I am in clone limbo with XP and T30s

[cadillacmike68]

Can we talk about the MBR now?? RThis is starting to agitate me...

I used acronis True Image 11 (retail box) to clone a 320GB onto another 320GB. The cloned disk will not boot - i get the blinking cursor at top left.

Booting with an XP Boot Floppy works, it takes a while longer but the whole OS boots.

I have tried re-writing the MBR with a win98 startup disk FDISK /MBR - no help. I aso tried the IBM T30 recovery partition restore diskette (the main function of this is to write IBMs original MBR) but that doesn't help either.

Thee are no boot.ini or hal.dll errors - those will stop the boot process cold - even with a boot floppy - been there.

I thought that cloning using True Image was supposed to alleviate the need for this stuff????? If i want non-bootable HDDs i can use acronis disk director to copy the partitions and then play with boot.ini and hal.dll...

So how do i get cloned disk this to boot?

tenpointnine wrote:fit new drive into the Ultrabay to clone from old to new?

No -- reverse the locations. Move the old drive to the Ultrabay, and place the new drive in the primary drive bay. Then clone from old to new.

Note: Depending on the cloning package you use, the MBR (Master Boot Record) may not transfer correctly, and you may need to reconstruct it after the cloning operation, lest the new cloned drive will not boot. The indication will be that there is a blank flashing cursor at the top of the screen, and nothing else. We'll deal with that eventuality later, if necessary ...

If you have a USB flash drive, the easiest thing is to make the flash drive bootable with the HP tool (link below), place the cloning software on it, and then boot from the flash drive (press F12 at bootup) to run the cloning software.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... ITY-I23839

Good luck!

[RealBlackStuff]

Stop cloning, take an image instead, which you then restore onto the new HD.

[cadillacmike68]

Stop cloning, take an image instead, which you then restore onto the new HD.

Ok, Take an image and back it up to where? a different HDD? I have two 250Gbs that can fit a 50GB backup image (the 320GB has only 50 GB used on it).

But when it comes to restoring, won't this require a third drive - 1 for the new target HDD, 1 for the HDD with the backup image and 1 for the boot CD.

Can't boot from the blank HDD, can't boot from the other HDD since its not bootable, and if it was as soon as it gets put in the slave channel bay there goes its bootability, booting a CD is the only option, but that takes up 1 of the 2 bays, and I don't have a USB HDD enclosure.

[RealBlackStuff]

I use my desktop together with the Apricot Drivewire (universal USB interface for all HD formats) to take the image (with Acronis) from the external HD (e.g. ex your laptop) and store it on one of the desktop HDs.
Then swap external drives and restore from desktop HD onto [new/other] external HD.
Works every time.

You can also use the innards from an external USB enclosure instead of the Apricot Drivewire.

[cadillacmike68]

Well, I bought a USB enclosure so i can now boot from a bootable CD (which I'll have to make) and this way i can put the source in the ultrabay and the blank target in the master IDE bay. It'' be slow because the T30 is USB 1.1 but it should work.

No desktop - i gave up on them in 2004. I have a huge tower box that was state of the art in 2002 but i haven't even turned it on since 2007. It's loaded with all SCSI drives (no IDE devices at all) including two CDRWs, and 3 or 4 HDDs, SCSI Tape & scanner (I'll set that up on my wife's T61 with the Adaptec Slim SCSI i bought for her) but it's now ancient and slower than my T21.

[cadillacmike68]

I found this acronis kb article, which might be at the core of my booting issues:

http://kb.acronis.com/content/1515

I've never used disk mgt to initialize a disk before, and didn't know of the clean command in DISKPART, even though i used it to partition and format NTFS drives in the past. It has a really a rotten unser interface - basically i hate diskpart. I have never used disk mgt to initalize a disk - never had to when i used diskpart to make and format and I assumed that the MBR was ok in all these clone disks. but maybe not...

I'm going to wipe both target disks using the instructions i found here, and then try again...

The hated DISKPART actually has a useful function after all!!!

Have i said microsoft sucks and win blows yet - i should have started off with that!

[cadillacmike68]

Still in limbo - finally got everything set to go at approx 0300; USB wouldb't show the drive, etc, USB would not boot, slow hotel narrowband speed took forever to DL, had to tidy up the source HDD, had to take it out of it's thinkpad caddy to fit in one of the USB enclosures.....

Source drive in a USB enclosure
Target drive in the master internal bay ("permanent" or "boot "bay)
bootable acronis CD in the ultrabay
CAC reader,USB floppy, etc all disconnected.

Took 15 hours to complete

[cadillacmike68]

At least I haven't done THIS:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/25522

[cadillacmike68]

It's still running as of 1530 - 12 hours and counting.

It finished after approx 15 hours.

[cadillacmike68]

Well, the slow boat to china method worked.

The new 320GB booted up. It did not retain the original volume serial # so roxio easy this n that refused to start, but i have a fix for that.

I also need to rename each computer based on its boot HDD so i don't get duplicate name on the network errors when i have a 2nd or 3rd machine running.

Will test further...

[cadillacmike68]

Working from larger to smaller now...

Hitachi 100 to Hitachi 80. again from windows with target in ultrabay. At first TI greyed out the target disk like before, so i switched to DD, but flubbed that up when i told it to make the target active, it bombed but did no damage.

