Can't boot from cloned HD
I have an IBM Netvista 8410-48U. The original hard drive (120GB ATA100) recently started making unusual
sounds, so I cloned it (using Acronis Home Edition 2009) to a drive (160GB ATA133) that I installed in an external enclosure attached via USB. This morning the old hard drive is dead, so I swapped in the new drive, but when
I power on the PC, all I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor. I booted from CD into Windows Recovery Console and tried a FIXMBR, but that didn't do the trick. I can read everything on the drive when I install it
in an external case. The pin jumpers are set to "Cable Select". When I go into the BIOS, it indicates I have a 160GB drive. I am (was?) running Windows XP PRO SP3. Any ideas?
The first thing to check is that the BIOS is actually trying to boot from the correct drive. Whenever drive changes are made, the BIOS will (usually) change the order. This can result in a drive that doesn't boot being selected as the default booting drive.
Otherwise, you could try the following:
If the old drive is still working, you could try doing a reverse-clone. Put the original drive in the USB enclosure and the new drive in the computer and then do the cloning (original >> new).
Also, if you have room, I would recommend that you create an Entire Disk Image backup of the original drive while it's installed in the computer. If cloning fails, you could install the new drive and try restoring the image.
Paul is correct - the problem is most likely caused by Lenovo's nonstandard 240-head BIOS geometry. To get this to work out, reclone old --> new but have the new disk installed internally in the NetVista PC.
If the old disk is really dead, instead create an image of the new disk and save it to another external USB disk. Then install the new disk in the NetVista PC and restore the image from the external to the new disk.
If you still have the Lenovo recovery partition, don't forget to include Track 0 and MBR so that the custom Lenovo MBR is preserved.
Is it possible for him to put the cloned (copy) back in the external usb where it was created,
and then install a new drive in his computer,
and then clone from the external drive to the new drive that is in the computer?
This sounds far out but it might just work.
Fungus
Yes, that should work. But it requires having another new disk.
I do have an extra drive, so I can do as you suggest, but how can I do the copy without an OS on the PC? Is there some way to create a bootable Acronis image on CD? I bought the software as a download, so I don't have a CD, but I have the download which I could run on another PC to create a CD if that is possible?
William:
Yes, there are a couple of ways to create a bootable recovery CD for True Image. One way is to install TI on another PC and use the Bootable Media Builder application to create a boot CD. The other is to log into your account on the Acronis web site and go to your Registered Products. For TI 2010 there should be a bootable ISO image file that you can download and burn to a CD.
K0LO, thanks for that information. I downloaded the bootable ISO image, installed the cloned drive in an external USB enclosure and cloned back to a new drive installed in the PC and it worked perfectly. One additional item, this PC is circa 2003, and someone else told me that my BIOS might not recognize drives greater than 137GB (I had cloned from a 120GB drive to a 160GB drive), so I bought a 80GB drive and cloned to that (I couldn't find another 120GB drive) I am only using 37GB on the drive, so 80GB is plenty.