Copying a HDD didn't work? Help!

[SirKenin]

lol. I can see why too. I just call it a prompt myself.

But yeah, we should run before a certain someone, who shall of course remain nameless, comes back with more misguided attempts to prove a certain someone's superiority, backed with completely unrelated yet delightfully inane soliloquies.

 

[Bobo]

lol. I can see why too. I just call it a prompt myself.

But yeah, we should run before a certain someone, who shall of course remain nameless, comes back with more misguided attempts to prove a certain someone's superiority, backed with completely unrelated yet delightfully inane soliloquies.

AAAAA! *runs away*

Well it's bedtime anyway. I'll be back tomorrow...of course

 

[SirKenin]

Niterz bud.

 

[PC eye]

He can't help himself. Senility does that to you.

According to your sig you are too young for that?

Windows Me was the last Windows based off DOS. Not that I don't like DOS, mind you, but basing Windows off of NTFS was the smartest thing they could have done. It's far more stable and secure.

Weren't you saying that you were glad that dos was gone earlier?

No, that's a command prompt. It certainly mimics the DOS style interface, and it comes in very handy at times, but it's not DOS.

At Least you finally realized that fdisk doesn't run at the command prompt but the "A:>" dos prompt when you boot from an old 98 or ME startup floppy.

 

[SirKenin]

Windows Me was the last Windows based off DOS. Not that I don't like DOS, mind you, but basing Windows off of NTFS was the smartest thing they could have done. It's far more stable and secure.

Weren't you saying that you were glad that dos was gone earlier?

Yeah, out of Windows (ie, basing it on NTFS as opposed to DOS). But you were too busy looking for some itty bitty little detail to pick at to try and save face as opposed to looking at the context and realizing what was being said.... So instead you opted to make a fool of yourself. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

 

[PC eye]

Yeah, but we all know your tech abilities by now so I'm not too worried about it PC Eye. Trust me, merc_fan... We all know the guy doesn't know what he's doing. For instance, did I even so much as mention fixboot and fixmbr like he asserts in his post? No, I didn't. It just shows you that he isn't even operating on the same playing field.

Try FDISK /MBR first. If it doesn't work, a repair install of XP will work regardless. The problem is that you didn't modify the boot record of your HDD. You put all the files on it and that's good, but now you need to make it bootable.

You have no room to even talk there guy! You made this royal &#^ after the advice on using the fixmbr and fixboot commands at the recover console was given based on fact not fiction. Instead your instructing the use of the old dos disk partitioning utility? Apparently you've been out of it for the last few days there guy.

 

[SirKenin]

We've been through this already. Fixmbr won't do anything at all to fix the problem unless the MBR got fragmented or otherwise screwed up. Fixboot will because it modifies the boot sector, etc. We already know that you don't know shit about computers, so I'm not surprised that you had problems with it, but if he is even somewhat brighter than you are it should work fine.

Now, because you are a twit, here's some extracurricular activities for you on fixboot on cloned drives:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=42435

How to Repair the Boot Sector:
If XP won't start it may be due to a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files.

To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console (as above). At the Command Prompt type the following (where "X" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

To repair a damaged Boot Sector at the command prompt type FIXBOOT and press Enter. Then answer "Y"

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixboot.mspx?mfr=true



Look at this article what it says about using FDISK on an NTFS based computer wiseguy:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=315261


Keep arguing. Dig yourself in deeper. There's more where that came from. Now if you're smart you'll drop it and cut your losses.

 

[PC eye]

You still seem to miss the #1 rule there too!

Boot to a command prompt by using a Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft 1. Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) boot floppy disk.

Then type fdisk /mbr at the what??? "MSDos prompt"? Not from you!

Seeing as how you have the XP CD, boot into the Recovery Console and type in FDISK /MBR at the prompt.

You don't have room here for this nonsense.

 

[SirKenin]

Well, if he had FDISK available to him it would have worked. A default install doesn't unfortunately, but the idea was for him to get a copy of it from somewhere. Geez. This is the internet. .. It's not like you coming out and saying command.com isn't part of Windows XP, or did you forget that one.

Like.. Umm.. How about this one?

http://ffdisk.webaps.de/fdisk121.zip

or this one?

http://www.techadvice.cc/files/y44b1/w95b/fdisk.exe

Or what about this one?

http://www.soft32.com/download_25842.html

And then there's this one:

http://www.waterwheel.com/Bak/downloads/fdisk.exe

Or maybe this one will work better:

http://www.uv.tietgen.dk/staff/mlha/Download/DOS/microsoft/FDISK.EXE




Like I said, cut your losses and stop looking for an opening. You're making yourself look like an idiot.

 

[merc_fan]

Sorry for the late reply and thanks guys for your tips.

I already have another 120Gb in my PC on one of those removable caddy's which I save my data onto anyway.

If you want my old 120Gb, check it out here:
http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZleicestermercfan

Where I say "It's hardly been used as I have only used it for backup purposes so it is in great condition" in the auction...I said that to get more bids obviously. However, it's not been used much because I don't use my PC all the time

I tried the FDISK /MBR as recommended by Symantec as well but XP didn't do anything. I was told my Symantec it'd take about 15 minutes...I don't know if that's true or not but this just did it instantly and didn't work.