So i rebooted, and used DISKPART, selected the 2nd disk which is in the ultrabay (disk 1 - I REALLY HATE the disk geometry numbering system when heads disks and cylinders start at zero but sectors and partitions start at 1!!!!!). I CLEANed the 2nd disk - yup that is a Diskpart command, then to disk mgt to initialize - where did ms come up with these command names??

Anyway that seems to be the ancient chinese secret that i didn't know about because when i fired up TI from windoze right afterwards, lo and behold the 80 GB target was selectable with a 100GB source.

That one worked and i'm adjusting the volume id for easy bake oven cd and dvd and the computer name, and will do the 2nd 80GB tomorrow. looks like i may be onto the proper procedures - finally.

[RealBlackStuff]

It must be very lonely where you work!
All this monologue...

FYI: if nobody 'answered' yet, rather than make a new post each time, you can also edit your last post and add new info.

[robert213]

At first TI greyed out the target disk like before, so i switched to DD, but flubbed that up when i told it to make the target active, it bombed but did no damage.

I am reading (just not replying, because I don't have any advice to offer)...

One of the problems that you are experiencing is that:
Acronis True Image is not recognizing your "destination" HD. For some unknown reason, it is "greying" out your destination/target HD. This is occuring when destination HD is different GB size than source HD.

By using DOS command-line utility (found in Windows XP folder - c:\windows\system32) and Windows XP Administrative Tool - Disk Management, you were able to make Acronis TI see your destination/target HD.

[cadillacmike68]

Clafification to robert's note.

TI could see the intended target HDD - but it would not let me select it as a target IF it was smaller than the source.

The command line program is DISKPART, and the Diskpart command is CLEAN

Make SURE you have the correct disk selected!!!

After that, win XP disk management to initialize the disk and TI let me select it with no issues.

TI's internal add disk DOES WORK as an alternative. Yyou need to run it all the way through, and the machine booted TWICE on me - sain "clone operation complete - scared the bejezuz out of me, but i let it run and it went back into light blue screen maint mode and did the actual clone. I think I'll use DISKPART / Clean in the future.

This prety much eliminates the need for me to use Acronis disk Director for anything other than a single partition transfer or re-size. That would be good.

[cadillacmike68]

Here's the final report (updated 2 Nov 2011):

Background:
I was looking for a disk clone solutuion - was pi$$ed of at symantec for butchering Partition Magic and letting it wither. Settled on Acronis TI and Disk Director. Read that TI could not clone larger to smaller, so i got both and started off with DD.

Initially DD worked ok - I read about the New HDDs MBR getting hosed by winbloze, and potential HAL.DLL or BOOT.INI issues - saw them and was able to overcome them in the past. Then I got a HAL.DLL corrupt messae that would not go away. After this all, I think it was a procedural error on my part. because i was previously able to use DD to make booting clones.

Well on to TI because multiple replies in this and other forums say it CAN clone larger to smaller. Well it wouldn't for me and my first TI clone same size resulted in a disk that would not boot by itself - i needed an XP boot floppy to get it going.

Here's the final solution:

First i cleared all system unit and HDD passwords- they might not have mattered, but it was a possibility, especially if i booted the user PWs and the disks needed partition table updating.

second, I used DISKPART / CLEAN on the new HDD (DO NOT DO THIS ON YOUR CURRENT HDD BY MISTAKE!!!!!), then used XP Disk Mgt to "initialize" the new HDD.

TI worked like a charm. TI's internal "add new disk" also works, but you have to let it run through and it makes TWO reboots of your computer unexpected and scary unless you are expecting it. DISKPART first is cleaner if you boot from windows and run TI from there.

Yes booting with the bootable CD i made and having the new / target disk in the IDE master bay and the original disk in a USB (if you have no other internal HDD bays) is the SAFEST method but it is also the SLOWEST, especialy if your machine only has USB 1.1 (which my ThinkPad T30s have).

It took OVER 15 HOURS to complete a 350 GB clone via the USB.

Well after the 15 hour marathon, I made 6 sucessful clones while running windows with the following configuration:
Original disk in master IDE bay
Target disk in ThinkPad ultra (secondary IDE) bay
Boot method Windows then run ATI from windows

Yes, that's 6 in a row, i performed DiskPart / Clean on 3 and ATI Add Disk on 3; both methods work and allow cloning from larger to smaller (which is what i really wanted to do!!!) Each took an hour or so to complete.

Note, i cannot boot from a USB stick - the T30 does not have that cabability so it's boot TI CD or boot windows. someone says this is possible, perhaps, but it's irrelavent because of the following:

I hunted down two ThinkPad Dock Is with the intregal Ultrabay 2000 so i can boot the CD, and have the two disks in the bays (I'm never using the USB enclosure again!!!) The old Dock-1s with the built in CD work great. the Arconis Boot CD goes in the dock, the original HDD stays in the main bay and the target goes in the ultrabay. Works like a charm 100GB to 60GB clone. Fire and forget as we say in the military. And when acronix boots from the CD it does not have to re-boot itself out of windows to do any of the work. I like that. Plus I stuffed True Imade and disk director all on the same boot CD so i have 4 options when i boot that CD.

Gotta say this: Adronis TI is actually a powerful product that works through several annoying things that micosoft has done with XP. I do commend it on its functionality - the user interface could stand some refinement, and the users manual, well, i can't seem to be able to downlod it, but again very good product.