HDD Copy Problems

Maveric169

The Voices Talk to Me
Joined
5 Dec 2002
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1,148
Well as the forum had a bit of a brain fart, I am reposting this thread. There is alot of info here so sit back and hold on.

I currently have an 80GB WD HDD with 3 partitions:

C: 44.5 GB
D: 10 GB
E: 20 GB

I am planning on rebuilding the file system for this drive to get it setup the way I want it, and clean it up. Have been running on it for 2 years or so and there is alot little crap left behind from tons of programs long since removed. But, I can't really afford to have my system down for a few days while I rebuild it.

So, I got out a brand new 60GB Maxtor drive that I had extra. I have formated it and set up 3 partions to mirror the 80GB drive.

F: 30 GB
G: 15 GB
H: 15 GB
(give or take )

I then used the Maxtor program Maxblast 3's drive to drive copy feature and copied each corresponding partion to it's new home.

C: - F:
D: - G:
E: - H:

The next step was to make the drive bootable, which proved to be a small challenge as Windows activation was being a brat, but with the help of Hipster Doofus^sp I got arround that. The next challenge was the fact that since I used drive copy everything on my "new" drive was looking for the same drive paths as the "old" drive. So I made a change in the registry to "force" the drive letter reassingment. Well of course, windows activation crap gave me the middle finger again and I had to do that work arround again. No problem, after that the drive booted. I did still have some problem with a few programs that just didn't like all the changes, but nothing critical.

I had the drive up and working for about an hour, then all hell broke loose. One of the svchost.exe processes crashed, and took god hell and everything with it. I was forced to reboot, and upon looding windows I got an error saying that files in the C:\Windows\system32\SYSTEM folder were missing and that the registry was corrupted, and that I should attemp to repair the system by using the recovery console or by restoring the system from the Last Known Good.

So I tried to restore the system (f8) from the last known good and nothing, no change, and all attempts to repair the system from the recovery console failed. In a last ditch effort to save all the work I put into this, I re-installed windows over it'self. Badda-bing-badda boom. The drive boots, but of course all the file paths are gone so non of the programs and setting work.

My last hope was a registry transplant (which I felt should work). So I exported the registry from my "old" drive and zipped them, copied them onto floppy disk (Floppy=A removeable form of data medium that can hold upto 1.44mb of data), unzipped them onto the new drive and attempted to import them into the registry. Of course the computing gods are pissed at me for some reason cause I got an error saying "registry not accessable" import failed error. WTF!

And that is where it sits. The only thing I can think of that is left is the fact that I didn't registrer windows online. (I didn't see the point as my rebuild will take only maybe a week, it sure won't take a month, and I didn't want to screw up things with my current system if the new one failed like it has).

So I need some help here, I am at a loss as to what I should do and can do to get this fixed and working. The goal is to basically take the system exactly as I have it now and transfer it to the 60GB drive while I work on the 80GB drive. But it is turning out to be a nightmare to accomplish. Surely someone has had to do this. Any insight would be helpfull.

My current thinking is to re-format the partitions on the "new" drive and re-copy the data over and pray that the svchost.exe doesn't crash again. But there is 1 small issue that came to mind. Can I have 2 HDD's withthe same drive letter assignment on 1 system? I don't think I can, as both drives are now C:, D:, & E:
 
Well, looks like your 'time saver' isn't!

I'd use the 60 gig as a storage unit ONLY!... copy all your goodies over... set your email cache to it, favorites, and anything in 'My documents' you don't want to lose.

Bite the bullet... start what you wanted to do in the first place... fresh clean format on the 80 gig... by the sounds of it you'd have had it completed by now if you'd have went that route to begin with.
 
Well like I said earlier I can't afford any down time at all. Currently I am just switching back and forth between drives and I have my current drive to keep working from at anytime. So I really can't just bite the bullet so-to-speak. AFter the rebuild of the 80GB drive the 60GB will be used for weekly backup, which I currently don't have.
 
You might try the inbuilt 'Files and Settings Transfer Wizard'. Do a clean install on the 60 gig and give it a go... I've never tried it so I can't say one way or another if it works as its name implies or not, but it may be worth a shot. For sure your ghosting methodology is hitting some major bumps.

The only other thing I can think of is abandoning Ghost and using PowerQuest's Drive Image and Partition Magic. Ghost is nice because it will let you transfer to a different sized partition... Drive Image is kind a freaky in that it will create the restored image to the same size... that's where Partition Magic comes into play. Image and transfer your C:... size it... Do D: and resize it, etc.

