Tips for cloning a HD with Vista Ultimate 64 and an HP dv9500

I just went through an agonizing process of cloning my boot drive to
new replacement drive on my HP dv9500. I thought I would share what
learned and hopefully someone will benefit and not waste as much time a
I did

Once I received the correct size replacement drive from HP (a 120 gi
Hitachi SATA drive), I found that Disk Management would not recogniz
the new drive in the secondary bay. It would ONLY recognize it in th
primary bay. After three days of trying to figure out the problem wit
HP tech support, the tech guys gave up. I figured out on my own tha
the molded plastic adapter on the hard drive's SATA connection is 1-2 M
shorter than the old drive's adapter. This shorter adapter prevente
the MB from recognizing the new drive in the secondary bay. I swappe
the new adapter for the existing one and it worked from there
See attached picture. New adapter on the right, old one on the left

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to clone m
boot drive to this new drive. The built-in Complete PC Restore featur
of Vista would not work for a few reasons
1. I didn't have an OEM Vista Installation disk. I only have the H
Recovery Disks and the Complete PC Restore feature is not available o
the Recovery Disks. Nor is it available on the Vista boot disk ISO
freely available on the net
2. There are several accounts that Complete PC Restore will not wor
if you are trying to restore to a drive that is different from the on
you originally backed up. I think Microsoft really blew it there.
That's a stupid constriction of an otherwise valuable feature
3. Complete PC Restore would not recognize my external USB drive wher
I stored by backup image

I tried a few programs including Acronis Migrate Easy. For whateve
reason, Migrate Easy wouldn't allow me to clone the boot drive while i
was in the primary drive bay. Nor would the boot disk start the clonin
process. Eventually I settled on Acronis True Image Home

Acronis True Image Home is an excellent piece of software. I'd sa
don't bother looking elsewhere, just go for this program. It work
perfectly and I had no problems with it whatsoever. There are a numbe
of great utilities included with this software package that make it mor
than a worthwhile purchase

Using True Image, I backed up my boot drive to an external USB drive.
Then I restored this image to the new drive in the secondary bay.
then shut down and swapped the new drive into the primary bay.
Everything appeared to be in order until I started to kill the data o
the old boot disc in the secondary bay using Acronis' Drive Cleanse
(included with True Image). As the old boot drive was overwritten, th
programs in the taskbar started to fail one-by-one and eventually th
entire desktop failed. I do not know what caused this. The secondar
bay is not bootable so it doesn't make sense that the desktop would b
tied to the old boot drive with the new cloned drive in the primary bay

Once Drive Cleanser was finished, I shut down and booted from the Tru
Image boot CD. Then I restored the backup on the external USB to th
new drive AGAIN. It's now working perfectly. I spent well over a wee
trying to get this right, so I hope my mistakes will save someone som
time and agony.

Cheers

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|Download: http://www.vistax64.com/attachment.p...chmentid=17612
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--
erock9816

erock9816 wrote:
> I just went through an agonizing process of cloning my boot drive to a
> new replacement drive on my HP dv9500. I thought I would share what I
> learned and hopefully someone will benefit and not waste as much time as
> I did.
>
> Once I received the correct size replacement drive from HP (a 120 gig
> Hitachi SATA drive), I found that Disk Management would not recognize
> the new drive in the secondary bay. It would ONLY recognize it in the
> primary bay. After three days of trying to figure out the problem with
> HP tech support, the tech guys gave up. I figured out on my own that
> the molded plastic adapter on the hard drive's SATA connection is 1-2 MM
> shorter than the old drive's adapter. This shorter adapter prevented
> the MB from recognizing the new drive in the secondary bay. I swapped
> the new adapter for the existing one and it worked from there.
> See attached picture. New adapter on the right, old one on the left.
>
> I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to clone my
> boot drive to this new drive. The built-in Complete PC Restore feature
> of Vista would not work for a few reasons:
> 1. I didn't have an OEM Vista Installation disk. I only have the HP
> Recovery Disks and the Complete PC Restore feature is not available on
> the Recovery Disks. Nor is it available on the Vista boot disk ISOs
> freely available on the net.
> 2. There are several accounts that Complete PC Restore will not work
> if you are trying to restore to a drive that is different from the one
> you originally backed up. I think Microsoft really blew it there.
> That's a stupid constriction of an otherwise valuable feature.
> 3. Complete PC Restore would not recognize my external USB drive where
> I stored by backup image.
>
> I tried a few programs including Acronis Migrate Easy. For whatever
> reason, Migrate Easy wouldn't allow me to clone the boot drive while it
> was in the primary drive bay. Nor would the boot disk start the cloning
> process. Eventually I settled on Acronis True Image Home.
>
> Acronis True Image Home is an excellent piece of software. I'd say
> don't bother looking elsewhere, just go for this program. It works
> perfectly and I had no problems with it whatsoever. There are a number
> of great utilities included with this software package that make it more
> than a worthwhile purchase.
>
> Using True Image, I backed up my boot drive to an external USB drive.
> Then I restored this image to the new drive in the secondary bay. I
> then shut down and swapped the new drive into the primary bay.
> Everything appeared to be in order until I started to kill the data on
> the old boot disc in the secondary bay using Acronis' Drive Cleanser
> (included with True Image). As the old boot drive was overwritten, the
> programs in the taskbar started to fail one-by-one and eventually the
> entire desktop failed. I do not know what caused this. The secondary
> bay is not bootable so it doesn't make sense that the desktop would be
> tied to the old boot drive with the new cloned drive in the primary bay.
>
> Once Drive Cleanser was finished, I shut down and booted from the True
> Image boot CD. Then I restored the backup on the external USB to the
> new drive AGAIN. It's now working perfectly. I spent well over a week
> trying to get this right, so I hope my mistakes will save someone some
> time and agony.
>
> Cheers!

