I am looking for a HD cloner. I have a HD that is getting ready to crash (its giving me intermittent errors and I need to clone the disk to another larger HD, create different partitions and load the HD into a new Box. Can anyone recommend some HD cloning software that will allow me to move system files, all partitions, settings and everything else to a new larger HD? Thanks in advance…Can’t touch this, Hammertime
Cloning Hard Drive to 2TB Drive and Moving to a New Computer
(14 posts) (7 voices)-
HammertimeAZ
MemberPosted 13 years ago # -
goodgotd
MemberI'd sure like to try Acronis True Image- guess I'll try Macrium- but the killer here is the different box- and the 2TB drive, if the old one is Parallel ATA and the new one is SATA.
As far as my experience has gone- the different box with the same PATA drive is doable- done it several times, it just takes an obscenely long process of changing drivers.
Even one slightly larger (in today's terms- like upping from a 20 to 80 gig drive) is not that big a deal.
However, I have yet to get a PATA installation (partition on an 80, 30 gigs in size) copied onto a 500gb SATA drive and gotten it to boot. Ghost, all the Paragon stuff, XML Drive image, other bits and fragments....
And that is *with* the SATA/RAID drivers installed already, and so on. I've gotten all kinds of excuses from companies or developers (some of this stuff won't even admit the SATA drive is even there) but the most common is that what causes the problem is the drive geometry (cylinders, sectors, heads) makes the partition not end on a cylinder boundary. Or some other 'well, it's not the same' excuse.
See, all ATA (IDE is more descriptive) drives lie to the operating system about it's CHS data. And have since the itty-bitty ones first came out. what they really are constructed like inside the tin can does not match what's on the label, or very VERY likely not even close.
As an example, this 500gb hitachi I have in my hand says 16383 cylinders 16 heads, and 63 sectors. Since it has at most 5 platters, there's no way it can have over 10 heads. and you don't get that data density with 63 sectors. by Large Block Addressing it's 973, 773 and 168 sectors. By the label. I haven't found a data sheet on it from hitachi to even find out how many platters it has.
If somebody pulls this trick off, please let me know how the frack you pulled it off, I wanna get the pair of ready-to-fail PATA drives out of my 2800 system and boot off the Seagate 500gb SATA-2 drive by itself!
(the SATA drive and PCI interface card cost less than a 320 gig PATA drive- and the PATA drives were obviously being phased out- kinda made it a no-brainer until I tried to move over to it by itself...)
Posted 13 years ago # -
GMMan, Hexadecimal Blacksmith
BlockedInstead of doing a exact mirror, just image the filesystem. Paragon should be able to do that. Of course, if the filesystem is mapped to the CHS (and I'm no expert on filesystems), you may have problems.
Posted 13 years ago # -
goodgotd
Member@GMMan- Tried both mirror and (mostly) image programs. including Paragon. First. Drive image XML couldn't see the sata drive. Fat32, NTFS didn't seem to make a difference. Pretty much as I said above, the replies I got back suggested geometry issues. heck, I don't know how to find out the internal geometry- but it can't be near the CHS values and probably the LBA numbers aren't more than translations. I haven't looked up what notation it uses, but I betcha it isn't a match for the actual platters.
(I think paragon said drive geometry, driveimage xml said something like if it didn't think it could it wouldn't let you try... like I said, when I come up with a way to try acronis true image I wanna give it a shot- seems more people have gotten happy outcomes with it than others. Maybe they know more about mapping than I. they'd have to.)
The raid1 array in the other box I went so far as to slipstream the drivers into a copy of the install disc. Still tossed a brick in my teeth. The drivers are there, it sees the array (I think the thing shows yet another CHS geometry for the array once formed just to tick people off), goes ahead and clean installs right up to the shift to the hdd to complete installation but won't boot to do it.
@Robert- I've had LBA access on as far as I can all along. unfortunately, the *PCI card* does the SATA detection on the triple-drive dunce, it AFAIK doesn't have a setting for that- and as is too usual these days the choice is LBA auto or LBA off in the system BIOS.
