adamsplatt

I have a tried several times to do a complete drive clone from my lap
top 60GB C Drive to an external 120GB USB enclosure drive. I also
have a 3.5" flopy external drive.

My intention is simply to swap the drives in the lap top, and maybe
use the smaller one for backups of essential material.


The result each time is that on the first reboot requested by XXCLONE
- using floppy along with cloned target drive a get a partial message
to say the target drive is not found (the message is incomplete).


The only problem that is shown as I clone is a message to say that one
file is not copied: ....\usersttings\adamplatt\applicationdata\word
\~WRL483.tmp In addition towards the end of the clone operation I am
told that the floppy drive will be used as the Boot.ini is not
transferring to the target drive.


On rebooting it seems apparent that the boot is from the internal
source C Drive as I can disconnect the external hard drive. Also I
selected the diferent wallpaper option to check what is happening.


I have tried reformatting the 120GB target drive (which has two
partitions on it created using Partition Magic. I have made the
target drive exactly the same size as the source (C) drive, made it
larger, and also tried copying to the whole target hard drive without
partitions. I have fomatted as NTFS primary and also primary/logical.


When I look at disk managment after attemtping the clone I find that
the entries for source and target drive boxes are identical - C: [d:
0, p:1] NTFS sys. The taregt drive as G is not visible.


Also the G (target drive I cloned to) no longer appears in "My
Computer" though the drive numbering suggests that this drive is still
around....When I have two partitions on the larger target hard drive
neither partition shows in My Computer.


To "see" the target partition/drive again I have to disconnect the
exteranla hard drive from USB and then it is visible again (via plug
and play).


Exploring the target drive shows that about 1GB only has been written
on the drive. This includes Autoexec.bat and several directories
including Documents and settings/adamplatt (my settings)


As you can imagine this has taken me hours of patience to try to
solve. What am I doing wrong? I do not want to buy the full version
of XXCLONE as I do not think that I am trying to do anything that is
not possible with the limited free edition so do not see how the full
version will help. I do not mind buying it if that will solve the
problem of copurse....


Any ideas and suggestions? This is very frustrating....


adam

DeathHawk

Am i right in thinking you want your external hard drive to become a bootable drive-and not just to store data?

If so, as far as im aware, windows does not recognise usb as boot devices and so will not load up the operating system:

"Current versions of Windows should not be installed to USB hard disk drives because Windows does not support USB hard disk drives as the primary boot device. This paper introduces the expected industry participation related to the following"

Here is the link to the origin of that quote:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device.../usb-boot.mspx

linderman

Deathhawk is 100% correct


you can use a USB drive to clone your boot drives contents however it will not be bootbale

if you want to clone your drive without the expectations of booting, then simply reclone the clones and DONT put the three check marks in the cool tools section


ask more questions as needed

JohnthePilot

As I understand it, you want to clone to the external drive then swap this with your current internal drive. Is that correct? If so, then you will need to make the external drive bootable by clicking on Cool Tools then checking the three boxes. Before starting XXClone, make sure that your external drive is recognised by Windows. If not, reformat (and partition as required) again using Disk Management.

speedster123

I believe it will become bootable once its installed in place of the old one, as John said.

linderman

utttt oh: I hope I dont muddy the water here for the original poster (OP)

but the cloning process will not go smoothly if you remove any drives "before" the "invocation" "congratualtions " message is received, you DONT change the boot order either!


if you expect the drive thats in the external enclouse to be bootable. Then you MUST connect that drive to the internal IDE connectors on the motherboard >>>> even if only temporarily.

Because right after the clone process is completed (this is easy stuff) you will need to do a restart, its UPON & DURING this restart that all the ACTIONS take place that formulate drive swapping and organization. Upon the re-boot you will see a CONGRATULATION YOU HAVE SUCCESFULLY CLONED YOUR DRIVE"

after that message is seen, you may restore "either" drive to the USB enclosure for safe keeping. It wont be bootable while residing in the usb enclosure / becasue windows refuses to boot USB drives, however because the Cloning process was COMPLETED / if you were to remove the drive again from the enclosure, connect it internally (say becasue your other drive died) it will boot right up GUARANTEED


personally I think YOU would be better suited with imaging as your option rather than cloning. If you goal is to have a "ready" to use bootable back-up from the external drive, then I personally think you would use that "easier"
if your boot drive died, you simply boot into the Bart PE disk, restore your boot drive from an image file on the USB external drive and begin smiling again.


John The Pilot (TSF staff) alos has an excellent guide of How to use Drive Image (free)

just ask if you are interested ???????????

speedster123

Thanks for the clarification joe.

adamsplatt

Thanks for the advice from several of you. I will try the options suggested. Can Joe clarify the point at whuch I must put the drive from the USB enclosure into the lap top (I am using a Lap top not a PC and there is space obviously for only one drive at a time.) After the cloning completes using XXCLONE I get messages to say to put in 3,5 floppy disk so a bootable disk can be made. Do I need that disk? Should it be in the floppy drive when I reboot with the rtarget drive fitted to the llaptop "mother board".

