haskellbob

For quite some time I had the practice of occasionally re-formatting my hard drives and reinstalling everything on them. Then someone suggested I try cloning, so I downloaded XXClone. It worked great – once. But then…

I had problems with XXCLone - couldn't get it to correctly identify both source and target. I'd prepared the perfect basic hard drive, all formatted and with basic software installed, and wanted to copy it.

So I decided to try a certain other cloning software, Acronis, and, whether due to an error on my part or some other I do not know, but the end-result of my cloning is that I can't access [i]either[i] hard drive. They appear in the BIOS, however.

Have I lost all the data?

I should have stopped when I read the bit that said "After cloning, you will have to disconnect your "old" hard drive".

Oh, and also, the WIndows 98 installer CD was unable to format the one drive I tried to format - or was it two?

I'm, shall we say, somewhat disillusioned with the concept of disk cloning - at least for the moment.

Is there some way I can use those hard drives again - and, even better, retrieve the data on them - and what could possibly have been done to them that I can't even format them?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Bob Haskell

jnob

I don't have much experience with disk cloning maybe someone else can help you retrieve your data. However, the physical disks should be fine to use again. But do not try to format them until you have tried as much as you're willing to try to get the data back. IMO no serious os manipulations should ever be attempted without a proper backup of all of your personal data. There's always oportunity for disaster.

If you can hook those drives up in another machine as slaves it may be possible to access the data.

If everything else fails you'll have to remove the partitions and start from scratch, either by hooking the drives up as slaves and wiping them in disk management, or with FDisk.

haskellbob

I'm sorry; I don't know what Disk Manager is. could you explain that a bit more? I'm using my own machine with yet a third hard drive; in theory, shouldn't I be able to access the disks as slaves on my own machine, if I have a functional disk as the master?.. But I can't...

Thanks for your help ...

dai

disk manager is xp,i have only ever used ghost and had no problems and i usuaally leave the old drive as is for a couple of weeks,to make sure everything is ok,before reformatting it
boot from your floppy into fdisk and see it the 2 partitions are the same size

hwm54112

When you used acronis, something happened (never used acronis) (maybe has to do with the “unplugging the drive” thing you mentioned) and the wrong partition information was written to both drives. As such, setup can’t see either drive. The solution would be to get rid of the wrong partition info.

Download the drive manufacturer’s drive setup utility, make a bootable cd, and set the drive up in DOS, using the utility. If the drive utility doesn’t see the drive, you may have to use Boot & Nook to cleanup the drive first. Then use the drive utility to format/partition the drive, then run setup again.

Just took a quick look at the acronis site. Can you use the recovery cd that’s mentioned? Seems that unplugging the drive is essential

hwm54112

Edit of my last post: first paragraph should have been

This is sheer speculation, but It looks like the xxclone was successful, both drives worked properly as master boot drives, however when both drives were installed, either one of the drives wasn’t named or you couldn’t tell which was which in xxclone, so you tried acronis.

linderman

Hello:


unfortunately you are the first person I have ever heard of that crashed a cloning with xxclone. sorry about your experience

However never mix cloning software thats a big no-no

I think you will need to wipe your drives (boot & nuke = floppy disk version is easiest) and start with a fresh format and install

I hope you dont give up on xxclone >>>> it is truely an amazingly easy prog to use >>>>> i would be lost without it

just outta curosity >> did you give your drives volume labels (names) before you got started cloning ???? it helps to ID them correctly while you are working

I have messed that up before >>>> and also there are only two windows to work in from xxclone the main window console where you must choose the target and source drives and make a choice of "full back-up or incremental"

and then the advanced button >>> takes you to a window where you must insert three check marks for the bootable options boxes ?????

keep us posted >>>> ask more questions as needed

haskellbob

Actually there was a more fundamental problem with XXClone; it wouldn't "identify" source and target CD's correctly. This strange failure was intermittent; if I rebooted (a couple of times) it did place them both in its little windows.

I didn't give them names. Am not clear on the reason to do this (seems a basic enough thing to do - only this time I was working with hard drives of different size) Once I did get a successful clone - my euphoria is reflected in a previous post - and decided to make the perfect basic hard drive with everything installed (but also with certain things not installed - things that expire, if you catch my meaning(I have found that the installers for certain trial versions of certain software don't expire).


Of course, that aspiration for perfection was my undoing. Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun, and crashed (the wax on his wings melted).

OK. I won't give up on XXClone, but I won't be a true believer if it can't identify source and target disks; could the reason be disk-specific - i.e., might XXClone behave better with other hard drives?

Now I need to see about undoing partitions and wiping and all of that, which I don't understand (yet). Couldn't I just take a big hompin' magnet and apply it to the hard drive (kidding, but I remember it was a technique used to erase cassettes in one fell swoop)?

This is how I learn, by the way - through mistakes. I appreciate the advice not to give up on XXCLone. That's why I won't. Not yet.

dai

use dban to clear the drive.but make sure you set it to the right one
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

linderman

ahhhhh a shimmer of light thru the forest. Xxclone is not for cloning CD's !!

it only works on hard drives.


boot & nuke will erase your drives and youll be happy.


boot & nuke is very easy to run; simply download the floppy version; then go to the download location; then insert a fresh floppy disk in the floppy drive and click on the dban icon >>>> it will prepare a bootable floppy disk that will launch boot & nuke >>>> I always strongly advise you unplug the power cables from any drives you dont want erased; a user error can really send you into a deep abyss if you erase the wrong drive; dban has the ability to erase multiple drives if so commanded. the rest is very easy just follow the on screeen prompts.

it is however a slow process; about 40 minutes for 20 gig drive.

dont hesitate to ask more questions and keep us posted on your progress

haskellbob

I appreciate all your help, and will indeed post regarding the inevitable success... Because on these matters I just don't give up until I get it right!

haskellbob

But here's a real bit of dumbness: I was trying to copy the floppy-CREATING file onto a floppy, instead of clicking it - so that its program would create a floppy. Your last thread clued me in.