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Can't clone a boot drive under XP Pro

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by glanderson

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I'm trying to upgrade the drive in an XP system by cloning the current drive on to a larger drive. I have tried several utilities, including the new Norton Ghost and the Maxtor utility for doing this. When the new drive is connected as the only drive in the system, the login/password screen is displayed. I enter the correct password and XP starts loading my personal settings. After about 2 seconds, it starts automatically logging me off. Can anyone help me solve this problem?

25 replies

by jdgretz

I've used Ghost numerous times to clone drives/images from both single units and from a server, so I know it will work. Also, I've recently set up a client's old 98 machine to use the Maxtor software to clone his boot drive to a hot back up.

You might have a problem with either the new drive or the old one that is only showing up when you clone your old drive.

Try doing the clone from another machine. Hook your old and new drives up as additional drives to the alternate machine and see if that works. If not, try another hard drive and see if that solves that problem. If neither of those work, find a GOOD computer store (not one of the big box places) and have them take a look.

jdg

by ovideo

Login in as another administrator not your profile and move your doc's etc to another new profile. The issue isn't Ghost it's the contents of your profile.

by glanderson

I have tried logging in with different users, even creating a few before I tried to clone again. All of the user IDs exhibit the same problem. Auto log-off after about 2 seconds.

by natomega

Do not torture yourself any longer. WinXP records the serial or ID of your hardware. I have had mixed results - it also depends on the version of Norton Ghost that you use. I have used Ghost 2005, 2003, Ver 5 Ver 7.0 with no luck, BUT I have had success with 9.0. I have upgraded my HHD form 30Gb to a SATA 120Gb using Ghost 9.0 with no adverse effects. Suggest you try Ghost ver 9.0
Cheers

by ang

Before you ghost the drive make sure the new drive is blank ie no partitions on it and check the page file on the old drive is on the old drive not on another drive eg c: drive is the letter of the old drive and the pagefile is on the same drive ghost 7 should work just fine.

by ccollins

As the serial number of your drive has changed this would be my guess as well, if you have an OEM version of XP.

by tapiper88

No question this requires a repair installation of XP. It's working the same as if the hard drive was swapped to a new machine. Boot it up with the appropriate Xp install disk, okay to install Windows at first screen, F8 to get past the disclaimer, then 'R' to repair the Windows installation. If you don't have the license key, use keyfinder to get it off the old machine before the repair.

by natomega

Do not torture yourself any longer. WinXP records the serial or ID of your hardware. I have had mixed results - it also depends on the version of Norton Ghost that you use. I have used Ghost 2005, 2003, Ver 5 Ver 7.0 with no luck, BUT I have had success with 9.0. I have upgraded my HHD from 30Gb to a SATA 120Gb using Ghost 9.0 with no adverse effects. Suggest you try Ghost ver 9.0 In fact to all you people out there that have had probs with Win XP Crashing all the time I am still waiting for a response from Microsoft from 2 years ago. So to safe guard my Data I have installed 2 HHD's I have created a number of partions to suit myself but you can have one or more. Load Win XP and all your favourite programs onto your Master HD install all drivers, when you have it tuned exactly just right and activated XP simply Create a Ghost image to a partion onto your 2nd HDD. Therefore when XP eventually crashes which is approx every 6 months in my case, all you need to do is to Ghost your original image back onto your original HDD, and you have a clean O/S and back on line within 10-15 minutes.
I forgot to mention on your 2nd HDD create 3 partions, 1st partition load an emergency O/S like Win 2K, which is compatible with XP, store & save all your valuable Data onto 2nd partition, you should always save Data to 2nd Partition, and 3rd partion is your rescue partition where you store your Win XP and Win 2K ghosted images.
When XP crashes just boot from your Win2K and ghost XP from your Rescue partion or if you are smart you will burn a DVD. I know I have digressed a little but I hope this helps all you guys out there
Cheers

by charliespencer

You can Ghost / clone XP Pro boot drives; I do it all day long. But you must enter an Enterprise or other corporate license agreement number when you build the first box. Use the SysPrep tool to reset the internal identifiers

What natomega says is correct if you entered a single-user license key. Of course, if you have a single-user key, you can legally clone the image only for purposes of restoring the original machine. Using it to install XP on a second machine isn't allowed under the EULA.

by matthewdowsett

ERD Commander 2005 boots dead systems directly from CD into a Windows-like environment. You'll have full access to the dead system's volumes, so you can diagnose and repair problems using tools located on the ERD Commander 2005 Start menu. And you'll have built-in network access to safely move data off of, or on to, the dead system.

The Locksmith utility allows you to quickly reset the Administrator password on locked-out systems.

