dual boot... need to replace 1 drive - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

grumpyolddude · 04-13-2004, 04:39 PM

*did a search... didn't see my answer*

I'm running Win XP Home. Athlon XP, 256 meg ram. My C drive is 20gig WD, F drive is 40gig WD. I boot the C drive for non-internet access, the F drive for internet access (I know it's weird, but that's the way it is). The whole set up is 2 years in service, so I don't begrudge any parts for wearing out.

My 40 gig is dying... it will freeze unpredictably, and upon reboot, the mobo won't recognize it. After a few minutes of shutdown, it boots fine, but I get a message stating that the system has just recovered from a serious error. The system does not run excessively hot... @50 celcius at the processor, @30 celcius system temp average, but it seems that the hard drive is overheating (?) and is in it's death throes (no unusual noise, though).

I've decided that I need to replace that 40 gig drive and I wish to exactly duplicate my current system arrangement. Back in my Win98 days, I used DiskCopy with success, but the version I own doesn't work with WinXP. Do I need something similar for this operation, or does XP have a suitable built-in function?

I don't care that I come off as a wimpish newbie, but detailed advice would be greatly appreciated. I've built, rebuilt, torn down and assembled a hundred systems, but this fix has me nervous. It would be nearly impossible to replace everything on that drive and the wife and kids would .... well their reaction would not be very pleasant. Thanks, everyone!

sailor · 04-13-2004, 06:58 PM

I believe Norton Ghost is what you are looking for. I dont know if it will work with a drive of a different size, but it *should*, so long as all the rest of the hardware is the same. Although it may be easier to just reinstall XP on the new drive and get rid of the multiple partitions

And dont worry about being a "wimpish newbie", everyone has to start somewhere

Speed_Gibson · 04-13-2004, 08:33 PM

this may not help, but my setup for partitions has been:
*ALL NTFS*
C drive [10 GB] - Holds Win2k which has booted into 3 times in two plus years and the MBR
D drive [10 GB] - Main WinXP setup
E/F/G/H - the rest of the 80 GB drive broken up chunks no larger than 15 GB.

Just swapped my 60 GB out (it went to the *nix box for a College Linux installation earlier this afternoon) for a new 160 GB drive. Went against my better judgement out of necessity - I need larger partitions for DVD ripping - and set it up with four 40 GB chunks that ended up being O/P/Q/R drive.

pic:

grumpyolddude · 04-13-2004, 08:38 PM

I'm not looking to change the drive size. I'm just trying to anticipate a drive failure and get it replaced before catastrophe strikes.
I don't have multiple partitions, just two hard drives: a 20g and a 40g. They are set up as master and slave, respectively, but each have WinXP installed on them. They share data between them, despite the separate OS. I haven't used RAID.
Right now, the plan is to get rid of all non essentials (the kids can reinstall Age of Empires, Red Alert, etc.) and make a compressed copy of the failing drive on the good drive for back-up purposes. That way, if copying the drives fails, I can try a clean install of my neccessary programs and just copy my data back from the other drive.
Meanwhile, I do some research on Norton Ghost (although, I've never had anything but grief from any Norton product!) Thanks, sailor!

grumpyolddude · 04-13-2004, 08:50 PM

I've re-read my original post, and can't see how I conveyed the idea that I had a multiple partion set-up, although I'm sorry if I did!
Speed... that's a heck of a thingie that you've got there. I'd get lost in a minute! I need to keep it simple. My concern is that my wife and son have a lot of business related data that I can't risk (she's the secretary for a state-wide chess association and the treasurer of a bowling league, he's a chess instructor, tournament director and the secretary of a bowling league. I encourage back-ups, but...). I appreciate the input!

Speed_Gibson · 04-13-2004, 08:52 PM

Quote:

'm not looking to change the drive size. I'm just trying to anticipate a drive failure and get it replaced before catastrophe strikes.

finally saying what first crossed my mind.....
Are you planning on keeping the new drive as one partition that would likely be around 76 GB (80 GB with wasted clusters and overhead) as those are the smallest most places sell now?

Speed_Gibson · 04-13-2004, 08:57 PM

Quote:

I've re-read my original post, and can't see how I conveyed the idea that I had a multiple partion set-up, although I'm sorry if I did!

it was probably just me, hence the 'this may not help,......' disclaimer on my first post.

Quote:

that's a heck of a thingie that you've got there. I'd get lost in a minute!

can be bit of a handful, especially with 110 GB on server shares (those network drives in the pic), but it works so far. Just wishing I had a larger 'working' partition as 15 GB has felt waaaay too small when I am juggling new and horrendously ignored/backlogged projects.

grumpyolddude · 04-13-2004, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Speed_Gibson
finally saying what first crossed my mind.....
Are you planning on keeping the new drive as one partition that would likely be around 76 GB (80 GB with wasted clusters and overhead) as those are the smallest most places sell now?

A local store claims to still have 40 GB's and I thought I'd stay that size. If I have to bump up to 80 GB, I'll probably partition, although I'd rather avoid it.

Hard drives seem to have a useful life of @ 2+ years. If you have separate hard drives, it would seem easier to replace or upgrade. If a partitioned drive goes bad, you lose all of the partitions, right? Seems a higher risk.

