2009) will let your "Try & Decide" session survive a system re-boot! Even better!
Must Read Articles
Feature
Review
Feature
Feature
Feature
This Month's Issue
FEATURE How to Get FREE Programs, Services, Software & MoreFEATURE Digital Photo Printer RoundupHOW TOBuild a 3D CameraFEATUREDIY Arcade PCWHITE PAPERHow TRIM Works
Technology News
Computer Cooling Fans
Computer Cases
PC Game Controllers
PC Games
Computer Hardware
Headphones
MP3 Players
Stream Video
Computer Mouse
Monitors
Motherboards
NAS Storage
Networking
Laptop Computers
DVD Burner
Digital Cameras
Portable Storage
Computer Accessories
Smartphone
Antivirus Software
Sound Cards
Speakers
Computer Systems
Thumb Drives
Video Cameras
Video Card Reviews
Water Cooling
Gadgets
- Keyboards
© 2009 Future US, Inc. All Rights Reserved.