HELP! Problem: cannot clone Win7-64 system to identical disk
- Computer: Dell Latitude E6520 laptop, Win7 Pro 64bit, up-to-date.
- Disk: Seagate 320GB in laptop, trying to clone to identical replacement disk from Dell.
- Partitions: (1) Dell Utility Partition (hardware diagnostics), 40MB; (2) Recovery partition, 13GB; (3) C: volume, 284GB, total free space > 120GB.
- Contents: Win 7 Pro 64bit plus many installed applications. Thorough CHKDSK reports zero errors.
- Software: Ghost 15.0 bought online, downloaded, LiveUpdated to latest version.
- Replacement disk: exactly the same make and model as original, mounted in USB external case.
I have been working at this for almost three days now, tried many, many variations, achieved zero success. I have spent hours reading dozens of plausibly related articles in this forum, but I have not seen this problem solved. Tentative conclusion: This software does not work for me, does not work for this disk configuration. If there is any way to do it, I want my money back. On the other hand, if someone can give me the right incantation to fix this, I will be happy and so will a lot of other Dell users, I think. This has to be a popular problem.
Strategy 1: Copy Drive directly from system disk to replacement disk (on USB).
- Copying C partition *always* gets the "At end of something" error.
-Error EC8F17B3: Cannot complete copying of RicksC (C:\) drive.
--Cannot copy source drive to destination location.
---At end of something.
---Cannot copy source drive to destination location.
----At end of something.
(UMI:V-0-3215-6067)
- Copying Utility and Recovery partitions often get the same error.
- Tried copying partitions in various orders; no improvement.
- DISKPART cleaned the disk, rebooted between partition copy operations, managed to get Utility and Recovery partitions correct. C partition still failed, same error.
- Yes, checked source and destination for errors.
- Tried with and without Smart Sector copying, still failed.
- Tried with and without Resize after copying, still failed.
- Tried reducing the size of the destination partition by 500MB of the 126032MB free space (as shown in Disk Mgt screenshot), still failed.
- Tried restoring partitions in different orders, still failed.
- The last time I tried this operation, after 78 minutes, the timer counted down to 19 seconds, was stuck there for 30-ish seconds, then back up to 3 minutes, then down to 20 seconds, then failed.
- Conclusion: copying or restoring the C: partition fails 100% reliably.
Strategy 2: Create Recovery Points for all partitions and restore them to the replacement disk. Use Ghost 15 SRD to do the recovery.
- Created recovery point files on large USB backup disk. No errors.
- Boot recovery disk. Verified recovery points.
- Recovery works for first two partitions (Utility and Recovery).
- Recovery fails for the C: partition, same error message, big red X and "EA390013: At end of something."
- Since it took several hours and the thermometer was all the way at the end, I tried to boot the disk. Failed with "BOOTMGR is missing" message.
Strategy 3: Create Recovery Points for all partitions and restore them to the replacement disk, using the SRD to do both the save and the restore operations.
- Tried restoring C: recovery point to existing C partition on the target disk, failed "at end of something."
- Tried restoring C: recovery point to unallocated space on the drive, failed "at end of something."
I am 99% convinced that Ghost 15 cannot perform this task. Stuck. Somebody, please help. I am at the end of my patience and my rope.
The screenshots show the system disk (source) as 0 and the replacement disk (destination) as 2. The target disk was offline in the first shot because it had the same signature as the original.
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