Norton Ghost 15 cannot "copy to another" drive the system files and boot

rchom · ‎08-12-2012

Situation: I am using the newest version of Ghost 15 SP1 and I want to upgrade my smaller capacity internal solid state drive to a larger one. I have the larger new naked drive in a SATA connected external case.

So Far:

I have partitioned and formatted the new drive into 3 partitions a2Dell Utilites b2 Recovery and c2 OS from the source drives a1 -Dell Utiliteis b1 recovery and c1OS
c2 is a "d" drive" "healthy, active, primary partition and is the "OS"
b2 is my recover and is "healthy" (primary partition)
a2 is my "utilites partition "unallocated" at this moment.
No physical sector errors found on either the soruce or target drive.

Problem:Whether I "copy" drive-to-drive in the following order a1-->a2; b1-->b2; c1-->c2 or c1-->c2; b1-->b2 and a1-->a2, I cannot get the system and boot files to appear on the new drive in the volume "c2"

Please assist Thanks.

R

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

You can't do the copy drive into existing partitions that have drive letters or the new drive will take on those incorrect letters and it will not boot properly.

The easiest way is to perform the copy drive into unallocated space.

I find it unusual that the 3'rd partition is the active primary partition, what version of windows does this Dell have on it?

Dave

rchom · ‎08-12-2012

I have version Windows 7.

To review, I copy onto an unallocated space of the drive. Then I change the volume size to add the three other partitions. Does that mean that it doesn't need to be formatted first? And just left unallocated?

Please elaborate. trhanks so much.

Brian_K · ‎04-19-2009

rchom wrote:

Problem:Whether I "copy" drive-to-drive in the following order a1-->a2; b1-->b2; c1-->c2 or c1-->c2; b1-->b2 and a1-->a2, I cannot get the system and boot files to appear on the new drive in the volume "c2"

rchom,

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management from your SSD system?

http://community.norton.com/t5/Forum-Feedback/Forum-Tip-How-to-post-screenshots-in-the-forum/td-p/25...

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

Correct, the entire copy process should be done into unallocated space, the destination drive should have no partitions.

You don't need to worry about the format, that will get copied over as well as the data.

You say you have 3 partitions. You don't need to resize the dignostic partition or the recovery partition, only the last partition that contains windows.

For the first 2 partitions use these options:

Check source for file system errors
Check destination for file system errors
DON'T SELECT Disable SmartSector copying
DON'T SELECT Ignore bad sectors during copy
Destination partition type : Primary
Drive letter : None

For the 3'rd partition (Windows 7) use these options:

Check source for file system errors
Check destination for file system errors

Resize drive to fill unallocated space
Set drive active (for booting OS)
DON'T SELECT Disable SmartSector copying
DON'T SELECT Ignore bad sectors during copy
Copy MBR
Destination partition type : Primary
Drive letter : None

(Thanks to Brian for those settings).

I'm going by what you say about windows (the 3'rd partition) being the active, system, partition.

you will see that when you are restoring to unallocated space you get the option to use the rest of the free space, that will expand the windows partition to use up the rest of the new drive.

Dave

DaveH · ‎01-06-2010

Sorry I didn't see Brians post when I was typing mine.

Yes, please give us a screen shot first.

I was going to ask for on on my forst post but we have a heck of a time somtimes getting them approved on Sundays

Dave

rchom · ‎08-12-2012

Disk Management Screen shot

Brian_K · ‎04-19-2009

Yes, that's a typical Dell system. The booting files are in the Recovery partition and you have set the wrong partition Active on the new SSD.

Try this, remove the old SSD and install the new SSD internally. Don't have the old SSD connected. Boot from the Ghost CD and set the Recovery partition Active. (or use your own method)

Try to boot and let us know what happens because it still won't load into Win7 but depending on your error we can fix it. It will probably be a drive letter error. Dark, blue, grey screen.

rchom · ‎08-12-2012

Thanks,

When I ran the install Ghost 15, did it create a recovery disk? Do I set the BIOS of the computer to look for the external optical drive? I have an Alienware M11xr2 where there is no inherenet optical drive but it is on a USB connection.

Thanks.