Probs cloning XP from 1 SATA Drive to another.

J

JHM

banned
This is kinda complex. I build my own computers and have for some time now. I usually put dual boots on them for insurance of access.

My most recently built machine features 4 HDDs, 3 of which are identical SATA drives, and the 4th of which is an IDE drive. The one IDE drive and one of the SATA drives live in Vantec hotswap trays. The forrmer being for mass import of data from other older machines, and the latter being the main boot drive on the machine.

The idea was to have the boot drive running from a SATA drive, (faster), in a hotswap tray, so in the event of problems, I could just take it out and replace it with a fourth identical SATA drive kept in an identical reserve Vantec SATA hotswap tray. (Reliability of access to data).

I also put another boot partition on one of the two internal SATA drives, so as to enable patching of the main boot drive.

This entailed cloning the main boot partition on the SATA drive in the SATA hotswap tray onto one of the partitions on one of the internal SATA drives. Never having cloned anything before, I got a neighbor, (since moved), who was a Brazilian IT professional to do the clone job.

The result of this cloneing job, however, is that although I can go into the bios, and reset the boot disk priority to have the internal drive boot, as long as the main SATA boot drive is in the machine; whenever I shut down the machine and remove the main boot drive to put in the spare main boot drive to clone the OS onto it, the machine refuses to boot.

What it does, with the main boot drive removed, is go through the process of booting up to the point where one usually enters one's password, at which point it stops without bringing up the password entry box, then just sits like that indefinitely showing the Windopes XP logo.

From past experience, I think this is being caused by MS's antipiracy measures. When XP is installed on an HDD for the first time, it puts a flag on the boot track of the HDD it is being installed on; AND somehow increments a counter which keeps track of how often this serial number of XP has been installed on an HDD lacking that flag. When the count hits five, they cut off your activation priviliges, and you have to phone them to activate.

I know this, (with Vista I am told the count is 3), because I once bought some Broderbund software that came 75% disabled, and you had to register with them to get an activation key to enable the features of said software. Problem was they had shutdown their registration program for the software long before I bought it; and there were no more "activation keys" available.

I managed to crudely Hack their registration file so as to enable all the features of the software; BUT the software stuck an "Illegal Usage" flag on my boottrack, and if for any reason you ever had to uninstall it and reinstall it, their "Illegal Usage" flag prevented reinstallation. The only way around it that I knew was to low level format the drive to get rid of their "Illegal Usage" flag, but in so doing, I was also removing XP's flag without knowing it existed.

As a result of that after 5 low level formats my activation priviliges for that copy of XP were cut off unless I phoned them and explained what happened, because otherwise they think you are using one copy of Windopes on five different machines; and I think that is what I am up against here. I think they somehow have things setup so as not to allow complete cloneing of Windopes.

But since this is a new Windopes license, and it is only being used on one machine, what I am trying to do is NOT illegal. I have boot track utilities, though I don't have a clue how to use them. Any help or suggestions much appreciated.
 
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No comments huh ? I have to wonder if that is because everyone here knows as little about the boot track as I do, or if it is paranoia about attempting to circumvent the questionable legality of the provisions used by both "Broderbund", - who seem to be in the habit of selling software that claims to have certain features, when in fact they have deliberately disabled those features until one "Registers" said software with them, then turn around and shut down their registration program while copies of said software are still sitting in stores on the shelves;

And MS, who from time to time bring out new "OSs" which are error riddled packages of bugware, then spend a few years patching most of the bugs, (though never ALL of them), this while constantly bloating said bugware with a neverending series of buggy "Security Patches" till the OS eventually becomes so unstable that people are willing to BUY their latest new package of error riddled bugware, NEVER PERFECTING AN EXISTING OS, because then people would be happy with it and disinclined to BUY the latest error riddled mess they have produced.

