I can't tell what partition Win7(1) is installed on, but lets pretend it is E when you are in windows XP.
From XP, open up your Win7(1) backup image with image explorer and go to: C:Windows\system32\config
(That path is inside the image)
Restore the "System" file to your XP desktop.
Then use explorer and navigate to E:\windows\system32\config
Rename the file System to System.bac and then move the file from the desktop into that folder.
Boot Win7(1)
Brian_K wrote:Robocopy probably won't fix "Preparing your desktop". That is a drive letter issue. But try Robocopy and let us know.
Has "Preparing your desktop" ever happened before or just with your new method?
Brian,
Preparing your desktop only happened with the new method.
Deric
Dave,
Ok mate I will give it a go later on, just give me a bit of time to play with it, Win 7 (1) is in E:.
I was expecting a round of applause when you read message 35 nothing but silence, ah well I'll press on with G15.
Deric
DStain wrote:Preparing your desktop only happened with the new method.
Let me give you an example of a drive letter issue. You have two HDs in your computer. A Windows OS is on the first HD and a single data partition is on the second HD. You create an image of the OS writing it to an external HD. You then delete the partition on the second HD, remove the first HD and restore the image to the unallocated space on the only HD in the computer. You power on and find Windows won't load due to a drive letter issue. Do you know why?
Brian_K wrote:
DStain wrote:Preparing your desktop only happened with the new method.
Let me give you an example of a drive letter issue. You have two HDs in your computer. A Windows OS is on the first HD and a single data partition is on the second HD. You create an image of the OS writing it to an external HD. You then delete the partition on the second HD, remove the first HD and restore the image to the unallocated space on the only HD in the computer. You power on and find Windows won't load due to a drive letter issue. Do you know why?
Brian,
If I new the answer to that I would be in the same league as you.
To be honest mate I don't know, but I would think that the newly created HDD from the image thinks it should be C: drive but it would be the next one up D: and it keeps trying to load C:
Deric
Yes. The OS saw the target partition before the image was created so the drive letter for that partition was embedded in the registry. When the OS booted on the target HD it took the previous drive letter, which is not C: in this case, and won't load into Windows. I suspect you did something like this to get your drive letter issues.
Brian,
It is a bit difficult for me to try and work out what happens with these drive copies, I just learn by trial and error and practice.
Point me in the right direction and I will learn and retain.
Deric
Deric, to be blunt I have one suggestion. Dump the Microsoft Boot Manager if you want to have four OS. Third party boot managers are a dream. All OS are C: drive. There are no drive letter issues and no cross-talk as none of the OS see each other. You can delete any OS from the HD as there is no shared System partition.
Brian,
I am about to give up on Ghost 15 because I just cannot get it to work, I have tried robocopy.exe no good, I have tried Dave's method no good.
Give me Ghost 12 any day at least I can have a multi boot pc backed up with an emergency HDD without any problems.
With the greatest respect, the last time you put me onto a third party boot manager I couldn't get that to work, it was too complicated I need something simple.
All this is caused by the total failure of Ghost 15 to produce a working emergency HDD for a multi boot machine, simple as that.
There is still one more test for me to do and that is the thread's title (Copy Drive) but I would expect the same problem.
After this final go I will probably chuck in the towel.
Deric
DaveH wrote:I can't tell what partition Win7(1) is installed on, but lets pretend it is E when you are in windows XP.
From XP, open up your Win7(1) backup image with image explorer and go to: C:Windows\system32\config
(That path is inside the image)
Restore the "System" file to your XP desktop.
Then use explorer and navigate to E:\windows\system32\config
Rename the file System to System.bac and then move the file from the desktop into that folder.
Boot Win7(1)
Dave,
sorry mate it failed, I followed your instructions to the letter.
I used the actual backup files of the fully working (clone) the 120 gig drive.
It did get me into Windows but with a temporary profile.
Because I have messed this drive up a few times over the last 48 hours I was still able to recover it with Ghost 12.
