[dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD

DJK(John) Robinson djkr at msn.com
Wed Mar 8 09:11:12 CST 2006


Hi Steve

I'm not at all familiar with Ghost, sorry, and I don't know why XP would
'choke' over a drive serial number; why should it, unless perhaps there was
some OEM issue?

As far as I'm concerned, XP just does as it's told, and runs from the new
drive - done this several times with different machines and systems.  Maybe
I'm just blissful because I'm ignorant!

I think you need to bottom out the 'choking' issue.  What does Ghost have to
say about this?  Was the "back-up drive" set up with an active partition and
a copied MBR, both necessary for booting from it?  You say you swapped the
IDE cables:  were the drives on different cables, or just different
connectors on the same cable, in which case did you change the jumpers on
the drives?  And what makes you think it was definitely something to do with
drive serial number?

(end of inquisition!)

John


-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Steve Erbach
Sent: 08 March 2006 14:45
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD


John,

I'm sort of confused by this.  I just had to do this, more or less, to my
wife's PC, though instead of installing a new drive, I wanted to take her
Ghosted back-up drive and make it the new Drive C:.  Well, of course,
Windows sees the different drive serial number and won't boot up if you
simply swap the IDE cables.

Does this scheme solve the problem of Windows XP "choking" on a drive with a
different "signature"?

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI


On 3/4/06, DJK(John) Robinson <djkr at msn.com> wrote:
> Hi Arthur
>
> I'm not an expert in this area, but I have done similar things.  I 
> used Drive Image 7 (not its sibling Partition Magic).
>
> Before you start copying stuff, you might want to partition the new 
> disc into partitions that will in due course become C:\ and D:\  But 
> don't give them drive letters yet:  it's too easy to get snarled up.  
> Under Win XP, use Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Computer 
> Management \ Disk Management.  But hey, I'm sure you knew that.  :-)
>
> I think your strategy is sound.  OK, so D:\ will be out of action 
> temporarily, but when you've imaged the old C:\ onto the new potential 
> C:\ you can try switching over to it.  If it fails, go back to old C:\ 
> while you figure out why;  if it works, go on to stage 2.
>
> I'd get on to Stage 2 right away, while you're on a roll!  Use Disk 
> Management to mess with the drive letters:  give the new potential D:\ 
> some temporary letter, say T:\.  Physically swap the old drives over, 
> so you can copy the D:\ contents onto T:\.  OK? Then change the old 
> D:\'s drive letter to X:\, and change T:\ to D:\  You should now have 
> a fully working system with C: and D: drives both on your new disk, 
> and all the pointers happy and
> unchanged: no complexity.  (BUT you still have both old disks, just in
case
> ..)
>
> "Honor your partners, first couple in the middle and swing, then swing 
> your first corners, ..." - just need an accordion and the 
> all-important *caller*!
>
> I'd leave the burners out of the equation.  Sharing a hard drive and 
> an optical drive on the same ribbon cable can slow down the hard drive 
> a lot.
>
> HTH, and good luck!
>
> John
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur 
> Fuller
> Sent: 05 March 2006 00:08
> To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD
>
>
> My main squeeze has twin 80 GB drives. Today I bought a 250 GB drive. 
> I want to burn the image of c:\ to the new drive, then swap them, 
> reboot and be back where I was a few minutes ago with everything 
> working correctly. I have an ancient version of Ghost. The current 
> setup is NTFS everywhere. The ancient version alleges to support NTFS 
> but if memory serves there was a change a few years back in the NTFS 
> structure; so I am a teensy bit nervous that the old version won't 
> support the changed structure. My plan thus far is this (dictated by 
> the complete absence of free space
> anywhere): unplug HD #2 (d:\), replace it with the big new drive, run
Ghost
> or Partition Magic and copy everything from c:\ to the new drive, then
swap
> the new drive for the old drive c:\, reboot and experience joy. Before I
do
> anything, I request some feedback -- an assurance this will work, a better
> approach, whatever. I am NOT a hardware guy. I prefer to confine my
> perspective to the subtleties of SQL etc. The current box has twin 80 GB
> disks, both of which have about 6 GB free. Ideally, I would like to move
> everything from the existing c:\ to the new disk, then do the same with
> everything on the d:\ disk (but I expect that to be more complex, since
> numerous pointers will be looking for d:\ not c:\). On Step Two I don't
care
> to do it immediately, since it will continue to work as is, assuming that
I
> correctly image existing drive c:\ to the new drive, then remove the old
> drive and plonk in the new one. Holes in logic? Superior strategies? More
> optimized solution? All advice gratefully accepted. (I also have a CD
burner
> and a DVD burner connected. Perhaps I should unhook one of these rather
than
> d:\ and go about it that way.)? TIA, Arthur
>
> _______________________________________________
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