Copying OS to another drive

entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
edited September 2005 in Science & Tech
This doesn't work for me. I tried with Norton Ghost, using the "Copy Drive" option, and selected to copy over the MBR, and set it to active.

It started booting up, but got the screen where it would normally say, "Loading your user preferences" or some such, and hung there. It didn't even say that, in fact.

Also, is there any program that can take all my installed programs, move them to another drive, and still have them work?

Thanks!

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    acronis trueimage
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    primesuspect wrote:
    acronis trueimage
    Goddamn it, you beat me to it! ;D
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    You have your trueimage like I have my memtest ;D
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2005
    No go. I told it to do a Disk Clone, rebooting, and it got an "Indexing Error" or something. I ran chkdsk /f on all three of my drives. It found an index error on C:, but it fixed it. I retried the Disk Clone and it still think it found an error. :(
  • entropyentropy
    clears throat

    *tap tap*

    Is this thing on?
     Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2005
    clears throat

    *tap tap*

    Is this thing on?
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    Ghost it to it an image over the network. Take the other drive out Use and then reimage back across the network :)
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited August 2005
    acronis to an image on the network then image it back to what ever drive you want.

    Acronis>Ghost :D

    absolutely no help am I but I had to post... :D
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2005
    Hahaha, it's all good.

    If I'm going to be forced to do images anyway, is it possible to do this on a drive? I have 170 gig left on my 320, which is enough to hold an entire image of one drive.

    Why does everyone say go over the network? With this crappy Motorola router we have now (burned out the Linksys :( ), I get piss-poor speeds on wireless.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    entropy wrote:
    ...Why does everyone say go over the network?....
    Probably because you had no luck doing it disc-to-disc. :)
  • godzilla525godzilla525 Western Pennsylvania Member
    edited September 2005
    entropy wrote:
    With this crappy Motorola router we have now (burned out the Linksys :( ), I get piss-poor speeds on wireless.

    O/T:
    Just be glad yours still works at all. Both of my WR850Gs bricked themselves within a year of setting them up. There's supposedly a beta firmware floating around that fixes a lot of those issues, but it's hard getting a firmware into something that won't start up. :shakehead
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited September 2005
    Ours is just about dead by now. It can't assign an address any more, but still routes, which makes no sense. And it's flakier than hell - we may just go get another Linksys.

    So is there anything else I can do? I can't copy over the network because:
    a) it would take probably a day or two
    b) there isn't a harddrive big enough. My computer's storage consists of 70% total storage in this house :(


    But the real question is why can't I do this? Thousands of people have no problems with Norton, and thousands have no problems with Acronis. Why do I have issues with both? Is the OS harddrive on its last legs and I should just scrap it and start a new install on the other harddrive (really don't want to do that)?
  • godzilla525godzilla525 Western Pennsylvania Member
    edited September 2005
    when my HDD went bad chkdsk threw up a bunch of errors and started losing files(!); fortunately I had copies of everything that fell off... I backed up everything on my data partition to an external drive and tried fixing stuff... it somehow ended up in a non-bootable state on a reboot and I had to start fresh on a new drive.

    I use Adenix SMART Explorer (easy) or SmartMonTools (learning curve) to look after the health of my drives (both free)...

    But it sounds to me like either a failing drive/controller hardware or else Windows has gone sour. I usually avoid imaging software anyway since any problems with Windows will come right on over. Just make sure if you use iTunes or Napster that you deauthorize the computer before you reformat and copy over (if you choose to do so).
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2005
    Run the test from the HD manufacturer. If you're dealing with a failing drive you'll have no end of grief trying to copy a whole partition.

    You might as well either identify that as the source of the problem, or eliminate that possibilty. :)
  • QijdiQijdi
    edited September 2005
    You might also use a program called Bootit-NG to make image files of the partition.. I had no end of trouble with Norton and Acronis also.. Acronis actually caused all partitions to crash in a large operation - losing all my data collected over 7 years... Bootit-Next Generation has never failed me. Look to http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ for the program... It now handles PATA and SATA very well and supports most DVD burners also. However... if your drive is failing.... then no program is going to do properly... I use Bootit-NG on CD rather than floppy due to faster access.. Be sure to set all your options in the program before making the ISO for CD or you will have to set them each time... One thing to be sure to set is the " Burn Extra Track " command switch, this option allows you to have to only insert the first disk of an image file instead ot the first.........then the last...... then the first again to restore said image file. Personally speaking... I quit using all Symantec products years ago due to CPU hogging and various other errors they have never fixed in over 6 years. Partition magic is also tended to be a dangerous program.
    The best way so far has been to work in solid DOS with Bootit-NG... Please read the instruction manual before using... The interface is simple but there are a few hidden options.
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