Hitachi 7K100 won't boot T43p after True Image 9.0 clone

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unimorpheus · #1 Post by **unimorpheus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:47 pm

I have two different Hitachi 7K100 hard drives that I used with a T43 with no problems at all. The drives have the corrected firmware to eliminate the 2010 error and have been successfully cloned with True Image 9.0 for use in a 14" T43. I would like to install one of the drives in a T43p and have followed the same cloning procedures, as with the T43 but for some reason the drives will not boot in the T43p. I do not get an error when the boot fails I just get a blinking cursor. What am I missing?

Paxonator · #2 Post by **Paxonator** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:50 pm

I've had that happen to me before. Either retry making the image or try a different program.

coreman · #3 Post by **coreman** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:00 pm

I'll take an early shot at this although I am only a novice...here is what I would do...I have Acronis 8 but have never cloned a drive.

Blinking cursor tells me the cloned drive isn't being accessed during boot. So I would first double check the seating on the drive and make sure it is well seated and able to receive power.

If the drive is fully seated and the cursor still blinks, then I would go and check BIOS, it sounds like the BIOS isn't looking at your new drive for bootup.

Not really sure how drive letters are assigned but perhaps your clone has a different volume label and therefore the BIOS isn't reading it...this is purely a guess on my part. There are options in the BIOS on the order for bootup, make sure you specify the hard drive as the first device.

Bottom line to me is the PC isn't accessing your cloned drive so I start hunting down causes for that...and I believe it is because it doesn't recognize your clone as the drive to go to for startup.

Good luck...

PS: Or better yet...remake the image (after reading Paxonator)

PPS: Tried to delete my post...Paxonator's idea makes more sense as a first step...

unimorpheus · #4 Post by **unimorpheus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:13 pm

Unfortunately I have tried the re-image idea 6 times, 3 times with each drive in two different USB enclosures. No luck.

Also I forgot to mention I can access the recovery partition with no problem so I know the drive is seen by the BIOS and is accessible. I just can't get the thing to boot. Oddly enough the reason I switched to True Image 9.0 was I was getting the same error when I cloned the T43 drives with Norton Ghost 10.0. We know Norton does not work with ThinkPads but I am surprised to see this error with True Image.

Paxonator · #5 Post by **Paxonator** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:34 pm

You could try drive image 2002.

EOMtp · #6 Post by **EOMtp** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:40 pm

unimorpheus wrote:What am I missing?

Probably you used a different computer than a Thinkpad to clone the drive. If so, the geometry of the drive as accessed by the BIOS of that computer and as written by that computer is different from the geometry expected by the Thinkpad's BIOS.

You must clone the drive using a Thinkpad if you want to guarantee that the resulting drive boots on a Thinkpad.

unimorpheus · #7 Post by **unimorpheus** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:17 am

Probably you used a different computer than a Thinkpad to clone the drive.

Where did you get that one? True Image was run from the T43p where the source drive is installed.

egibbs · #8 Post by **egibbs** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:24 am

I'm guessing that the problem is a hardware difference between the T43 and T43p that is big enough that the Windows bootloader can't get past it. Could be the video card - have you tried booting in safe mode by pressing F8 at startup?

If you can get into safe mode delete the video card, networking and wireless adapters, ACPI, etc in Device Manager., then reboot and see if you can get into Windows.

If you have a Widnows CD you can also try booting from it and runnning a repair install on the system - that may get it to a bootable state.

If that doesn't work, and since you can get into the recovery partition, try doing a recovery and see if you get a bootable Windows installation. If you do then your best bet may be to reinstall the applications and copy the data out of the image.

Ed Gibbs

marcos · #9 Post by **marcos** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 11:24 am

The HD how-to mentions that if you have exposed the cloned drive to windows after boot, there is a problem with 'MountedDevices', a registry entry. In my case, I corrected the entries, still can't boot and get a blinking cursor only. Someday I would like to go back to the issue and see if I can diagnose with certainty what is causing these clonings to fail boot.

#10 Post by **GomJabbar** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:00 pm

If you haven't done this already, try deleting all partitions on the destination drive before beginning the cloning process.

EDIT: Also use the ThinkPad the drive is going to go into for the cloning. I guess that would be the T43p.

unimorpheus · #11 Post by **unimorpheus** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:17 pm

Thank you for all of the replies.

Here is the situation:
1). The two Hitachi harddrives have been imaged from the harddrive that shipped with the T43p, the destination machine.
2). True Image 9.0 was run on the T43p to image each hitachi drive.
3). The T43p will not boot the imaged Hitachi harddrives. No safe mode, text mode, nothing. The machine will display the BIOS splash and hang at a blinking text prompt.
4). I can access the recovery partition by pressing the :Access IBM: button. I will probably use this to reload XP.
5). I suspect since these drives were originally in a T43 and not the T43p the security chip may have imprinted the harddrive firmware.

EOMtp · #12 Post by **EOMtp** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:29 pm

unimorpheus wrote:True Image was run from the T43p where the source drive is installed.

Okay, but that is not the issue. Where was the destination drive while it was being written, i.e., what machine did the writing on the drive receiving the disk image?

Put simply: Did you mount the destination drive in an UltraBay Slim 2nd Hard Drive adapter, insert it in the source machine, and write the image that way? If not, then voila ... if yes, then you have a different problem.

egibbs · #13 Post by **egibbs** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:37 pm

unimorpheus wrote:5). I suspect since these drives were originally in a T43 and not the T43p the security chip may have imprinted the harddrive firmware.

If that were the case you'd be looking at a lock icon, not a blinking cursor.

Not sure what is going on, but it will be interesting to see if recovering from the recovery partition works.

Ed Gibbs

marcos · #14 Post by **marcos** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:30 pm

I had exactly the same problem as unimorpheus. Recovering from the cloned R&R partion worked fine.

unimorpheus · #15 Post by **unimorpheus** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:43 pm

The solution to the problem seems to be to use the UltraBay Slim 2nd Hard Drive adapter as suggested by EOMtp. The image to the Hitachi 100Gb drive worked without a hitch with the drive adapter in place. Thanks for the suggestion EOMtp.

Hitachi 7K100 won't boot T43p after True Image 9.0 clone

Hitachi 7K100 won't boot T43p after True Image 9.0 clone

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