Thinkpads Forum

Hey Ya'll

I've got a TP R32 with a 20gig hd running XP. I am trying to clone and upgrade to a Western Digital 120GB drive. I am using Acronis Home 10. I connected the new drive via usb to ide adapter (only thing here is the usb on the r32 is 1.1. Adapter IS backward compatible). I then started acronis. I selected manual clone, and then resized the predesktop partition area to match the current partition size (1.42GB). I then resized the main NTFS to the remainder of the drive. Acronis then reboots the system, and the process starts. When it actually starts cloning the first partition, I get the error "Error: Unable to write Disk 2 Sector xxxxx". THis happens sometimes as quick as zero percent complete, and as late as 7 percent complete. The sector listed changes. It gives me the option to Retry, Ignore or Ignore All. Retry does nothing, and Ignore only increases the unwriteable sector number by one.

I tried formating the new drive NTFS, and then scanning. It showed no errors. I can save info to it when it is formatted NTFS (and assigned a drive letter).

I tried to follow the FAQ guide on this, but have failed miserably

I have emailed Acronis, but haven't heard back yet...

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!!

Rob

I had a similar problem using Acronis 9.
Try Partition Magic 8, that sorted it for me.
Re-partition and reformat first using PM, if you go that way.

Note: I used the USB-ports of my main PC, with the connector-bits from two 2.5" external USB-cases.

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought (and I may be wrong), that True IMage would erase the current partitions before cloning.... It shouldn't matter what is used to format it prior to cloning, should it?

Thanks!

Rob

ps ANy chance I got a dud hard drive?

The new HDD (target drive) needs to be in the ThinkPad, and the source drive can be in the USB enclosure. You likely will need to zero out (sometimes called low-level format) the new HDD since you did not have it in the ThinkPad the first time you tried cloning to it.

Western Digital: Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (CD)

Western Digital wrote:WRITE ZEROS TO DRIVE - The Write Zeros option, wipes any and all data off your drive. This option used when your data is no longer usable or recoverable. If you no longer need any data from your drive and would like to start over, run this option to set your drive to an as new condition. NOTE: Please make sure that you have selected the correct drive to perform this function on as once ran, no data will be recoverable.

Thanks!! I didn't know that.

And I assume I can specify to boot from usbin the bios (which is the source drive) to allow me to start he computer in the first place? Or do I need to boot from some sort of live cd?


Just out of curiosity, why are the source and target drives reversed in this instance, yet the standard FAQ guide shows the target as external? Because it's an older laptop? Or something to do with the usb>ide adapter?

Thanks again for the help!!

Rob

For cloning, generally speaking, I believe you need to boot either from a floppy disk or CD. After the drive is cloned, you should be able to boot your cloned drive from the USB drive or internal drive bay. Caution: do not have 2 identical copies of XP in the laptop (or connected to it) when you boot XP, or you may run into other problems.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=38496

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 146#119146

I have found the easiest way to clone drives with Acronis is to use the bootable Rescue disc that the software will create for you.
Disconnect the cloned drive, remove the original drive, stick the new clone in and complete the cloning process.

Thanks. THe problem I run into with the rescue disc is the laptop does not have a cd burner. The only computer I've got that with a burner is a Mac. If it's an .iso I'm ok, the mac can do it. But if I need to create the cd and burn it on the same machine, I'm stuck. Does this fall into that category?

Thanks again for the help

Rob

on edit: RTM!! I see it can create a bootable iso image, that I could move to the mac to burn. I'll try using that this evening.

Thanks!

Hey

Sorry to pester ya'll again... but things still aren't progressing.

Here's what I tried last night.

I used the utility recommended (WD), and wrote 0's to whole drive

I switched the location of the drives (target internal and source external). I could not seem to boot from external. I know the laptop will boot from a thumb (usb) drive, but not from the external hard drive.

I created the boot disk. The trial version (of home and workstation, I tried both), will not let you clone from the boot disk, only from within windows.

I then went back to old setup (source internal and target external). I tried once again to clone. I thought maybve since I wrote 0's to new drive it would work.... no such luck. I still get the "Error Unable to write to disk 2 sector such-and-such.

Should I be using an option other than "Clone"?

Robbo613, do you use the clone option when booting from the resuce disk?

realblackstuff, can you please elaborate on your method?


Any more thoughts?

Thanks again for helping me

rob

See if the following will work...

Write zeros to the new target drive again, then place the drive in the ThinkPad and boot up a Windows Install CD. Partition and format the drive NTFS. Next place the target drive in the USB enclosure and the source drive in the ThinkPad. Now try cloning.

My method worked as follows:
I have two 2.5" USB-enclosures. I took their connectors out of the enclosure, and hooked one up to the 'old' (to be cloned) laptop HD.
Hooked up a new HD to the other one.
Plugged both drives (each using a 'forked' USB-cable) in the front four USB-ports of my PC.
1 end in the HD connector, 2 ends into 2 USB ports.
When Acronis did not work from within my PC's XP-Pro, I used PM8 instead.
It was a slow process, 18GB data from a 40GB HD in just under 2 hours, but the result was perfect.

If you use PM, make sure to perform only ONE action per step, then hit the APPLY button. Accumulating actions will very often result in errors!

Thank you both for expanding you answers. RealBlackStuff, I ended up going your route and it worked perfectly.


Thank you for helping me thru this

Rob

My pleasure, that's what we are here for, to help each other.

Only for Info - with Paragon Drive Backup there is no problem to clone the HDD´s. Not under Windows but you have the option to reboot and then the cloning begins. works perfect.

greetz

Another FREE cloning software that works REALLY WELL is
HDClone 3.8 Free Edition I just completed cloning 2 hard drives