Anyway, I think I have found a solution. See : http://firesage.com/mbrwizard.php
 
JHM said:
No comments huh ? I have to wonder if that is because everyone here knows as little about the boot track as I do, or if it is paranoia about attempting to circumvent the questionable legality of the provisions used by both "Broderbund", - who seem to be in the habit of selling software that claims to have certain features, when in fact they have deliberately disabled those features until one "Registers" said software with them, then turn around and shut down their registration program while copies of said software are still sitting in stores on the shelves;

And MS, who from time to time bring out new "OSs" which are error riddled packages of bugware, then spend a few years patching most of the bugs, (though never ALL of them), this while constantly bloating said bugware with a neverending series of buggy "Security Patches" till the OS eventually becomes so unstable that people are willing to BUY their latest new package of error riddled bugware, NEVER PERFECTING AN EXISTING OS, because then people would be happy with it and disinclined to BUY the latest error riddled mess they have produced.

Anyway, I think I have found a solution. See : http://firesage.com/mbrwizard.php
Click to expand...


We didn't answer you because you're the same guy in this thread. Also, your setup is retarded. Cheers.

Edit: Just noticed you actually tried to NOT hijack his thread. My original statement regarding your setup still stands. Cheers.
 
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Fascinating!! I suppose yours is less retarded eh?

idiotsheet001.jpg


The "Langdon Adult Intelligence Test" is supposed to be the worlds hadest I.Q. test. The questions on it are so hard that there is no time limit; you can either get the right answers or you can't. The test is for entrance to the "Four Sigma Society" which is something like "Mensa", except that instead of accepting the two smartest people in an average group of 100, they only accept one in 64,000 people.

Is yours any better ?

You might also see :

http://www.computerforum.com/188540-custom-homemade-ducted-fan-hdd-coolers.html

Bear in mind that if you cook a processor or a video card, you only have to replace it, and you are back where you started; but if you cook an HDD, you have lost a heck of a lot of data, maybe even a terabyte; so its not so easy to get back where you started.

Question : What provisions have you made to cool your HDDs?

I also put homemade dust filters over every fan blowing into the machine. I suppose that is retarded too eh?
 
JHM said:
The "Langdon Adult Intelligence Test" is supposed to be the worlds hadest I.Q. test.
Click to expand...


You misspelled "hardest". Smiley Face.

Please don't mistake my statement, Mr. James H. McGowen of 2807 Bathurst St. in Toronto Ontario Canada. I was merely pointing out that any data worth saving wouldn't be solely contained on any number of HDDs (I prefer Rackspace's cloud backup, which is redundantly backed up to three different locations), but would be archived in many different physical locations. Your setup is (imho) retarded because you could easily achieve the same goal with a standard RAID controller. I believe you've created this problem to show people who care to read this thread how smart you are. Your only real problem is that nobody noticed, hence your 2nd comment. I'm more than willing to compliment you on your grandeur in reference to proving your self-worth, but as to your setup, it is still retarded.

It's also illegal (I know you think it's not and that's cute) because you cannot, per the EULA with Microsoft, have a single license activated on two separate HDDs at the same time, even if you're only using one. Now that I have your information, I can report you to the proper authorities, as you've stated previously that you commonly build horrid PCs of this variety, effectively admitting your piracy to members and anons alike.

JHM said:
I also put homemade dust filters over every fan blowing into the machine. I suppose that is retarded too eh?
Click to expand...

Yup, it sure is. Cheers.
 
Enough of the bashing. We aren't here to tell users they are doing the wrong thing when its their opinion and what they have grown accustomed to.

We can offer our own opinoins about what they should do but we can't get into heated discussion on someone bashing another user.
 
No fair, I should be permitted to bash back. Anyway :

1) I hold 3 XP-Pro licenses, 4 Win98-SE licenses, 2 Win 95 licenses, and 2 NT4 licenses. Report away, hopefully then I can sue you.
2) One machine is an NT4 dual boot, and another is a Win98-SE - XP-PRO dual boot, strangely enough there are things you can do with Corel software under Win98 that you can't do under WinXP.
3) I've heard that using "Raid" significantly increases the chance of both drives failing silmultaneously. Glad to hear you think thats a good idea.
4) Yeah typos happen, especially on a keyboard with sticky keys. Noticed you misspelled my name. Be sure you get it right for your report, so I can sue you.
5) You think its a good idea to use a profe$$ional backup service as opposed to creating your own, eh, - good, that means you must be rich, more to sue for.

