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No keyboard after disc clone

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Hi,
I've a Vaio laptop, and the HD is dying. So I bought another one, and did a disk clone.

Windows is starting up, but the built-in keyboard is not working. Though the wireless USB-dongle mouse is working fine. So can't do much as I can't login.
Other weird thing is that the Acronis F11 menu is not appearing.

I thought the clone was supposed to replicate all parts of the HD, including the hidden parts ?

Then I re-used my old HD to try another method : I've restored my XP image onto the new HD from the TI application.
Same behavior when I boot from that partition (plus an MBR error 3).

Any idea what is the issue ?
Is it possible that Sony puts some very hidden data (e.g. the keyboard driver) on the HD ?
Shall I first use Sony's tool to restore the laptop on the new HD, and then do the clone hoping it would leave those hidden data ?

I'll try also with a USB keyboard... but the fact that the system doesn't behave as the previous one is worrying, I might ahve some other bad surprises...

Thks for the advices

Fabien

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I would be surprised if the keyboard driver is on a hidden partition, although there will be a hidden partition containing at the very least Sony diagnostics if not the original laptop image.

If your old drive is still working, if you re-insert that, does the keyboard start working again?

It is also possible that Sony have special code in the MBR for booting purposes, but as you mention the Acronis F11 option I assume you activated the Acronis Start Up Recovery Manager which would have overwritten this code and you would have noticed a problem before now if there was going to be a problem.

What I would first check is to see if there is a setting in the laptop's BIOS for the keyboard that might have become disabled. Next, I would detach all external devices and see if that brings it back to life.

The last thing I would try, assuming the old drive is still working is to attempt a reverse clone. For this you will need to boot from the Acronis Rescue CD, and put the new drive into the laptop and the old drive into an external caddy and then clone the old to the new, disconnect the old drive and then reboot.

Your MBR 3 error is due to the Acronis F11 code missing . It isn't a problem just annoying.

When you made an image of the disk did you include the complete image or just the C partition? If just the C partition, make a complete disk image and then restore the image via the Rescue CD.

Do you have an XP or Sony XP CD to hand?

What version and build of True Image are you using?