I was then going to install a fresh copy of Windows and put all the files back on but then I thought about something. I have 47 programs on my computer. If I reinstalled Windows, I'd have to spend a whole fortnight adding them back on...right? I thought maybe I could copy the Program Files folder and recover it in the new copy of Windows but would all my programs appear in Start>All Programs?

Instead, using Acronis TrueImage, I copied the disk and connected the new 250Gb and it worked fine.

I'd REALLY prefer to install a fresh copy of Windows but I don't want to reinstall all the programs again. Although I don't mind reinstalling all the updates on Microsoft Update such as patches and Sp2.

If somebody has an easy way of copying programs...please share your knowledge!

Thanks again.

 

[Diamondsleeper]

Yea, since I moved to the XP OS I have always had better luck with a fresh install rather than trying to transfer partitions to new Computers. Actually have had no luck. As far a ghost is concerned, one thing I've noticed. When my drives are configured in Raid 0 I can't get ghost on Norton's "System Works" to work properly launched from the XP environment when restoring. When the system goes to reboot after the process it hangs like you describe. The way I have to do it is something you might want to try with the new drive you have. You will need a third drive large enough to hold/store the image file on. Two partitions on one drive might work but I haven't tried that. I make a bootable floppy with a mouse driver on it. You don't have to have the mouse driver, it just makes it easier to navigate once you are into the DOS ghost program. After it boots to the A: prompt I type mouse to load the mouse driver. Then I take out that floppy and put in the floppy I have a copy of ghost.exe on and run that. Typing ghost.exe. When in the DOS ghost program I first make an image (source) of my operating system partition and store it (destination) on a different drive/partition. I don't think it will let you create or store the image file to the same drive/partition. I'm not 100% sure. If it does allow it, then that eliminates the need for the other drive to store it on. The image is the key to this of course as long as you don't try to use it with a different motherboard or change your bios version. You should now be able to restore the image to any drive you want that is available within the ghost program. Note: You can't restore it to the same partition the image is stored on. After restore is complete just make sure your bios points to the new drive you just restored the image to when you reboot. Meaning shut everything down and configure your new drive to be the master. Configure the drive with the restore image file as a slave drive. Boot from the bootable floppy and run Ghost again from the Ghost floppy. Now restore from local image file from the slave drive to local partition on the master drive. Something like that. I don't have the menu right in front of me now. I'm at work. What I read somewhere was that ghost does not provide support for windows XP in RAID or was it just RAID? Can't exactly remember, anyhow I know it doesn't work because I've tried it so you have to run it purely from dos. Hope this helps

 

[SirKenin]

See, I have mine on a bootable CD. I don't go into the Windows environment to clone drives.

And no! You can't have it. I stole it. It's mine.

 

[tlarkin]

I am going to go ahead and add my 2 cents in here as well

FDISK is a DOS utility that can still be used on winxp machines (running NTFS). I use DOS all the time for one simple purpose. Booting utilities. DOS boots fast, a heck of a lot faster than a win xp PE, and I can run imaging, HD utilities, netboot, etc from a DOS based boot CD.

Now, FIXBOOT in the command console (terminal, command line, wtfe they all practically mean the same thing) rewrites the boot sector with a new one, while FDISK /MBR just gets rid of it.

One example when i use FDISK /MBR a lot is when I load Linux on a laptop at work for testing purposes and then when done have to reimage it. Well, I like to load boot loaders (mainly GRUB) on them which are located in the boot sector of the HD. I can reimage a system all day long with Ghost and it will not boot back into windows even after running the windows image back on the laptop. This is because the imaging software does not overwrite the bootsector.

Now, if you had booted off a Ghost CD and then did a disk to disk copy, I believe then it does a full sector by sector copy from drive A to Drive B (this is to answer the posters question).

For the most part DOS is dead, it is not as secure nor as robust as NTFS. Plus DOS based file systems have limitations that other file systems do not.

I have to agree with Kenin on this one for the most part. However, you can still use FDISK on non supported file systems to delete filesystems and wipe the boot sector.

 

[SirKenin]

Yup, and you can also use FDISK to rewrite the boot sector so that the drive will be bootable. Of course it also helps if you set the drive active.

 

[Diamondsleeper]

What I'd like to know.. probably along with the original poster is... How can I get a copy of Fdisk or Fixboot without having to get it from a Win 98 OS? Since I'm on XP I have not figured out how to get FDisk or Fixboot. Its not on the XP bootable floppy. I'm familiar with Fdisk. I used it many times with Win 98. Have never used Fixboot though. Please remember some of us on here don't have all this in our brains yet. Thats why we are here asking questions. There is a tendacy I think for some to talk over everybody elses head instead of catering to the less knowlegeble which would be much more helpful. By the way I love the Ghost program. Is it possible then to use ghost to clone a disk and then add the boot sector?

 

[merc_fan]

Well since I originally used Ghost 10 to try and copy the HDD (but it didn't work), Symantec mentioned something about Fixboot by going into the XP CD, going to Repair and then doing something there...

 

[Archangel]

DOS is gone (thank goodness).

So they say.. but we all know thats not true, dont we?

 

[SirKenin]

Diamondsleeper, you can download FDISK from several places on the net.

Archangel: I don't see how it isn't. NTFS and MSDOS are two different things.