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[Brian_K]

Startup123,

Without going into details, that should be an easy fix. It is a BCD error. Do this and let us know....

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

[Startup123]

Thanks Brian,

I will check the link.

However I already got it working by using Disk Copy feature of Ghost installation on the hard drive not from the Ghost CD (I didn't see Disk Copy option on the CD).

I just finished this and the computer booted from the restoral which is great. But now the system disk is with the letter D and the original which is not active any more is still with the letter C. I've never seen that before and wonder if this is OK . Before when I start from different systems on different hard drives, Windows always automatically assigns the letter C on the system disk and the other disks got different drive letters depending on which hard drive I choose to boot from.

[Brian_K]

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Startup123 wrote:

. But now the system disk is with the letter D and the original which is not active any more is still with the letter C. I've never seen that before and wonder if this is OK .

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No, it is not OK. Do you have both HDs in your computer? Try removing each (one at a time) and see what happens.

[Brian_K]

The second rule of cloning states...

"do not let the new OS  see the old OS partition the first time it boots"

It sounds like you broke this rule. This is what happens with Win7.

HD0 is the new HD. HD1 is the old HD.

The desktop is that of the old HD. It is part of C: drive

In Disk management the partition on HD0 is D: drive letter and it is System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,  Primary

In Disk management the partition on HD1 is Active, Primary Partition. It is C: drive

In my limited experience, neither HD will boot on its own.

[Startup123]

Yes Brian, you described it exactly the way it behaves on my computer. Thanks for letting me know the second rule, please tell me abut the other rules too.

As you said, both drives (original and clone) now can't work without each other. When only one of the drives is plugged, during the booting Windows Boot Manager screen appears with these two choices:

Microsoft Windows Vista

and

Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7

I tried both and didn't see any difference, the booting proceeds as usual,  the Vista logo shows and plays the sound, then at the splash screen, instead of saying Welcome it says "Preparing your desktop" and it stays there forever. I even let it stay like that overnight hoping its taking time fixing itself but this morning the screen showed only the mouse cursor that I can move around on a blue background. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete and I got to the menu where I can switch users and run the Task Manager and I saw that all processes and services are running fine but that's all I can do.

Now when both drives are plugged, after choosing one of them to boot from, the other always get the letter C. Here's a screen capture of this:

The funny thing is that so far everything seems to be working fine with this weird setup and If I wasn't aware about it I would have thought everything is normal.  But I feel  very uneasy doing anything with the computer in such state.

I'm not sure how to proceed after all this. Should I recover the original form a recovery point and delete the clone to start everything from a clean state or there is something better?

[Brian_K]

Startup123,

We can fix both HDs fairly easily. Standby until I get some other things organized.

These are the kiss of death screens.

[Startup123]

Thanks a lot Brian, you are a life saviour

[Brian_K]

Startup123,

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

In this web site, Dan Goodell describes the rules and how to fix the OS if you have broken the rules. We are going to use a variant of Method #3.

Let's deal with the 250 GB HD first. Disconnect the 1 TB HD and don't reconnect it until I think it's appropriate. Connect the 250 GB HD to the HD0 port on the motherboard.

Boot from your BING CD and zero the Disk Signature by using Clear Sig.

 the BootIt NG CD boots to the Work with Partitions window
 Using the radio buttons on the left side of the Work with Partitions window, select the appropriate hard drive. (It should  be HD 0)
 click the "View MBR" button.
 click the "Clear Sig" button. Then click OK on the Notice.
 click the "Apply" button.
 click the "View MBR" button again and confirm the number in the left bottom corner is 0x00000000
 click Cancel
 click Close on the "Work with Partitions" window

Still in BING, fix the BCD store. Be careful as you will probably have a double lot of items. You only need to fix the 4 outlined in this...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

The OS should work now. We'll fix the Microsoft Boot menu shortly. Boot into Win7.

Run msconfig. Click the Boot tab. Highlight and delete the boot item you don't need. Click OK and reboot Win7.

Is everything OK?

[Startup123]

Worked great so far. You rock Brian

The only thing is the little Windows logo that shows the boot drive in My Computer folder is not there yet.  And after the boot the  the system showed this message that the device driver was installed requiring restart.

I haven't restarted yet and will wait to hear from you.

By the way in my previous attempts when trying Ghost restorals, every time I delete a drive and restore, after boot the system always installs a device driver. I hope this is normal.

[Brian_K]

Startup123,

That's fine. Restart and get back to me.