6) So according to Moronsh_t's "Eula" it is illegal to create a duplicate reserve copy of your boot partition on a separate HDD so as to be able to still access your data in the event of drive failure eh ? That might very well be true. Sounds like something Moronsh_t would do.

Song for Tap Dancing troupe dressed in tuxedoes and flashing a lot of gold and diamonds :
We're the capitalist bast_rds, we like to sing this song;
And if we've f_cked you lately, then won't you sing along;
Our software's really shoddy, in time it fails to start;
What fix it ? - My dead body !! That wouldn't be too smart !!
We like it bug infested, for us its best that way;
You'll need support, so be a sport, sign up with us and PAY !!
You signed off on our "Eula", and sister now you're sunk;
In legalese, it guarantees, you're stuck with worthless junk;
You ask us how that that could be, well I'll give you a hint;
Cause Moronsh_t, has printed it, in Microscopic print.

Do you know what an "@@@@@@@" is ?
 
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Well, I checked with a professional "IT Solutions Specialist" today to see if what I am trying to do is "Illegal"; - and he said it was perfectly legal to have your copy of Windopes installed on more than one drive as long as they were only being used on one machine. [email protected] - So it seems you are wrong about that too.
 
Again, I wasn't bashing anyone. This Tea Cup asked why nobody responded to his question and I gave my opinion as to why that was so. Apparently, he takes issue with other people's opinions, along with johnb, the "Super Moderator". You people need to practice what you preach.

As to your response, it too wasn't bashing and it's sad that you can't tell the difference. If anything, it was a well thought out response. That being said, your setup is still, imho, retarded. You're not syncing any live data, so there's no fault tolerance. You're replacing the old drive with a new one, which you could do at any time after a single-drive setup fails. The online backup solution simply ensures a live, real-time capture of your data as it's modified, along with a three-location redundancy (which is like $5 per month... yup, I'm rich). Your setup, no matter how retarded I think it is, does not do this. That's what I find retarded - your justification in doing this was to not lose data and yet it doesn't prevent any data from being lost. RAID will do just that, but I guess I'm the stupid one for not using the industry standard designed to do exactly what your convoluted PC can't.

I'm not going to argue about the legal aspect, as you've already described exactly how illegal it is. It is, at the very least, worth an investigation. Please sue me for reporting you to Microsoft. I did it yesterday. Cheers.
 
Oh, my convoluted PC doesn't have to risk silmultaneous dual drive failures, (RAID results), instead I have three live machines, and am building a fourth, (no license for that one yet, but no software installed yet either, - still monkeying around with case mods), which have between them 8 Hotswap trays with 2 more on order for the new machine; and a total of 29 HDDs of various sizes. I am fairly confident that I needn't worry about "Data Loss" since all my personal files are backed up all over the place. And no, I don't cheat Windopes on their licenses. Every machine has its own appropriate licenses and I NEVER install one license on more than 1 machine.

Re "Bashing", you obviously don't know what an "@@@@@@@" is.
 
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JHM said:
Oh, my convoluted PC doesn't have to risk silmultaneous dual drive failures, (RAID results), instead I have three live machines, and am building a fourth, (no license for that one yet, but no software installed yet either, - still monkeying around with case mods), which have between them 8 Hotswap trays with 2 more on order for the new machine; and a total of 29 HDDs of various sizes. I am fairly confident that I needn't worry about "Data Loss" since all my personal files are backed up all over the place. And no, I don't cheat Windopes on their licenses. Every machine has its own appropriate licenses and I NEVER install one license on more than 1 machine.

Re "Bashing", you obviously don't know what "@@@@@@@" means.
Click to expand...


Yes, a bunch of @ signs isn't bashing. Glad you figured out your issue. Cheers.
 
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