At least you got it back. Most just do a re-install.

Yeah, but that's such a huge PITA. In hindsight, that may have been
faster way to go but I was convinced I could clone it and I wasn't goin
to give up until it was done

--
erock9816

FYI I have tried "Cloning" with Acronis and it sometimes works and
sometimes does not, however making a full backup and doing a restore to
the new drive always has...

Charlie Tame



erock9816 wrote:
> Yeah, but that's such a huge PITA. In hindsight, that may have been a
> faster way to go but I was convinced I could clone it and I wasn't going
> to give up until it was done.
>
>

erock9816 wrote:
> I just went through an agonizing process of cloning my boot drive to a
> new replacement drive on my HP dv9500. I thought I would share what I
> learned and hopefully someone will benefit and not waste as much time as
> I did.
>
> Once I received the correct size replacement drive from HP (a 120 gig
> Hitachi SATA drive), I found that Disk Management would not recognize
> the new drive in the secondary bay. It would ONLY recognize it in the
> primary bay. After three days of trying to figure out the problem with
> HP tech support, the tech guys gave up. I figured out on my own that
> the molded plastic adapter on the hard drive's SATA connection is 1-2 MM
> shorter than the old drive's adapter. This shorter adapter prevented
> the MB from recognizing the new drive in the secondary bay. I swapped
> the new adapter for the existing one and it worked from there.
> See attached picture. New adapter on the right, old one on the left.
>
> I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to clone my
> boot drive to this new drive. The built-in Complete PC Restore feature
> of Vista would not work for a few reasons:
> 1. I didn't have an OEM Vista Installation disk. I only have the HP
> Recovery Disks and the Complete PC Restore feature is not available on
> the Recovery Disks. Nor is it available on the Vista boot disk ISOs
> freely available on the net.
> 2. There are several accounts that Complete PC Restore will not work
> if you are trying to restore to a drive that is different from the one
> you originally backed up. I think Microsoft really blew it there.
> That's a stupid constriction of an otherwise valuable feature.
> 3. Complete PC Restore would not recognize my external USB drive where
> I stored by backup image.
>
> I tried a few programs including Acronis Migrate Easy. For whatever
> reason, Migrate Easy wouldn't allow me to clone the boot drive while it
> was in the primary drive bay. Nor would the boot disk start the cloning
> process. Eventually I settled on Acronis True Image Home.
>
> Acronis True Image Home is an excellent piece of software. I'd say
> don't bother looking elsewhere, just go for this program. It works
> perfectly and I had no problems with it whatsoever. There are a number
> of great utilities included with this software package that make it more
> than a worthwhile purchase.
>
> Using True Image, I backed up my boot drive to an external USB drive.
> Then I restored this image to the new drive in the secondary bay. I
> then shut down and swapped the new drive into the primary bay.
> Everything appeared to be in order until I started to kill the data on
> the old boot disc in the secondary bay using Acronis' Drive Cleanser
> (included with True Image). As the old boot drive was overwritten, the
> programs in the taskbar started to fail one-by-one and eventually the
> entire desktop failed. I do not know what caused this. The secondary
> bay is not bootable so it doesn't make sense that the desktop would be
> tied to the old boot drive with the new cloned drive in the primary bay.
>
> Once Drive Cleanser was finished, I shut down and booted from the True
> Image boot CD. Then I restored the backup on the external USB to the
> new drive AGAIN. It's now working perfectly. I spent well over a week
> trying to get this right, so I hope my mistakes will save someone some
> time and agony.
>
> Cheers!
>
>
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
> |Filename: DSC00422.JPG |
> |Download: http://www.vistax64.com/attachment.p...hmentid=17612|
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
>

Eh.. I, (just two days ago, and a couple hours max), put my new Sata
drive in an external enclosure, connected it to my computer via USB,
booted with a FREE Linux Live CD, used the dd command with a couple easy
parameters, and Viola! Copied my Win 7 AND Linux partitions from an 80gb
PATA to a 320gb SATA in no time at all. Used a Gparted CD to adjust
Linux partitions and fill the disk,(Move and expand the partitions),
with no problems. Booted to Win 7 and expanded it's partition that way,
(Best to let Winders do it's own thing), which only took seconds,
literally. Linux DOES have it's advantages.

Source: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...hreadid=134457



G'day