Harddrive Upgrade under Vista T60 Hell!

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jlingo · #1 Post by **jlingo** » Thu May 03, 2007 11:45 am

Please help!!

I tried to upgrade my harddrive from 120GB 5400RPM into 100GB 7200RPM harddrive. Usually, all I had to do was to clone the harddrive with Aronis and then everything was done smoothly. But this time, I couldn't boot under the cloned harddrive. I did the cloning twice. I don't feel like installing everything from scratch again(factory default) only because I am upgrading a harddrive. why is it so hard with Vista to upgrade harddrive?

#2 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu May 03, 2007 11:52 am

Did you put the target drive (new drive) in the ThinkPad, and the source drive in the other enclosure?

bontistic · #3 Post by **bontistic** » Thu May 03, 2007 12:14 pm

Can you describe what happens if you boot from the new drive?
I had an error with Vista before where the boot manager was corrupted. I fixed this by running the Vista installation DVD and it fixed the boot manager in less than 5 minutes.

jlingo · #4 Post by **jlingo** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:48 pm

GomJabbar wrote:Did you put the target drive (new drive) in the ThinkPad, and the source drive in the other enclosure?

Target drive in the SATA IBM Bay enclosure(in the DVD Bay). And the source HD is in The thinkpad.

jlingo · #5 Post by **jlingo** » Thu May 03, 2007 8:23 pm

When I boot the drive afterwards, it gave me an error message that hardware has been changed and unable to boot Please insert Vista installation DVD. But I don't have the installation dvd since my T60 doesn't come with Vista DVD? Any work around?
I only have the recovery disk 7 CDs that I made when I first bought the laptop.
Thanks in advance

#6 Post by **BillMorrow** » Fri May 04, 2007 12:42 am

call microsoft and complain..
or call lenovo support and complain..

or just use the restore CD's on the new drive..

taob · #7 Post by **taob** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:26 am

jlingo wrote:When I boot the drive afterwards, it gave me an error message that hardware has been changed and unable to boot Please insert Vista installation DVD.

I had the same problem when I backed up my Vista installation from my 80GB 5400 rpm drive to my 100GB 7200 rpm drive. I do have my Vista install DVD though, and you need it to do a "repair drive", which fiddles with the MBR and partition flags to match the new drive. I think the issue is with a GUID that needs to change when moving to a different drive, but instead is copied over verbatim from the old disk.

You might also want to check on the Acronis support forums to see if anyone there has a suggestion.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Dimitri_P · #8 Post by **Dimitri_P** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:28 am

BillMorrow wrote:call microsoft and complain..
or call lenovo support and complain..

or just use the restore CD's on the new drive..

:-]

Brad · #9 Post by **Brad** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:35 am

I would recommend what Gomjabber asked. Switch the drives with the target in your ThinkPad. Worked for me on Tuesday with my T43p and XP. It did NOT work the other way around.

Brad

nxman · #10 Post by **nxman** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:55 am

Vista is hell its self stay away from it!

bontistic · #11 Post by **bontistic** » Fri May 04, 2007 3:42 am

There are three methods posted by MS but all require the installation DVD:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

There used to be a Customer Preview Program of Vista which you can download from the MS site after registration. I think that DVD will work as well. Now I cannot find it anymore. Maybe you could ask a friend to lend you a copy.

Or you can try this. This is a thread where they want to remove the Grub loader. Scroll down to the part where
Super Grub is discussed and follow the steps from there. Basically:

1. Burn ISO
2. Boot
3. Fix Windows Boot > 2000/XP
4. Mark your Vista partition as Active (using FDisk I guess)

Let us know if this works out for you.

Nebzar · #12 Post by **Nebzar** » Fri May 04, 2007 6:53 am

I think this may be the simplest solution to the problem of successfully boot from a cloned disk. I don't have direct confirmation that it works, since I don't have yet tried to clone a Vista boot disk, so you may want to try and report back here.

The solution relies on changing some BCD entries to "BOOT" device references rather than explicit "PARTITION"-based references (which contain both the drive signature and the partition number, and thus become invalid for the cloned disk).

It can be accomplished by issuing, BEFORE CLONING, three BCDEDIT commands:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

Subsequently, you can clone the disk and the clone will successfully boot.

I quote here the full text of the relevant post, which is post N. 4 in the following thread:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPo ... 0&SiteID=1

An update on where things currently stand.

Indeed this appears to be a condition specific to the new BCD-based boot manager. i.e. It's the boot manager failing to find and execute the Windows boot files under circumstances where Windows itself can otherwise successfully boot, and not a change to the boot configuration/dependencies of Windows itself.

(Windows of course also keeps partition and disk information of its own, even prior to Vista. But in my experience this never resulted in a boot issue for the situation described, and Windows automatically updated and corrected if a different partition / disk signature was used.)

The cause of the Vista load failure previously described, to the degree I understand it, is that by default all of the BCD entries use "PARTITION"-type device references where applicable. In the BCD data stored for these "PARTITION"-type device references (visible in the BCD section of the registry, and in a BCDEDIT /EXPORT), both the drive signature and the partition number appear to be part of the information stored. And based on the results, both must match the current environment else the boot manager will declare the OS loading application cannot be found.

