Issues with cloning hard drive

[crouton38]

I have a hard drive from an older computer (Drive A) that I would like to copy to my new, barebones computer (Drive B).

Drive A is an IDE drive that runs Windows XP. I had it in a 6 year old desktop. The drive is 60GB and ran out of space. I wasn't able to upgrade it at the time, so it just kind of sat in the desktop. The last time I tried to boot it up it would not boot. I meant to try to start it up in safe mode but I never got around to it, so it's been sitting in the old computer for about a year.

I was finally able to buy a new, more updated computer this year. I bought a basic barebones kit from Tiger Direct with a 160 GB SATA hard drive (Drive B). It has no operating system. It is empty.

I bought an IDE / SATA adapter cloning kit off Ebay. It comes with an IDE / SATA adapter that attaches through USB 2.0 and it comes with Clonezilla software and instructions. The adapter has an external power supply to power the IDE drive.

I'm having 2 issues so far with trying to copy over the old drive. I have Drive A (IDE) hooked up to the new computer with the USB adapter and I'm getting 2 error messages.

First, I get the message "reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd & address 4". A google search on this error states that maybe the old drive cannot be read because it's speed isn't fast enough. Does that sound right? Is there a way to fix this?

The next issue is that the boot loader will not copy. I get the error "failed to clone boot loader. Program is terminated." Then Clonezilla quits.

I have tried using the IDE adapter to plug the old drive into my laptop but it doesn't show up. It's in device manager and I get the message that new hardware is found, but it never mounts so I can see the files. I've tried to reattach it to the original desktop as well, but it's not turning on, so something else is wrong with the desktop now.

Is there any hope for this drive or is it gone? I really would like to save the entire drive as I had programs that I cannot get back at this point, as well as my Itunes library and some photos. Any advice would be appreciated.

[bargainsbob]

Try getting your old computer running. It might be easier to clone the drive with the older one since it has an operating system.
Try and download the disk tools which support whatever brand hard drive the new one is and install it on the old computer and use the cloning software which is usually part of the drive disk tools.

[crouton38]

Does anyone else have any information I could use on either of the error messages? As I said, my old computer will not start up at all. Even if I put an OS on the new one, I cannot connect the 2 hard drives together because one is IDE and one is SATA. Hence the USB cable.

[raptor_pa]

The HDs don't get connected together, they each get connected to the Motherboard. If you only have IDE on the new system then rather than USB try an adapter like this http://www.cooldrives.com/idehadrtosap.html

[crouton38]

That could be an option. I'll keep it in mind. I do have an SATA cable that will go on the adapter that I have, but there isn't a place to plug it into the motherboard on the new computer. There are 2 SATA cables and one goes to the HD and one to the CD Drive.

Right now I'm running Testdisk on the old drive and I'm hoping to repair the boot sector.

Still no one who knows how to fix the "reset USB" error?

How long is Testdrive supposed to take to analyze? It's been 24 hours and it's at 55% done.

[raptor_pa]

How big is the drive? It is sounding like the drive may have some bad sectors - 24 hours should easily get through most IDE drives, could also be an issue with the USB ports, you might want to delete teh ports in device manager, then reboot and let Windows reload the drivers

[crouton38]

Originally Posted by raptor_pa

How big is the drive? It is sounding like the drive may have some bad sectors - 24 hours should easily get through most IDE drives, could also be an issue with the USB ports, you might want to delete teh ports in device manager, then reboot and let Windows reload the drivers

It's a 60 GB drive. It's finally at 96% and it's been about 2 days, running day and night. I'm pretty sure it's got some bad sectors.

I don't think the USB is a problem. The problem is that the drive is in device manager but doesn't mount so I can see it in my computer. It also is not cloning because of the boot drive. If I can use Testdisk to fix the boot drive, I may have a chance of getting it to work.

Okay, so Testdisk apparently found nothing on the IDE drive:



Does this mean the drive is completely gone? How can I try to recover it or repair the boot sector?

[crouton38]

Luckily I was able to a get a backup secondary drive that I'd had on the same old computer working and was able to get my pictures and Itunes library that I'd backed up. However, this means everything else is gone - programs like Office, my OS, etc. I really wish I had cloned the drive when I bought the secondary drive, but I didn't. I have no idea why.

If anyone can offer any more tips on trying to repair the drive and get the boot sector working I would appreciate it. Otherwise I guess I'm going to buy a copy of Vista next week.

[jdougs]

Originally Posted by crouton38

.
I have tried using the IDE adapter to plug the old drive into my laptop but it doesn't show up. It's in device manager and I get the message that new hardware is found, but it never mounts so I can see the files.

I just bought an IDE to USB adapter and am getting the same thing as above. I have tried two different HDD's but same result...Device manager picks it up as Mass Storage Device and it shows up in disk management but says it is not initialized. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

JD

[crouton38]

Originally Posted by jdougs

I just bought an IDE to USB adapter and am getting the same thing as above. I have tried two different HDD's but same result...Device manager picks it up as Mass Storage Device and it shows up in disk management but says it is not initialized. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

JD

I got the backup drive to work by changing the jumper from Slave to Master. As soon as I plugged it back in, it mounted and I was able to get the files.

Unfortunately, the original master drive with the OS was too corrupted to save.

[jdougs]

I have had the jumpers every which way on two different known good drives. One with an OS installed and one without. Starting to think maybe I got a bad adapter. Anyone else have any comments or suggestions?

JD