Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!! latest frustration...

[AllanD]

This is driving me NUTZ!!!

I'm trying to clone my Desktop boot drive to another drive so I have a backup....

The Original system drive is an 80Gb Hitachi Deskstar (IDE)
I have TWO Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 IDE drives
and TWO Western Digital 80gb IDE drives, I've cloned from the hitachi to each of these using different cloning software and so far ONLY the Hitachi drive will actually boot the computer....

The WD's give back a "OS Not Found" on the screen after the bios

The Seagates give a slightly different error "insert boot devise or media in boot device", but still nothing...

I MUST have a backup.

In a perfect world I'd copy my installation to a 25Gb partition on one of the 80's (leaving the rest free for data isolated from the "system" setup
(AVG and seperate e-mail programs tend to generate fragmentation)

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[mp3deviant721]

Check your jumpers. Thats the only thing I can think of right now.

 

[AllanD]

Check your jumpers. Thats the only thing I can think of right now.

nope.

During my initial test trying to boot with each drive it's the only HDD in the system and jumpered as "single", so that ain't it.

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[mp3deviant721]

Did you check if your drives are showing in BIOS? The "OS not found" sounds like there is no bootloader installed on the drive or it might not have a MBR. The "insert boot devise or media in boot device" sounds like the drive is not seen by the BIOS.

 

[AllanD]

Yep.

And I've cracked the problem.

I've been running Win2K for the last 16months and XP only for about 10 days.

I'm pretty good about cloning for backing up (I've learned through painful experience)

In win2k any clone was indistinguishable to the OS from the last drive, ANY of the
cloned drives could be installed and booted from without any issues at all.

Also in Win2k ANY drive which I specifically chose a drive letter for and named is
recognized as that drive no matter how much drive swapping I did.

ANY drive with the system files for boot up would INSTANTLY be recognized as "C:"
if it was the only drive installed with system files.

With win XT it has no "memory" it'll remember the name, because it's on the ini file,
but the drive letter is assigned as the next one available EVERY TIME that drive is
installed or reinstalled

What I need to do with each drive I want to potentially use as a system drive
(after cloning the entire system setup) must first be installed in the computer
as "slave", recognized as "new hardware" (the computer will prompt for a
reboot) and then AFTER the reboot go into Disk management and set the
"system" partition as "Active" after which computer can be shut down and
that drive installed as the "master drive" and the computer booted again.
it will again recognize the drive as "new hardware" and once AGAIN prompt
a reboot after which it'll function completely normally.

And right about now I want to slap someone in Redmond Washington so hard
their head comes clean OFF!

but I now have FOUR HDD's that will boot the computer, though immediatly after
swapping every damned time) I'll need to boot a second time.

But it means WHEN (not "if") I have a HDD crash I'll be down for ~5min it takes
to boot twice and have it go through it's little "recognizing new hardware" dance...

What an aggrevating experience... I just spent six hours learning this by trial and error...


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[Ronv]

SMILE! You learned it and now it is yours to use if when and as you need to!

 

[mp3deviant721]

Well, thats Windows for ya.

 

[AllanD]

Yeah, now I've gotta do the dance on my gateway laptop
(it's gotta be backed up)

THEN I get to learn how to convert drives from "basic" drives to "Logical" drives so
I can set up my pair of Seagate Barracuda drives as mirrored drives.

Meanwhile my Desktop is at 99% formatting my shiny new 750GB Western Digital HDD...
Hey, It's DONE, now I can stop using my laptop to post the desktop has been chewing
on that formatting drive for a few minutes over 2hrs.



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