With ERD Commander 2005 you can repair a system quickly and easily, saving you time and rescuing your critical data.

by lobach

I have successfully used Paragon Harddisk Manager.
Paragon gives detailed description of all steps that are needed to replace a boot disk with another.

by bigfrank_patsy

try using the cd that comes with the new HD. I have used install from Seagate,MaxBlaster from Maxtorand Data LifeGard Tools from Western Digital all with a positive result. As long as you use the CD from the manafacture of the HD you are cloning. You can't put this HD in a Difrent computer thow. It has to stay with the same MB and CPU when you change those it will not work. You then have to use the windows install CD and pick the frist repair. your data will still be there but you have to reinstall all the programs.
Acronis backup will gost the HD as will as Nortons I have never had any problum with eather of these. you make a backup and then restore it to the new HD. I have done this on several computers and it worked also. there is something else runing on your computer that is blocking you .Windows xp pro is not the problum.

by ideallypc

Jrwhit posts a great solution. I have used option 5 to clone several Thinkpads that have that sneaky VERY hidden recovery partition. I read these threads and began wondering if my laptop cloned image would start up. I swapped drives and it got to the Windows XP splash screen and ground to a halt. Hard drives are a little tougher to clone becuase there is only one accessable IDE channel. I used Ghost 9.0 and a PCMCIA EZ-Gig caddy. The lesson I learned was no back-up strategy is complete until it is tested. I'm going back to re-clone and I will pay particular attention to the partitioning. Note I used Partition Magic 8.0 to try to get both physically identical drives logically identical. I bet that was where I missed it....

by stoop

Use the boot disk wizard included with Ghost, and boot from a floppy.

Works every time.

by cballinger1

I use a product from Acronis called TrueImage. You can clone a drive to a larger drive, make an image backup, etc.
Works on Win 98, NT, 2000 and XP versions I've tried so far.
Check it out at www.acronis.com. I'm running their older version, since some problems have been reported with the latest release.

by espionage

Hi,
I use True Image too, but to transfer everything from onto another HDD I prefer the following way:
plug new HDD as slave, then click create clone hard drive on TI toolbar and follow the prompts.
It's very fast and easy, I've never had any problem with this solution!
Highly recommend.

by murachd

Boot with a win 98 boot disk with the utils on it after you finished the upgrade and type fdisk /mbr

by ted.rodavich

When I restore my XP Pro machine from a ghost image, mine can't find an OS. So it's not the same error as yours but I have a feeling the fix is the same. I boot to an XP CD and do a repair. I simply get to a dos prompt and type FIXBOOT. Every time I restore from my image I have to do this last step. Works fine.

by doveman

FIXBOOT didn't help when I had a similar problem, but 98's fdisk /mbr did.

Alternatively, before you clone the old drive, run regedit and go to HKLM\System\MountedDevices and delete all the \DosDevices\ entries. This will force XP to reallocate the drive letters next time it boots, which will ensure that C: is your XP partition.

by aaron a baker

The only I was able to get out of this was for me to put the drive on my Secondary Computer, Save what I wanted in files and then use the Maxtor to partition and then format the drive, C fat32 the rest NTSF.
Having done this the Maxtor goes into it's little act of transference, "whether you like it or not" so I let it go.
Once this is done I now put the drive back into the original computer and do a "Start from CD" Boot.
I then tell it to Format the C:\ without repairing anything and then go ahead and install the XP. I also instruct it to leave everything intact and just install "Over" the other one in the same directory.i.e. C:\WINDOWS
What happens :Theoretically is that it will install itself over that last one leaving things as they were. I know this seems long and tedious, but it's the only way it worked for me, other than a clean and full format and a new XP Install. These are the only two choices you have.
Since then I have made it a point of having a backup on a completely neutral drive for the sole purpose of holing the info of better yet, burn all that you want to keep in proper category, like a filling system only on CD.
Then there will be no more worries about losing your info.
Good luck.
Regards :)
Aaron

by clindell

Anyone try SYSPREP which is part of MS RIS? I can make a master then clone it to other size drives and different computers. The only thing I am having a problem with is getting the drive to boot with the correct drivers for my video, NIC & sound, everything else is fine. Right now I have one master image on a single drive that I duplicate between SATA & IDE drives between 40 and 80 GIGs.

YOU can do this :) I just would like to find a way to do it better.

by silagy

have you tried the old xcopy command for nt?

start run,cmd

c:\xcopy h/e/c/k

check www.computerhope.com
search for xcopy

or you can clone it then do a repair of windows from your cd, it might that that the hardware has changed and need to be reactivated and thats why its logging off.any qestions silagy@gmail.com

by arleighbbaker

Un-Install XP Pro Updates after 16 October, 2007.

Tried this several times and it worked every time.

Tried re-installing updates; problem came back and cloned drive would not start.

Good Luck!

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