NationStates Jolt Archive

My hard drive works, I am in Windows right now, but the same hard drive does not even boot for some reason.

My parents recently bought me a new 250GB hard drive. My dad wants me to take the 250GB hard drive while giving him my 80GB hard drive. I then decided to just copy everything from my old hard disk to the new hard disk.

I did that. 3 times, using 2 different software. I also tried doing it without the original hard drive plugged in. The software I used was what CD originally came with my new hard disk, then with Norton Ghost, and then with the CD again.

In all times, all data has been copied to my new hard drive (essentially, I have exactly the same thing), but it doesn't boot. When I change the settings in BIOS to boot from the new drive, even without the old drive plugged in, it won't boot. It gets past BIOS, and then it's just a black screen, as if there's nothing on the hard drive.

How can the operating system on my old hard drive work perfectly,. while the exact same operating system on my new hard drive does not work? It's exactly the same thing!

However, when I compare the two hard drives now (I can see and perfectly run stuff on the new one), my working old hard drive has a "pagefile.sys" in the root of C:\ of 800MB, while my new, but same files, has a "pagefile.sys" of 0 size. Unfortunately, when I try to copy it or read it, it says "cannot read pagefile.sys".

Has anyone else copied their hard drive exactly the same to another hard drive but have it not work? Help, please?

Did you format the new harddrive to work as a boot device?

The first time I copied everything, I did not format the new hard drive. It did not work.
The second time, I just deleted everything on the new hard drive and tried copying everything again. It did not work.
The third time, I formatted the new hard drive, and tried copying everything again. It did not work.

Your old hard drive will have an MBR (master boot record) in the first few sectors telling your bios where to find your operating system. Your new one won't. Stick in the XP CD and select the "auto repair" option, it'll write you a new boot sector.

I've never had Norton (totally) fail.

(a) Is your new drive jumpered as master or slave?
(b) Which version of Ghost? (v2003 will not work with XP)
(c) Did you use Image or Clone?
(d) If you used Image, how/where did you save it?
.....(It may seem like a PITA, but create the Image & save it to the new blank drive. Move the IMG file to the old drive, then run Norton and restore the image to the new drive. That seems to work when other things fail...)

Your old hard drive will have an MBR (master boot record) in the first few sectors telling your bios where to find your operating system. Your new one won't. Stick in the XP CD and select the "auto repair" option, it'll write you a new boot sector.

Stick in the XP CD when? If I stick it in now, it's still on the old drive. If I stick it with the other drive... the other drive isn't booting so it won't do anything.

I've never had Norton (totally) fail.

(a) Is your new drive jumpered as master or slave?
(b) Which version of Ghost? (v2003 will not work with XP)
(c) Did you use Image or Clone?
(d) If you used Image, how/where did you save it?
.....(It may seem like a PITA, but create the Image & save it to the new blank drive. Move the IMG file to the old drive, then run Norton and restore the image to the new drive. That seems to work when other things fail...)

a) I'm not sure, as my dad did the jumpering. I think slave.
b) Version 2003... great...
c) Clone

Would your image idea work with version 2003 as well?

a) I'm not sure, as my dad did the jumpering. I think slave.IME Your boot drive should always be Master, on IDE 0 if possible.
b) Version 2003... great...
c) Clone

Would your image idea work with version 2003 as well?
Maybe. Boot from the norton CD (win98) and try.

When you tried to clone did you do it from the Norton boot?

I think so... because what I did when I confirmed to clone the drive (using Ghost), it restarted and did the cloning without entering windows.

I think so... because what I did when I confirmed to clone the drive (using Ghost), it restarted and did the cloning without entering windows.
Hmm.

Well, All I can say is rejumper the new drive to Master and see. If I could do hands-on I could probably fix it, but I'm here and you're there (unless you happen to be within reasonable driving distance of Michigan City Indiana.)

Hmm.

Well, All I can say is rejumper the new drive to Master and see. If I could do hands-on I could probably fix it, but I'm here and you're there (unless you happen to be within reasonable driving distance of Michigan City Indiana.)

I asked my dad if the drive is jumpered to be a Master. He said no. I told him to jumper it to master, but he said that it can't be done. When the hard drive is alone, it has to be without a jumper (as said in the installation instructions).

Its the government

Their watching you

I asked my dad if the drive is jumpered to be a Master. He said no. I told him to jumper it to master, but he said that it can't be done. When the hard drive is alone, it has to be without a jumper (as said in the installation instructions).
Huh? Set the jumper to master, remove the little thing from the slave slot...

Often times, the disc manufacturer will supply utilities of their own for copying drives.

You might give that a shot - it's slow as anything, but it tends to work every time I've tried it, thus far.

Often times, the disc manufacturer will supply utilities of their own for copying drives.

You might give that a shot - it's slow as anything, but it tends to work every time I've tried it, thus far.
-
I did that. 3 times, using 2 different software. I also tried doing it without the original hard drive plugged in. The software I used was what CD originally came with my new hard disk, then with Norton Ghost, and then with the CD again.

I asked my dad if the drive is jumpered to be a Master. He said no. I told him to jumper it to master, but he said that it can't be done. When the hard drive is alone, it has to be without a jumper (as said in the installation instructions).
Ah. So your IDE 0 is your HDD & your CD is on IDE 1. Both are jumpered to Null/default. Right?

Also, IME jumpering to Master doesn't hurt anything, and makes it easier when you add a Slave drive 'cause you don't have to pull it again...

I've seen the same situation before.

Briefly: Go into Fdisk, and set the partition boot flag of the copied drive.

I'll look up the specifics...

1) Do the copy.

2) After finising, shutdown & Power off.

3) Physically disconnect the old, original, drive. This is for safty.

4) Boot off of the system CD, OS CD, etc. Basically, get to a command line.

5) Fdisk

6) Select option 4 "Display part. info"

7) Select option 2 "set active partition"

reboot.

I'm going off of memory here ... this is the gist of it.

OTOH - You may need some drive "overlay" software for your PC to be able to see the big ole' 250g drive. And that drive overlay does not exist on the original.

You can still get the copy done; but, at this point get a comp. tech. to do it.