topic Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working. in Other Norton Products

HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:03:47 GMT

HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working or is not working well.

Have anyone experienced this problem before and has a documented solution they can link? Any ideas on what went wrong?

-Gene

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:23:53 GMT

ebelenit wrote:
Windows 7 installer stopped working or is not working well.

Gene,

Can you describe what is happening?

Does the SSD boot into Win7?

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:07:49 GMT

Everything works...Just need my Windows Installer fixed. I'm unable to install Steam and I'm unable to update and install video card driver.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

DaveH — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:27:28 GMT

I think you may have a few more issues than just windows installer. If the clone worked correctly everything would be exactly like before, just like it was on the old drive.

Would you happen to have both drives attached still?

Dave

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:34:58 GMT

DaveH wrote:

Would you happen to have both drives attached still?

Dave,

Great call. That makes sense.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

DaveH — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 05:39:28 GMT

We had a topic a while back that was never resolved. The user "cloned" to another drive and then reported problems with windows installer and windows update. The person used another product to do the clone but was also unable to uninstall or reinstall Ghost because of the windows installer problem.

I thought at that time that either both drives were attached and the system was working as a hybrid, or possibly it was the usuall drive letter problem. If it's a preactivated version of windows, I'm not sure if you would get the warning about windows not being authentic but I'm sure you would get the very long delay on the first boot when "windows is preparing the desktop" because it can no longer find the C:\users path.

Dave

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:47:09 GMT

Both drives are attached. I can boot off either drive.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:49:38 GMT

Dave,

I did not get any error and Windows has been working great. However, I tried to install MS Office 2010 just now and that failed as well. Got any ideas on what "tests" I can run to better diagnose the issue?

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:01:16 GMT

Ignore..

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:07:22 GMT

ebelenit wrote:
Both drives are attached. I can boot off either drive.

Got any ideas on what "tests" I can run to better diagnose the issue?

ebelenit,

Try this. Remove the old HD from your computer and try to boot the new SSD. You will find that it will not load into Windows.

Having the HDs set up as you have done results in what's called a "schizophrenic" system. It's not good but it can be fixed. Everything you have described about the Installer is related to the "schizophrenia".

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

DaveH — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:05:12 GMT

I like the description "schizophrenic", that sums it up pretty good. I used to call it a "frankenstein" because the monster was made from parts from different bodies. You take the head from one person and attach it to the body of another.....LOL

Gene, your not really booting into either operating system independant of the other, and that is whats causing the problems.

Your clone has taken on a different drive letter and windows is using system files and user profiles from the first hard drive.

It also causes any program that tries to use a relative or absolute path to fail.

Brian has a fix to reset the drive letter that should be much faster than having to start over.

Dave

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:57:12 GMT

Any idea on what caused schitzo? I tried to follow directions step by step on cloning the drive using Norton Ghost 15 and it seemed to work just fine... Did I miss a step or were directions faulty?

Link to directions I used.

I am going to try to unplug the old HDD and see if I can boot it up.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:16:56 GMT

Gene,

Thanks for posting the Symantec link. The instructions are an improvement on the userguide instructions but they leave out a critical step which led to your schizophrenic system. After completing Copy Drive you MUST remove the old HD and do at least one boot from the new HD so that it can adopt the C: drive letter. After this has been done the old HD can be reinstalled as a "slave" if desired. If you don't delete the old OS partition you should have a boot manager to select which OS to use and each OS will be C: drive when it is booted. If the non booting OS is not hidden from the booted OS it is irrelevant which drive letter is assigned to the non booting OS. You can even change this manually if desired.

Let us know what happens when you try to boot the SSD on its own.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:19:30 GMT

Thanks for the input everyone. I was too bugged down the last couple of days to mess with it. Going to try again tomorrow...

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

ebelenit — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:46:57 GMT

Ok, I did it.

And as you all predicted, it booted into blue screen "This version of Windows is not legal or whatever"

How should I fix it? Or is it easier to use Norton 15 and clone is again?

Thanks!

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:57:32 GMT

This should fix it. I have several methods to fix this drive letter issue.

Disconnect all HDs except the new Win7 HD (your SSD)

Boot from a Win7 disc
At the "Install Windows" screen press SHIFT F10 to get a command prompt
Enter these lines and press Enter at each line

diskpart
select disk 0
uniqueid disk ID=6B696473
exit
exit
On the Install Windows screen click Next
Repair your computer
Repair and restart
leave the Win7 disk in the tray

Boot from a Win7 disc again
On the Install Windows screen click Next
Repair your computer
dot in Use recovery tools....., Next
Startup Repair
It may say the repair failed
Finish
Restart
remove Win7 disk and boot into Windows

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

DaveH — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 02:57:39 GMT

44617665

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:14:16 GMT

Unfortunately I have 5 letters in my name.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

DaveH — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:44:55 GMT

I do too, but only my mother calls me David.

Re: HELP: Cloned HDD to SSD w/ Ghost 15.0; Windows 7 installer stopped working.

Brian_K — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:59:54 GMT

ebelenit,

Any news for us?