I have to say again though, messing around trying out different solutions is about paramount to 'down time.' My first suggestion, after the format, would have you up and running at least to decent functionality within a couple hours dependant on what programs you have to install and configure. Give a good hour and a half for just the installation and updates of course.

When you get it all nuked out I'd like to hear about your solution no doubt.
 
I will give the Files and setting Transfer wizard a try. Just as soon as I figure out how to use it...........LOL
 
***New Update***

Well I fianally got the new drive to work!!!! :D It does have a few bugs yet but so far it is stable.

Well I tried partion magic 8's partition copy, that didn't work, I got an error 1517 file attribute error that no matter how many chkdsk /F's I did I couldn't get arround it. Next I tried the file and setting transfer. That woould have had alot of promiss and probley would have worked if I had another computer to put the new drive into. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't trick the program into transfering between the 2 drives connected to the same system. It would have worked however if I had my CD-RW drive where I could have transfered everything to CD and gone from there.

My last ditch effort was to go back to using Maxblast 3 drive to drive copy that I tried orignally that failed miserably. After copying the drive and doing the Win XP repair option, converting the drive letters, performing the repair again, and then running sfc /scannow, along with chkdsk /f a few times I was able to keep the system stable enough to continue. I defraged the entire system using systeminternals system defrager and then drfraged the 3 partitions. Man was it a mess. Took over 3 hrs to defrag everything.

1 small step for a 60GB drive 1 giant leap for my computing skills.....lol

But like I said there are still a few quirks, and some interesting events that I have discovered.

Even though my 80GB was full up-to-date with all the windows updates and in theory these should have been copied to the new drive along with everything else, (unless sfc /scannow removed them) non of the updates were present on the new drive and had to be re-installed.

Some other interesting things has happened also that I have no explanation for, nor resolution. 1 of my taskbar add-ons, "Daves quick search deskbar", disappeared for the first 24 hrs, even through multiple reboots, then magically reappeared all on it's own. No idea why, how, ect, but hey at least it is there again and working.

Now I did run PM 8 drivemapper to help in the repair of the file system after the drive letter change, which really did a good job for 99.9% of the programs on my computer but there were still a few shortcuts that had to be re-created. Not that big of a deal, just FYI.

The biggest 2 glitches that I can't figure out are that on startup after the desktop loads the "My Documents" folder opens. I can't find anything that is the cause of this. There is nothing I can find in the startup menu that would explain why this is happening.
The other glitch is that after startup about 5 mins after everything has loaded the Windows Help & Support page opens, showing a invalid page. No idea what is causing that to open either.

So if you have any ideas on those 2 issues please let me know!!!!

Other than that everthing seems to be working the way it should be and is stable. Chkdsk /F is still report descrepancy's but it says nothing is corrupt or damaged. I think it has to due with the fact that the updates were not all installed at the time. But other than that all systems are go and it looks like it is sucessful!!!:D




*knocks on wood*
 
see, all i would have done is used norton ghost, and ghosted drive to drive. works absolutly slick, and i kept my drive letters. (after disabling the other drive in the bios before i rebooted), then i wiped the original drive and started over.
 
Well If I had Northon Ghost I probley would have tried that first, but as I am a poor unemployeed telecom engineer I have to make due with what I got. :)
 
Anyone with some insite on my 2 problems?

"The biggest 2 glitches that I can't figure out are that on startup after the desktop loads the "My Documents" folder opens. I can't find anything that is the cause of this. There is nothing I can find in the startup menu that would explain why this is happening.
The other glitch is that after startup about 5 mins after everything has loaded the Windows Help & Support page opens, showing a invalid page. No idea what is causing that to open either."
 
Someone has to know ......................

ok folks, someone has to know or can point me in the right direction to figuare out my 2 glitches............. :confused:
 
ok, this is what i think you should do,

seeing how you have two drives, and are switching between the two anyways, wipe your new one. start fresh with a clean install. and slowly get it up and running the way you want it in your spare time. then when complete, move everything over that you want to keep and then wipe the old drive. in your spare time of course.
 
Well at this point that is kinda a big step backwards. I got the new drive up and working and have been testing it out for a few days now. I just have those 2 glitches that I would like to sort out before continuing.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
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