Trying to Copy old hard drive to a new one for the same computer

Hello,
So far I have tried twice with NO luck. My old hard drive has started to give me problems...slowness, losing data files. I feel that my old drive will trash soon. So, I am trying to copy everything on the drive to the new drive. At first I used HDclone and it would not boot up....keep on saying need bootable CD or DVD. So I reformatted the drive and tried the software that came with Western Digital drive. That copied everything over to the new drive...I am assuming everything.

I have Windows XP Pro SP3. I did switch the jumper to master after I did the copy and plug the drive to the master on my ide too.
Why would it keep on asking for a bootable drive when I suppose to copy everything on the old hard drive to the new one???
This is a old computer so did not want to spend a lot of money on it.

Thanks,
David

 

Xxclone will do the job. There is an on-line manual there with full instructions. It will do the cloning and initialize your drive so that it's bootable. The free version is all you need.

I've used it a lot so if you hit a snag I may be able to help.

 

So far not having any luck, still the drive is not bootable. I have noticed that xxclone is in the WINNT directory and the online manual said Windows, would that make any kind of difference??

Thanks,
David

 

No, that's not the problem. Select the drive you want to repair as the target drive in Xxclone and then open the Cool Tools tab and then the Make Bootable button, tag all three boxes and let it perform the initialization and write the MBR code necessary for a bootable XP drive.

If that doesn't work, post back the exact message you get when trying to boot the clone.

 

Yes, I did that and still saying that it needs a bootable cd or disk!!
I really do not know what I am doing wrong.
Here are my exact steps
I install my newer IDE drive to slave on the same IDE cable as my old drive that is Master.
Then I installed the XXClone software. After the software was installed, I unzipped it and made a shortcut.
I clicked on the shortcut to load the software. Then it ask me for the source and target drive which I did and I made sure I did not get this wrong...that would be a mess.
Then, the software does clone the old hard drive to the new one.
After it finishes, I went to the Cool take and then Make the drive bootable. I also checked the three that must be checked to make the drive bootable.
After that finishes, I cut off the computer and switch the drives and unplug both plugs from the old drive. I then make the new drive the master and turn the computer back on. I did notice that the BIOS did detect the new drive as master.
After that, the saying is "Needs bootable CD/DVD to boot the drive ".
I must be missing something???
Thanks for all of your help, I do not want to send it to anyone because this is a old computer and do not want to put any money in it. Right now, I can not buy a new computer yet so trying to get this to work.

My old drive have gave me some problems already, I have seen the dreaded blue screen twice so far so I know it is a matter of time before it will fail me.

David

 

You did everything right so you should be able to boot that drive. The drive may be defective. I would suggest downloading and running the manufacturers diagnostic software to test the drive.

 

Thanks,
I will try that and see what happens.

 

David,

You say this is an old computer, how old?

If you complete your system specifications it may help.

If this is your main system it would be helpful if you add your system details to your profile. Please click on the link and follow those instructions it could save some time when resolving this or further issues.

A common error is to forget to show your system details in your profile

If you do add your system specifications be sure to do the above

 

Adding some info now. Will add more later when at that computer and will try to get more detail.

Thanks,
David

 

No problem,

The reason I'm asking is because if your new drive is significantly larger than your old one, can your BIOS handle it.

Some old BIOS's have problems with drives over 32Gb, key information needed is Motherboard/BIOS Version (if possible) and the make and model of both drives.

 

Check to see that the clone drive partition is Primary and set active. I'd use an old Win98 boot disk with fdisk on it to do that.

XP can run from any partition but requires an active primary partition to be present to hold the boot files. It can boot without an active primary partition being present but will require you to supply a substitute such as a boot floppy or CD that contains these necessary boot files. Xxclone will make a boot floppy for that purpose, look in the Cool Tools section.

To avoid all that trouble, always clone a system partition to a target partition that is Primary or else to a multi partition drive that contains an active primary partition or if dual booting, the primary drive must contain these files and they will be used to boot either system. In your case, you can probably boot the clone if you will allow Xxclone to configure the boot.ini file for dual booting and leave both drives connected. Again, look in the Cool Tools section.

 

Acronis Disk Director Suite is an excellent tool for cloning.

use the software to create a bootable cd and select the clone option and thats about it.

norton ghost is another option too to boot using CD

 

I have posted some more up to date info on my system now.

 

Well, If you believe in some the Hard drive software out there, it is saying that the health status on my Hard drive is NOT good. I am beginning to believe that the whole computer is not worth messing with. I tried to put in a brand new Western Digital 320gig hard drive and did all the format and partition with the new drive. Even after I loaded the Windows XP SP 3 onto the new drive it still gave me the needs boot CD/DVD to load up...I have never encounted this before.
Why would it do this??? I am beginning to just give up with this one and go buy a new computer.

David

 

A common error is to forget to show your system details in your profile

You haven't done the above

 

Just did that.......sorry about that.
I am learning!!!!
Do I need to add more to system details??

David

 

Connect the drives back to their original positions and boot your old system drive. Open Disk Manager and see what it says about the clone drive. Does it contain an active partition. If not, set it active while in Disk manager. It may be as simple as that. Report back the details that Disk Manager gives, especially if it is listed as healthy and what type partition it is.

You should add the model number of your hard drive in system details for future use. I'm assuming it's an IDE based on what you have posted.

 

Yes, the new drive is a IDE. It is healthy (active). I am totally confused.
I thought when you format and partition a drive then put Windows OS system on the new drive that Windows will make that new drive a so called "system drive" so that it would boot up after all of the OS is on the drive itself. For some reason this is NOT happening this time.

I have done this lots of times where you would put a new drive in and put Windows OS on the new drive and it would boot from the new drive many of times but for some reason, not working now. Could it be my computer, something is wrong with it??

David

 

I have also done this operation dozens of times and never had it to fail to produce a bootable drive. All I can think of now is that since copying files from an actively booted XP system uses the Volume Shadow Copy method and there is no guarantee that it will succeed in all system configurations.

How about giving it a shot using some dos based tool? Acronis True Image can be run from a floppy or CD and they do have a free trial version when last I looked. Ghost can also run from a dos boot but I'm not sure you can get a trial version of it. Perhaps Google for something that clones in dos and see what hits come up. I'll look around too and post back any promising finds.

 

surferdude2, I would like to ask you a couple of questions regarding XXCLONE.
Very sorry, I am not trying to Hijack this Post.