(Even if I force the drive signature to be the correct signature, if I'm restoring to a different partition than the image was previously using, the restored partition will still fail to boot because the partition number stored in the BCD still doesn't match the current environment.)

The solution that appears to be most suitable (at least for the situation I previously described and was intending to solve) is to change the BCD entries to use "BOOT" device references rather than explicit "PARTITION"-based references. Presumably thereby implying "whatever device/partition I booted from, that is the device/partition I want to use".

Preparing a Vista installation prior to creating the Ghost image then becomes a task of setting the DEVICE and OSDEVICE entries of the BCD entries you intend to use:

Logon as Administrator and from a command prompt invoke the following changes:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

Note you can "fix" a previously restored (and currently failing to boot) installation using a PE boot disc and executing these same actions against the restored partition's BCD entries.

There may be more entires that you need to fix if you intend to use them ({memtest}, {legacy}, etc.). The above is just the minimum for my own scenario where there is just a clean Vista-only OS installation on the partition.

Once the BCD entries are no longer referring to specific disk signatures and partition numbers, there is no need to use -FDSP with Ghost anymore, either. The disk signature can be reset as it is by default with a Ghost disk restore, and "nothing special" is required during image creation or restore (from a Ghost perspective).

Presumably this could have also been corrected by resetting/updating the "PARTITION"-type device entries with current information (current partition number and disk signature) post-Ghost restore, if for any reason the use of "PARTITION"-type references is needed. For the purposes of making an image that can be restored via Ghost to any partition on my test box, the "BOOT" device reference appears most desirable by not being fixed to any one partition or disk signature.

Happy booting.

-Alan

Hope this helps, regards
Neb

bontistic · #13 Post by **bontistic** » Fri May 04, 2007 7:09 am

Neb,

That is a very informative post. I hope this one works for the OP.
In addition to what has been mentioned, BCDEdit.exe can be found in the %WINDIR%\System32 folder of the Windows Vista partition.

jlingo · #14 Post by **jlingo** » Fri May 04, 2007 9:52 am

Thank you very much for the solution.

I just finished my whole day installing Vista from scratch with all the data and all the programs all over again. But I will keep this in mind for future reference.

Thank you again,

Nebzar wrote:I think this may be the simplest solution to the problem of successfully boot from a cloned disk. I don't have direct confirmation that it works, since I don't have yet tried to clone a Vista boot disk, so you may want to try and report back here.

The solution relies on changing some BCD entries to "BOOT" device references rather than explicit "PARTITION"-based references (which contain both the drive signature and the partition number, and thus become invalid for the cloned disk).

It can be accomplished by issuing, BEFORE CLONING, three BCDEDIT commands:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

Subsequently, you can clone the disk and the clone will successfully boot.

I quote here the full text of the relevant post, which is post N. 4 in the following thread:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPo ... 0&SiteID=1

Nebzar · #15 Post by **Nebzar** » Fri May 04, 2007 10:46 am

Sorry that my post came too late for you

I checked the Acronis support site, and for the last build (4942) of TrueImage 10 they report these changes:

Last available update: build #4942, 2007-03-12. Get update.

Changes:

* Backup creation of MS Outlook 2000 and MS Outlook 2003 imap accounts
* File level archive creation fixes
* Better hardware support
* Bootable media fixes
* Fixes for working under Windows Vista 64
* Fixes of working with FTP.
* Windows Vista restoring fixes
* Email notification fixes

Maybe the "Windows Vista restoring fixes" do solve the problem...

Regards

jlingo · #16 Post by **jlingo** » Fri May 04, 2007 11:16 am

No not at all Neb, Thank you very much for your help. This would still benefit other people in the forum as well as a great tip for me. I really appreciate it.

Nebzar wrote:Sorry that my post came too late for you

I checked the Acronis support site, and for the last build (4942) of TrueImage 10 they report these changes:

Last available update: build #4942, 2007-03-12. Get update.

Changes:

* Backup creation of MS Outlook 2000 and MS Outlook 2003 imap accounts
* File level archive creation fixes
* Better hardware support
* Bootable media fixes
* Fixes for working under Windows Vista 64
* Fixes of working with FTP.
* Windows Vista restoring fixes
* Email notification fixes
Maybe the "Windows Vista restoring fixes" do solve the problem...

Regards

xta · #17 Post by **xta** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 9:34 pm

GomJabbar wrote:Did you put the target drive (new drive) in the ThinkPad, and the source drive in the other enclosure?

oh the target/new drive has to be the one that is booted up, and the old source drive should be put into an external enclosure? that would mean you need to install an OS onto the target drive first in order to boot it up?

sorry for asking maybe obvious questions, but i want to swap my current 5400 drive with a 7200 one and i havent done this procedure before

Harddrive Upgrade under Vista T60 Hell!

Harddrive Upgrade under Vista T60 Hell!

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