What is the USB drive not recognised after cloning has finished (never mind about getting it bootable! - it is not even appearing in My Computer when I am booted with the original drive....I have tried refomatting the new drive TWICE. All the fdrive letters on my other drives move down a letter so there appears to some recognition that the enclosure usb drive is around....

IF Imaging is a better option as suggested by some - please can John Pilot send me instruction on how to do this. This is not clear to me from any of the postrs so far.

Why when I reopen XXCLONE is the source and target drive both showing as idenitical? And no sign of the new drive? Is this because the cloned drive (target) is now seen as a copy of my C drive and no longer as a separate extra drive? Why when I do get the target drive recognised again - disconnecting and reconmnecting the USB lead) does the drive only have about 1GB of ods and ends of files on it? Not the 55 GB of info etc on my main C drive which I cloned (or attempted to and took over 30 mins...?

Thanks in anticipation of more help and clear advice which will not involve me in more lengthy experiments.

adamsplatt

Sorry I did not sign the last post - it is from original poster - adamplatt. I am in cambodia by the way so have to sort these things out myself...adam

JohnthePilot

Hi Adam,
Sorry you haven't had a reply before, but I was waiting for Joe to answer the first part, but he hasn't been on today. I can answer the first part for you. You can switch the drives over as soon as XXClone says the full backup is complete. Provided everything goes OK, when you boot from the new drive, XXClone will tell you that this is the first time and ask you to check the drive letter designation. With only one drive this is not a problem. The same goes for the floopy that it asks you to put in. This is really to save you having to change your BIOS when you want to switch drives. Again with only one drive, it's not relevant so you can skip that bit. As far as the problems you are having recognising the drive, that is something that Joe would be better able to address.
With regards to XXClone v DriveImage, DriveImage is great for backing up to your external drive and once we've got you sorted out you can do that. For what you want to do now though, XXClone is the best option as you want to make the external drive bootable and switch it with your existing drive. The DriveImage itself isn't bootable, but will restore the image back to your main drive where it will be bootable. I hope you followed that OK.
As far as your last comment is concerned, XXClone should show the source and target with different drive letters. This makes me suspect there is something wrong with your USB setup and again is something Joe would be better addressing.
Regards,
John.

adamsplatt

Hi, It is me Adam again. I have been driving around Cambodia and only just tried some of the suggestions made. Still in difficulty though. A few things - I have made the target drive partition active. I have started XXCLONE and got the messages near the start that a number of files could not be copied - and instruction to try and save them another way as they may otherwise be unusable. Actually they don't look very important - word files it seems. I have not written them down but there are about six only. On ignoring the messages the cloning continues (apparently). It reaches about 90% stage and then says cant deal with BOOT.INI or some such. Also it asks me to make a floppy boot disk which I try to do with my external USB Floppy drice (remember this is a lap top) . This does not happen and the cloning sticks at 98% in STEP 1 with the message trying to reach a drive or some such.

I then close XXCLONE - no other options and try to boot from the floppy - This does not work - is this because is a USB connected floppy??? IE same prob as for USB ext HD booting? After normal rebooting from internal drive and opening XXCLONE the target and source drive entries are the same - C:/ etc. Seems no point in swopping the drives over physically as clearly the clonining did not finish and I cannot check bootability. In fact only by removing and replacing the ext usb drive can I see the drive contents on the targe partitition - which is small number of files - same everytime....

What am i doing wrong? I have been checking the three make bootable boxes (although one of you said don't do that) other than the very first time when things went a bit better - like finished the cloning to 100% but still did not get the congratualtions message. Should I try that again? How do I get to the point where I can switch the drives over physically? John the Pilot seems to say do this anyway - or you must - is that before I do any cloning, or after trying or when? I still have no word from anyone on why the drives both appear as C in the XXCLONE setting up boxes. But they revert to normal extra drives if I take the HD out and reinsert it. What is the verdict on XXCLONE versus DRIVE IMAGE - seems XXCLONE should be the prog to use to swap the Hard Drives. Then I use Image later for back up purposes. Happy to do that - once you have all helped me swap my almost full drive for the new one! Hope you can help me sort this out. Good cold beers for all who visit us in Cambodia if you do! adam

I have changed the BIOS boot order to boot from flopy

JohnthePilot

Hi Adam,
Quick reply cos I'm in the middle of something else - non computer related
If XXClone isn't recognising your target drive it's because there is something wrong with your USB setup. Joe may be able to help you better with this than me. Can you see the external drive in Windows Explorer and Disk Management?
You don't swap the drives until AFTER the cloning has finished.
You DO need to check the three boxes in "Make bootable"
You don't need to create the floppy disc as this only applies to machines with two fixed drives.
I'll try and get back on later.
Regards,
John.

linderman

In as much as xxclone is getting errors I would abandon that path.


