Well, its been some time since I've posted to a forum. Usually I'm able to find an answer and not have to worry about bothering too many people over simple problems. Although this one is starting to drive me up a wall.
My father had bought a Dell Dimension 8400 roughly 8 years ago, and now the hard drive (original 160Gb Seagate) is starting to go bad. We had bought a new hard drive (500Gb WD Blue Label). Now my father needs to have the drive cloned instead of just backed up and everything re-installed due to the fact that he's lost a lot of program install discs over the years that he still uses.
Now, I had seen it done before with no issues, and I figured cloning a hard drive wouldn't give me too many issues. Although, whenever I run the cloning (I've been using Clonezilla, attempted Acronis from WD with similar results) it finishes with no errors, but when I remove the Seagate and replace it with the WD it only tells me "Error loading operating system". If I boot the original drive on my computer it boots into Windows XP no problem, although, if I were to attempt to load the clone on my computer it only sits with a blinking cursor.
I've been doing research everywhere. I've loaded the Windows XP disc into the recovery console and ran commands: fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg. All with no change. I've attempted to fix the MBR through various other means I've found throughout my research. No change.
The closest I've gotten has been when I used Acronis. After the program had completed I hooked the WD back up to the main (sata 0) port it gives me no loading screen or anything it just loads up to a "Windows 95" A:> prompt. It only asks to load a file ("i.e. C:/WINDOWS/COMMAND.BAT") to which I have no idea where to even begin with that one.
Either way, when ever I do finish the cloning I continue in the command line to see if everything copied the way it should, I'm able to see the partition tables and information. If I hook it up to my computer (running Windows 7) it mounts and I'm able to access the files.
I'm going to end this in asking for any other suggestions? Whether it to be a different cloning program or even a simple editing of files. Would I maybe be able to install Windows 7 into the unallocated space and write the Windows XP info into the boot.ini so we still have the choice as to which one we want?
Any help will be much obliged.
Thanks again,
-Chunkeydelight
My father had bought a Dell Dimension 8400 roughly 8 years ago, and now the hard drive (original 160Gb Seagate) is starting to go bad. We had bought a new hard drive (500Gb WD Blue Label). Now my father needs to have the drive cloned instead of just backed up and everything re-installed due to the fact that he's lost a lot of program install discs over the years that he still uses.
Now, I had seen it done before with no issues, and I figured cloning a hard drive wouldn't give me too many issues. Although, whenever I run the cloning (I've been using Clonezilla, attempted Acronis from WD with similar results) it finishes with no errors, but when I remove the Seagate and replace it with the WD it only tells me "Error loading operating system". If I boot the original drive on my computer it boots into Windows XP no problem, although, if I were to attempt to load the clone on my computer it only sits with a blinking cursor.
I've been doing research everywhere. I've loaded the Windows XP disc into the recovery console and ran commands: fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg. All with no change. I've attempted to fix the MBR through various other means I've found throughout my research. No change.
The closest I've gotten has been when I used Acronis. After the program had completed I hooked the WD back up to the main (sata 0) port it gives me no loading screen or anything it just loads up to a "Windows 95" A:> prompt. It only asks to load a file ("i.e. C:/WINDOWS/COMMAND.BAT") to which I have no idea where to even begin with that one.
Either way, when ever I do finish the cloning I continue in the command line to see if everything copied the way it should, I'm able to see the partition tables and information. If I hook it up to my computer (running Windows 7) it mounts and I'm able to access the files.
I'm going to end this in asking for any other suggestions? Whether it to be a different cloning program or even a simple editing of files. Would I maybe be able to install Windows 7 into the unallocated space and write the Windows XP info into the boot.ini so we still have the choice as to which one we want?
Any help will be much obliged.
Thanks again,
-Chunkeydelight