Cloning: WinXP doesnt mount automatical USB drive on restart

[muckz]

T41p 2373-GGU.

I am trying to clone my old disk to my new one (upgrading 5400RPM -> 7200RPM). Using Acronis TI.

I have a strange issue. If my Windows XP boots up and then I plug in a USB drive, it's recognized, and it's mounted automatically as F: or G: drive.

However, if I leave the drive plugged in and then restart the computer, it does not get mounted automatically. Windows SEES the drive but does not assign a letter to it. So if I click on "My Computer", the drive will not be there. But if I click on the USB tray icon, it will show the device.

This presents a problem, as each time Acronis wants to reboot my computer to clone the disks, it reports en error "Disk not found".

I reset BIOS settings to default even, still nothing.

Has anyone experienced such issues?

[muckz]

Well, I addressed this issue by unplugging and plugging back the USB cable soon after the computer starts to boot, just before Acronis TI kicks in...

My cloning went unsuccessfully, as the drive could not be booted from. Disk error, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.

So I'm reinstalling everything from my recovery CDs.

[richp]

A couple of companies made laptop ide to normal ide adapters, I just boot a normal PC with either norton ghost and do a disc to disc. Oh, when I want to do a thinkpad to external USB drive I built a norton ghost cd with USB support, it takes a while with 1.1 but goes pretty fast if I have a USB 2 PCMICA card in there.