John could give you his guide to drive imaging, which will accomplish the same desire you have, but a different route


keep us posted

JohnthePilot

Hi Adam,

If you want to have a go with DriveImage, you can find the intructions here

John.

adamsplatt

Hi Joe and John,

I have read through the Drive Image instructions. But this is to restore system etc to original drive when that drive has failed. I am trying to swap my small internal drive for my new (external) one running in an usb enclosure. I do not see instructions to do this with Drive Image. The process described does not give me a cloned (or any other image) to put on my external drive once installed into the (single) HD laptop bay. The image will be on the drive I am fitting and will preumably not be bootable. So is the process to make a boot CD as described, put the image onto the new drive (or a partition on it) install it in the lap top, boot from the CD, then get the image to work - like a clone - using the slightly complicated process in your instructions? Will that work, or does the image only work when restoring to the original drive...?

I just cannot see why XXCLONE has errors - I have stopped AVG running, stopped boot virus scan in BIOS. Closed all running programmes, stopped the internet connection. I do have a Norton GHOST programme installed, but I think I have stopped this running. I also have Rge Cure and XoftspyXE programmes and think these are not running. I did partition the external drive with PArtition Magic into two, but I have since reformatted the intended target drive.

I have run Check Disk on the source C drive and found only a few errors. What else???? No one else seems to have problems with XXCLONE....thanks for any extra ideas. I used to use CASPER and then Partition Magic with a PC very well but not sure if this is OK for Lap top and external drive. Any further views and advice welcome? adam

JohnthePilot

Hi Adam,
The procedure with DriveImage is more longwinded, but it is possible. It was just a suggestion because of the problems you are having with XXClone. I still can't see why XXClone isn't working, unless as I said before there is a problem with the connections.
Will you please confirm that the drive works correctly in all other aspects, i.e. you can copy and delete files to and from it in Windows Explorer and that it shows correctly in Disk Management?
John.

adamsplatt

I hope I get some marks for perseverance....I have given XXCLONE another try. I ran check disk (4 hours) on my C drive. I reformatted fully my USB connected external drive. I removed Norton Ghost. I checked that the external USB drive operates fully as an external drive - it does. I clicked the three make bootable boxes. I ran XXCLONE.

Result after about 60 mins I got message to say "Failed to properly initiates the Boot.ini file" Then the instruction to insert a floppy which I did - using external USB connected floppy drive (is that one of the problems?)

I exited the box when this appeared to be done. I got the message "Initialising the system Registry files".

After several more miutes of nothing happening I got the message " XXCLONE has detected a very serious, unexpected trouble. The reboot control failed to proceed as planned - The system is now being restored to the original state".

In XXCLONE windows the usuual two C drive announcemnts appearin both boxes and the external drive busy light stays on permannetly.

Is there anything I can do?

thanks, going to bed,

adam

adamsplatt

No ideas from anyone? I have now tried Wesrtern Digital's own disk management and copy software and I have bought PARAGAON Drive copy. Neither of these are working for me. I have several times reformatted the external drive with Wextern Digital's own software. I am now speculating on the following possibilities: 1) the external USB caddie is suspect - it is a unit made by OMATA - however it allows the drive to be recognised and used in all other ways as an external drive so this seems unlikely, . 2) my C drive is in some way corrupt or misbehaving. The clone process nearly always stops catastrophically - for example with dire messages from XXCLONE - or blue screen. With Western Digital it simply shuts down and reboots after about 30 minutes of trying. Iam getting messages to say certain files cannot be copied but these usually are temp word files - backups I guess - i have delketed some of these before the next attempt at cloning. as they are not system files.

When I get a chance I thionk I mat try cloning someone elses c drive - on another PC, this would check if the caddie and my external HD are OK or not. And isolater the prtoblem to my C drive. This is by the way 52.17GB used and only 3.14GB unused - could this be a problem? Would it help to remove a lot of sound and photo and film files to a partition on the new external drive so it is not so full - seems unlikely to be the problem. I have run check disk and defrag it says is not necessary.

Over to you....

adam

JohnthePilot

Hi Adam,
Sorry no one's been back to you before. To be quite honest, I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong. I think your idea of trying the external drive on another machine is a good one, although I doubt there is anything wrong with it or you wouldn't be able to copy to it. I suggest you partition the drive (whilst it's on the other machine) so that it is say 60 GB and 100 GB. Use XXClone to make a clone in the 60 GB partition of that machine's C:\ drive. This will let you know your external drive is ok. You can always remove this later. Then, with the drive back on your machine, move all your data from your C:\ drive to the 100 GB partition. At least that way you won't lose anything if your C:\ drive is having problems which is looking likely. Next try to clean up your C:\drive and run all the diagnostics on it you can and try XXClone again. It's now 3.25 am here, so I'm not at my perky best, but I hope that made sense.
Regards,
John.

adamsplatt

See my posts above. Trail has gone cold from all of you. Am I on my own now? Let me know so I can see if I can work it out somehow.

adam