I therefore know that the .v2i files are valid that I used to extract the system files.
If you can think of anything else I can try I will certainly give it a whirl.
Nearly dinner time now so it's time to get the bottle out and enjoy a glass and relax
Deric
DStain wrote: you put me onto a third party boot manager I couldn't get that to work, it was too complicated
Deric,
Nothing could be more complicated than what you are doing at present. But I take your point. Ghost 12 works with your system and even though Ghost 15 is causing problems, it must be entertaining trying to find a workaround.
Brian_K wrote:DStain wrote: you put me onto a third party boot manager I couldn't get that to work, it was too complicatedDeric,
Nothing could be more complicated than what you are doing at present. But I take your point. Ghost 12 works with your system and even though Ghost 15 is causing problems, it must be entertaining trying to find a workaround.
Brian,
you could say that again,
like I said before it has got to be one for the team to sort out there has got to be some code contained in G12 that has not been carried over to G15.
To be honest Brian, there is nothing complicated with a 4 drive multi boot when you consider your setup, I don't know how you control all those partitions.
I tried the "Copy My Hard Drive" option and it failed again, this time XP wouldn't boot, Win 7(1) or (2) wouldn't boot but one of them did and got stuck on the screen again. Vista didn't boot but after I ran a Win7 repair Vista booted into a working PC. So there is another scenario to think about.
This time though once each partition had finished copying I went into disk management to get the target drive online so that Ghost 15 could "see" the remaining unallocated space and made sure that the drive letters were removed.
During setup on each partition I made sure that drive letter was "none", what I didn't do though was dot logical drive on D,E and F.
Perhaps I might have another go tomorrow and try it with logical partitions and then I have covered every possible settings there is to make it work.
I do agree with you though about Microsoft's boot manager, it is got to be that at fault but who am I to know for sure, I ain't the expert.
Deric
DStain wrote:This time though once each partition had finished copying I went into disk management to get the target drive online so that Ghost 15 could "see" the remaining unallocated space and made sure that the drive letters were removed.
Can you explain that part Deric?
How do you get the target drive "online" are you giving it a letter and then later removing it?
What operating system is Ghost 15 installed on?
I also wouldn't be too quick to blame it on the MS boot loader.
You can use easyBCD to verify if the entries are correct and the right partition is trying to boot.
DaveH wrote:
DStain wrote:This time though once each partition had finished copying I went into disk management to get the target drive online so that Ghost 15 could "see" the remaining unallocated space and made sure that the drive letters were removed.
Can you explain that part Deric?
How do you get the target drive "online" are you giving it a letter and then later removing it?
What operating system is Ghost 15 installed on?
I also wouldn't be too quick to blame it on the MS boot loader.
You can use easyBCD to verify if the entries are correct and the right partition is trying to boot.
Dave,
Last night the last test I did was to run a "Copy My Hard Drive" option.
The source drive I used is the one created with Ghost 12 and is a single drive partitioned into 4 more or less equal parts.
Each partition has an O/S and apps and is basic.
When you start G15 "Copy Drive" and run the first copy (C:) if you don't go into disk management and get the target online G15 can't "see" the unallocated space for the next copy (D:).
To get it "Online" right click the left hand pane.
When you do put the target drive online Windows allocates a drive letter and that has to be removed before you progress further with the copy drive.
This is where G12 excels it CAN "see" the unallocated space without the target drive on line and counts down as it progresses.
Now if you want to bet on this one I will put my pension on it because since last Thursday I have had a lot of practice at it as Brian knows .
I have logged every move I made on this exercise and you are welcome to my notes, and yes I have to use Easy BCD to modify the boot menu.
Normally Ghost is always installed on the last in line (F:) Win7 (2), I will slip the drive in again this afternoon and check it out for you when I try the logical drive option I talked about last night.
Deric
Deric,
I'm a bit confused about "online". I can't recall seeing it. How do you prepare the target HD prior to Copy Drive? How do you delete the partitions?
