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Disk does not boot laptop after cloning

Updated: 21 Oct 2010 | 15 comments
cschiavo's picture
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I connected a destination (larger) HD using a USB device to a laptop to clone the existing C: drive to it.     Cloning seemed to be successful, but the destination HD will not boot when inserted in the laptop.      The user thinking the boot sector was the problem ran bootmbr agains the drive and now the file ssytem is set to RAW.

We booted with the Windows XP Pro CD to try and run repair but it did not recognize the HD.

I'm reformatting the destination drive and will try again.

Has anyone had a similar issue?    If so, how was it solved?

Thank you!

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Jamee McDonald's picture
24
Apr
2009
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cschiavo

What is the make and model of the PC you are imaging? Is it the same as the computer you are putting the hard drive into? In other words are you taking an image off of one machine and putting onto a HD that is going to be placed in a different model machine?

cschiavo's picture
24
Apr
2009
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The make and model is IBM T61

The make and model is IBM T61 laptop.     I am cloning the drive in the laptop to a larger drive that I will then install in the same laptop.     THe current drive will then be rebuilt.     I am trying to get the user more disk space.

Andrew Gordon's picture
24
Apr
2009
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RE: Disk does not boot laptop after cloning

So that laptop is using a SATA drive? When you say it won't boot what are you getting? Blue screen, no screen? If it's a blue screen what's the error 0x7b? What type of cloning are you using?

"Their is no technological solution to correct bad behavior - Unknown Tech Quote"

cschiavo's picture
24
Apr
2009
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The drive I am cloning to is

The drive I am cloning to is a SATA drive.    When the cloned drive is installed in the laptop and the system starts up I get a blank screen with a cursor in the top lefthand side of the screen.

I'm using Symantec Ghost 8.3.0.1331.   I've created images with systems successfully in the past.    This is the first time I tried to clone a drive mostly because of the time factor.    The user has 152GB of data and an image will take approximately 30 hrs while cloning takes only 4 hours.

ICHCB's picture
24
Apr
2009
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Because of IBM propriatary behavior you will need to

Because of IBM propriatary behavior you will need to do 2 things you will need to use a switch with Ghost the switch is -IB and this gathers the entire boot sector rather than the industry standard first track. 

The second thing you will probably have to do is to create an image and then put the new drive in the laptop and restore the image.  Because IBM's have a history of dealing with the hard drives in a propriatoary way the drive recieving the image will have to be written to using the laptops hard drive controller instead of being plugged into a usb adapter.  ( I love the useb addapters and use them all the time but this often fails on an IBM) 

If it were mine I would just do the disk to disk again makeing sure to include the -ib switch.

Here is an article that explains why this happens.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-57590

cheers

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Andrew Gordon's picture
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Apr
2009
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RE: The drive I am cloning to is

Does BIOS recognize the larger drive? If you boot from the Windows XP cd are you adding the SATA drivers at the beginning to enable the cd to see the SATA drive? If you're cloning to a larger drive in Windows XP you might want to sysprep the old drive first..

"Their is no technological solution to correct bad behavior - Unknown Tech Quote"

cschiavo's picture
24
Apr
2009
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I'll try it again using the

I'll try it again using the -IB switch when the user is back in the office.     I did not add the SATA drivers when booting from the XP CD.

Thank you!

David.P@TAMU's picture
26
Apr
2009
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I have seen this type of

I have seen this type of behavior myself on a PC.  If the above fails try installing the new larger target drive to the internal SATA connector as you ultimately intend to do.  Now, connect the smaller source drive to the external USB port and try to image it that way. 

The only reason I came up with for this working for me in the past was that the drive geometry was not the same as seen from the USB bus VS the interal bus.  Could be wrong but it worked for me.

cschiavo's picture
28
Apr
2009
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I tried to use the -IB switch

I tried to use the -IB switch but the second drive (connected via a USB device) was not recognized.       Of course if I remove the -IB it finds it but I will run into the same problem where the disk will not boot.     Since the user is out of the office today, tomorrow I'll try inserting the new (destination) drive in the laptop and attach the current (Original) drive via the USB device.     I'll let you know if this works.

David,  did you need to use any switches in the ghost command for this to work?

Thank you!

David.P@TAMU's picture
28
Apr
2009
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cschiavo, No switches were

cschiavo,

No switches were necessary.  Hopefully it works for you.

ICHCB's picture
28
Apr
2009
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David's suggestion is good but may still need a third drive.

David's suggestion is good,  with an IBM I have seen that the -IB must be used and that the drive being read must be installed connected to the IBM's internal controller and that the destination drive must be connected to the IBM's internal drive controller.

   So to do this you will have to create a ghost image of the little drive then install the big drive and restore from the ghost image to the big drive.   Obviousely there are a lot of different models of hardware with a lot of differrent configureations so this may not be the only way to do this but it has given me the highest level of success with the lenovo's that I have had to work on.

Cheers.

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cschiavo's picture
30
Apr
2009
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I tried David's suggestion

I tried David's suggestion last night and it worked!        Not sure why each time I tried to use the -ib switch Ghost didn't see the drive hanging off the USB device.

Thank you!

jjanolo@macrovision.com's picture
30
Apr
2009
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Invalid Partition Table

After cloning Fedora Core 8, I get an invalid partition table error. I've tried reinstalling the GRUB via the live CD and still I get the "Invalid Partition Table" error. Can someone help me out? I know FC9 is not supported. What about Ubuntu 8.10?

I do not know if I am imaging incorrectly but any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,
 

sdruid's picture
20
Apr
2010
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Could you elaborate on the

Could you elaborate on the step by step process that you used to solve your problem. 
    I too am having a similar issue with cloning IBM harddrives in particular and have tried "Ghost 2003" with which i pulled out the drive and plugged it into a different computer.  Then "Ghost 9" or "Ghost 2005" where I tried to ghost an image and store it on an external harddrive connected via usb.  Where do I go to include the "lb" command switch ?  I assuming I run Ghost from the command line to include the switch.  Can I still connect the drive to the computer via USB or will that not work ?    What does the "lb" switch stand for as far as the name of that command line switch ?

Thanks..

josiah.kapeng@sita.co.za's picture
21
Apr
2010
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virus

I have upgraded all my workstations and GUPS with SEP MRU5 and all updating fine but i'm experiencing a problem whereby SEP 11 cannot remove RAILA ODINGA virus and i cannot use a freeware. I googled the virus and they only specify freeware software to use like AVG and AVAST and i'm not allowed to use non of those. Please assist