LBA has been an automatic check for on since (or before) I got past 20 gig drives and started dropping in the 80 gigs as the best price per gig. (western digital caviar SE's for the warranty and extra features)
At the moment, ticked as I am, I'm still glad the machine with the sata ports only let me switch a drive to IDE compatible mode. At least it boots. so I can test the *rest* of the machine with real-world ops, anyway. And start working around what isn't there.
Like the game port- now I have a USB floppy to work with, I noticed it was missing too.
And my MAME control panel plugs into one.
Thanks for the advice, keep it coming- you may yet spot what I've been missing on these silly SATAs.
(I do think I ought to try a better adapter card, but the house taxes have got us playing Ohio-class submarine on the budget. Run silent, Run deep, pray we have enough to make it to the 3rd.)
Posted 13 years ago # -
HammertimeAZ
MemberGoodGOTD...
Sounds like you already tried the BIOS thing so try this...
You may have to change the jumpers on your SATA? I guess there are OS and size limitations that Refer us to Microsoft docs "Q303013" for XP and "Q305098" for Media Ctr. Is the SATA a 3.0Gb/sec attached to a 1.5Gb/sec card or host controllers VIA, VT8237, VT 8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760 ND SIS964? B/c they do not support auto speed negotiation with 3.0 Gb drives. These systems with the above chip-sets will hang, lock up, or fail to detect the drive during boot...this may be your problem? The recommendation is to: "Apply a jumper to the out-most pins" (closet to the edge of the drive {Back of Drive = [pins 1234...SATA Interface...SATA Power]} - apply to pins 1& 2 of the jumper block (which will force the drive into 1.5Gb/sec transfer mode) allowing it to function with the above mentioned chipsets.
For Single Drive Installs…(which it sounds like you are trying?)
Windows 2000 and XP require embedded SATA host drivers for embedded motherboards and add-in SATA host cards to be loaded from a Floppy (YUCK!) drive. The SATA driers are usually contained on the CD that came with your MB or host adapter card. You have to extract these prior to installation, however, VISTA will allow them to be installed from a CD.
1. Boot to Windows CD
2. When Prompted by Windows to install 3rd party SCSI or RAID drivers press the F6key then the “S” key when prompted to specify additional devices
3. Insert the SATA driver diskette or CD and press enter
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to finish installing Windows
Lastly, if all else fails…use your old disc as your boot and ad the SATA disk as a folder through Disc Manager in the System Management section or set it up as an additional drive(s).
Hope some of this info helped? HammermtimeAZJust another option that sounds like it may be the answer to your troubles??? Good luck and thanks again for the advice! HammertimeAZ
Posted 13 years ago # -
goodgotd
MemberHaven't found the mail yet, copmom-
HammertimeAZ- The seagate 500gig has 4 pins, and I have the jumper installed- I figured with the PCI bus bottlenecking throughput, the original low speed SATA was adequate.
the old disk *is* the boot, but it's got enough hours it's gonna die one of these days, so I keep trying.
The hitachi's have but 2 pins, but they are matched to 3gb/s SATA ports anyway. As far as I know they are still 512 byte sectors, not the 'enhanced' 4096 byte ones that are gonna give XP a hard time, but bust the 2TB barrier.
all is getting dumped into a holding pattern as it looks like I'm going to be leaving the state- my sister has an 'anomalous mass' in the limbic area of the brain, and the 9th she looks to be going in for a biopsy that's 50/50 to survive. And it's inoperable. and if it isn't cancer, radiation is useless.
Posted 13 years ago # -
copmom
MemberGoody.. it's snail mail, sent yesterday, not email, when are you leaving?
Oh my!! So very sorry to hear about your sister.. prayers are most certainly going out for her!! What state is she in? Keep us posted!!
Hammertime, wonder if today's offer might be the solution for you? It says: Copy Wizard to copy partition or migrate entire hard disk to another without Windows system reinstallation
Posted 13 years ago # -
Anonymous
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