Windows can't assign a drive letter unless a partition is present. So unallocated space can't get a drive letter.
Brian_K wrote:Deric,
I'm a bit confused about "online". I can't recall seeing it. How do you prepare the target HD prior to Copy Drive? How do you delete the partitions?
Windows can't assign a drive letter unless a partition is present. So unallocated space can't get a drive letter.
Brian,
Let me see if I can put it another way,
1. I prepare the "target" drive on the multi boot machine and delete it creating the unallocated space.
2. I know you don't like it but I use two eSata docking stations, eSata being a direct connection to the motherboard via a "Rob" adapter.
3.My multi boot machine has 2 drives as message 31 ( without disk 2)
4.I drop the target drive into one of the docking stations and delete it in disk management creating all unallocated space.
5.Then I disconnect the two drives leaving the target in the docking station.
6. Then I drop in the source drive (created with Ghost 12) in the other docking station.
7. I do this because my multi boot machine has Win 8 on two drives and I found that was causing a problem first of all with boot manager.
8.Now I have a computer running from the smaller drive (120 gig source) in one docking station.
9.I then reboot into Win7(2) in the source drive and open G15 installed and live updated to SP1.
10. Select "Copy My Hard Drive" and follow the copy procedure
11. Now the problem is that G15 cannot "see" the remaining unallocated space until I enable the newly created partition "online" and the letter C: is allocated by Windows using disk manager and then removing the drive letter.
12. The target drive MUST be online for G15 to resume the process of copying the next partition D:
13. Repeat the procedure till the operation is completed shut down and take out the source drive leaving the newly created "clone" in the other docking station.
14. Boot up and that is where the problem starts from boot manager and last night only Vista booted into a working computer.
I am going to do it all again but this afternoon and this time have one primary and 3 logical partitions on the one drive and I will try and post a few pics.
I do know that Vista will boot ok so I should be able to access the forum from there.
My notes cover every step I took and I have a lot more that I can post onto you if you want, they record every step taken in the process.
The procedure creating the source drive with the Image/restore method was done with Ghost 12 in the docking stations, message 35 spells it out how it was done with the pics to show you.
Deric
Brian, Dave,
Capture 1 shows no unallocated space when C:XP was copied and setting up D:
Capture 2 shows"offline"
Capture 3 shows "online" and drive letter removed and
Capture 4 showsunallocated space available to start copyingD: Vista
Deric
Brian, Dave,
I have since run the copy of D: partition and selected logical drive and then decided to shut down to see if the source drive would be affected in anyway.
Took the target drive out the docking station and rebooted and found extra entries in the SOURCE boot menu, it contained the 4 entries that I would expect XP, Vista, Win7 (1) and Win7(2) plus the following:-
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003
Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008/ Windows 7
and when XP was selected a second screen showed the following:-
Microsoft Windows XP Professional --boots
Windows XP 2003. --crashes
The last one crashes and the first one boots.
Yes I have seen this before with G15 and Yes I can delete the items on the menu that don't boot with EasyBCD.
So why is this happening is it MS boot loader or Ghost 15 not smart enough, I don't know.
To get the source back up and running properly (my emergency clone) I have no alternative but to re-image it again, it is no use me carying on now with this exercise because Ghost 15 just can't work it out.
Capture 5 and Capture 6 show that there isn't a problem.
Deric
Ah, I see now. You have two HDs with the same Disk Signature. Windows won't work with that. That's why the HD is offline.
I'm not sure why that is happening because Ghost doesn't copy the Disk Signature in my test computer when I select Restore original disk signature. Why do you think you have two indentical Disk Signatures?
In my test computer I gave two HDs the same Disk Signature. In Disk Management Disk 2 was Offline. I right clicked, clicked Online and it was fixed. No drive letters involved. You should do this before you open Ghost 15.
Edit... Just tried it. Ghost doesn't see the newly Online drive. You have to restart your computer and then Ghost sees the drive as unallocated space.
