Used Ghost to copy drive, now having problems

[nick128]

I tried using Drive Image 2002 and it wouldn't copy my drive. Error 626 if you're interested. I borrowed a copy of Norton Ghost to do this job and now i have problems.

The Drive copied fine, no hitches or errors.

I unplugged the power from the old drive, and reworked the IDE cable so that the new drive was the only one on the chain. Booted. Nothing worked, it got to the windows screen that comes up when it's loading your profile and froze.

Plugged everything back in like it was, booted from the old drive, perfect.

left everything plugged in like that, used my BIOS to boot from the new drive. Worked perfect.

Here's the problem iv'e discovered.

The Old drive was C:\. the New drive is J:\. WHen i boot from J:\ it's still looking for files on C:\. If C:\ is present then i'm kosher. If C:\ is gone then i'm screwed. I have tried changing J:\ to C:\ but it wont' let me. I managed to get C:\ to be like K:\ or something, and now it won't boot from the new drive at all.

Is there a quick way to change that damned drive letter with a boot disk or something without formatting the drive?! There is a way i know, i've used it before, but i can't remember how to do it now

 

[corkyg]

WHat you did was to mess everything up. When cloning a drive, you should end up with an exact duplicate on the target of the source. Sounds like you imaged rather than cloned. Images are not always bootable until restored.

Why is your new drive J:\? If you replace the old drive with the new drive, it should stay as C:\. You boot to it and all should be exactly the same.

If you want to add the old drive as a secondary or tertiary data drive, etc., reformat it and it will assume the next drive letter available.

Your first lesson is to use the CLONE function - not the IMAGE function. Images need to be restored. Clones are instantly ready to go.

Acronis TrueImage 8 is the best program out there for doing this sort of thing. Also - the best way to clone a drive is with a bootable CD created by the cloning software. That makes you OS independent. Acronis auto creates you a bootable CD that runs on a Linux-based OS.

You don't leave the old drive in as bootable when you fire up the new one. I have three drives on my system - each is a duplicate. Only one is ever used at a time. The others can be switched in if needed. This is a planned redundancy.

I think you better start over and follow a plan.

 

[nick128]

I did use the CLONE function. Did you not read the problem? The drive letter assigned is wrong, and all the files on teh CLONED drive still point to the old drive. The new drive was J:\ because that is the letter this POS assigned it. My mem reader eats up like 4 drives, the old harddrive had two parititons, plus CD burner and a Nero virtual drive i use to mount CD images.

And yes, in this case i DO need the bootable drive because all the files on what is now the J:\ drive are looking for C:\Program Files or C:\Windows but what exists is J:\Program Files and J:\Windows. The old drive is still in tact and i can boot from it fine.

 

[corkyg]

Sorry - you never used the word clone in your original. When a drive is cloned, it is bit by bit identical to the source. I know of no software that gives it a different drive letter. If you run only the new drive in the same slot and designation as the old, it should have booted right away as C:\.

I have Ghost, DriveImage and both have been tossed. Even Powerquest's DriveCOpy 4 was better than Ghost for cloning.

I clone an everage of 5 drives a week, and have never seen a drive letter change like you describe. That is wierd.

I would start over and do a manual cloning from a bootable CD.

When you clone set the Source drive as Master and the Target as Slave on the same cable - or use CS and let the plugs decide. Afterwards, make sure the new drive is set to Master or CS in the Master position.

 

[boomerang]

Use Acronis.

But buy it here.

 

[skyking]

I would add that it is always better and faster to use individual channels on an image operation, if possible.
I leave the cd-roms and everything hooked up to each other, and pull that cable off the motherboard only. I use a spare cable to do the clone operation. This is very handy for determining which is the target drive, which is not clear when using exactly the same hardware. It really blows when you back up your old volume and blow away the new one

 

[ITJunkie]

Originally posted by: boomerang
Use Acronis.

But buy it here.

For the price, Acronis can't be beat. I've used Ghost and can't say I've had anything near the experience you are having but I would go with Acronis. It is much easier to work with.

 

[hoov34]

This may be your answer:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q223188

 

[jamesbond007]

Remove all external devices, like your card reader, prior to restoring. In my experiences with SCSI cards, lots of IDE drives, and my new HP PSC all-in-one unit with a built-in card reader, drive letters are a pain sometimes. The best thing I've found when restoring backups is to remove all devices except the one CDROM or optical drive you need and the destination harddisk. Anything that can be a drive letter otherwise, remove it.

When I got my Dell XPS system, my drive letter for what would normally be C ended up being J or K or something because of the built-in card reader in my HP PSC unit. I had to remove the USB connection to the printer and reinstall Windows to remedy this problem.

 

[nick128]

Ok, redid everything tonight. Used the drive manager in windows to re-partition the drive, last time i just did a quick NTFS format of it. this time i left it a blank partition, no volume name, no drive letter to speak of. THEN i did the clone to it, THEN i shutdown and unplugged the old drive, booted, everything went like a champ. THanks for the help guys.