Speed_Gibson · 04-13-2004, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Hard drives seem to have a useful life of @ 2+ years. If you have separate hard drives, it would seem easier to replace or upgrade. If a partitioned drive goes bad, you lose all of the partitions, right? Seems a higher risk

depends on the drive. My dad still has a system using a 420 MB Western Digital from 1993 that is working perfectly after 10+ years of almost daily use.
And yes if a drive fails, all data will be lost. Excellent cause to invest in a DVD burner (or Zip drive or any of the other backup methods that all have their own respective merits and weaknesses) that can back up that entire 40 GB drive with relatively few disks. Particurlaly when you use DVD -/+ RW discs that function as huge floppies if need be.

One of the cardinal rules of computing applies here - always assume your media, no matter what condition, vendor, age, etc. will fail and plan accordingly by saving any vital information in a seperate and ideally entirely different location in case of fire or any other kind of catastrophe happening

grumpyolddude · 06-09-2004, 12:24 AM

Slacker that I am, I finally got around to replacing my 40g. I found an identical 40g Western Digital, I acquired a copy of Norton Ghost (an entire copy of System Works, actually, but I ain't putting all of that crap on my system... don't trust Norton!).

I unplugged my CD-RW and plugged the new drive in, set the partition and formatted it. I found a floppy and made a boot disc with Ghost and started the system with the bootable Ghost. Got reports of "inconsistencies" and "processor errors" and nothing much else.

I did a scan disc and a defrag of my old drive and tried again... just in case that was causing the problem... no luck. Screw it.

I went to Western Digital's web site and downloaded "Data Lifeguard" and used it to copy the drive. The final count claimed to have copied @9,000 more files than were available on the disk (!).

I swapped the drives cables and booted up using the new drive. Everything went fine right up to the point where I should get the Welcome screen. Instead, I get a WinXP slash screen and the system stops right there. The mouse cursor will move, but the system is dead, otherwise. Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing. I must hit the reset.

Right now, I'm tired, as well as grumpy... confused and pissed off a bit, too! I hate begging, if there isn't a pretty female involved, but this is me begging.

HELP ME!!! PLEASE?!?!?!?

Thanks!

theburner · 06-09-2004, 10:50 AM

Grumpy, a few things I can think of. Didn't read the whole thread, just your last "plead for assistance".

1) If the source drive was already failing it may have caused a corrupt copy. Not much you can do there. I did use a program called "Get Data Back" once to gleen data off a failing drive. It is the same program CompUSA uses, but charges you 2 arms and a leg to do. It searches for files you specify (or the whole disk) and informs you of the condition of the files you find.
2) I had a 40GB Drive go bad, it was a recall by the OEM. Can't remember who it was, but the symptoms sound IDENTICAL. Go to the OEM website, and type in the part number. If there was a recall, you might just get a 60 or 80 GB Replacement Free.
I know that Norton is paying more attention to multiple installs. I just tried to install my systemworks copy here at work and got a corrupt install. Tried it on my buddies computer and same deal. The disk is fine (no scratches, cracks etc) but during install it does come up saying "registering". If you TOTALLY disconnect your system from telephone, network, and / or broadband it skips this process but gives you 15 days to register before shutting down. My buddy did this with my copy and it installed perfectly.

Hope some of this helps.

grumpyolddude · 06-09-2004, 12:13 PM

Logical thoughts. However, I've still working with the drive I believe to be failing. It's the boot disk I'm logged in on now. You'd think I'd be able to copy it cleanly.

Norton gave the option of registration by mail, which I checked and printed the form. Should be good to go from that standpoint. I just believe that Norton blows the program knows I feel that way and refuses to cooperate.

Has anyone used Data Lifeguard before? Any experiences or tips? WD's site was no help.

Thanks for the response, theburner.

theburner · 06-11-2004, 06:20 AM

Grumpy.. A couple of other thoughts I had.
1) What size power supply are you using? I recently added a 9800PRO graphics card and didn't pay too much attention to the Molex chain I attached it too. (had 2 x SATA and IDE Optical already on the chain). My Sata Drives started throwing me curves (longer load times, longer copy.. I could still use the drives but the performance suffered BIG TIME). After much troubleshooting I finally cracked the case and followed the power cables.. I unhooked everything and then re-attached the power cables to evenly distribute the power consumption.. Voila.. My drives worked as advertised again.

Norton does give you the option of register via mail, but watch the loading process. About the 80-90% range during load the system tries to either dial or LAN it's way out to register before you are even prompted. My buddy called it "stealth registration".

I would check the power connections, it is so easy to just add the molex to the first chain you find rather than the one that has the least power consumption.

grumpyolddude · 06-11-2004, 10:34 AM

Thanks, theburner. I'll check it out.

grumpyolddude · 07-12-2004, 04:47 PM

After repeated copying, formatting, recopying, reloading frustrating bullshit......

Windows was screwing me. WD's Datalifeguard was doing a great job of copying the contents of the old hard drive to the new one, but when I tried to boot using the new hard drive, Windows was re-assigning my drive letters and the boot directory was not being properly read.

I discovered this when, out of frustration, I decided to reload XP on top of the existing program. I got the system to boot, but none of my programs or drivers would load. Windows relabled the harddrive a "E:" while the old drive was "F:"! I tried logging into my c: drive and manually changing the drive letter, but found that the C: drive OS still called it the "F:" drive! When I logged onto that drive, Windows labeled it "E:" and would not le me re-label it because it was my boot disc. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

So, this weekend, I said "Fuck this shit!" and formatted and reloaded EVERYTHING! Now my system has but one OS, on my 20g drive and one data disc, my new 40g drive. My old 40g is still available and functional so that I can retrieve the files on it as I need them (I unplug my CD-RW and plug in the hard drive).

PS: One little adventure, just to make sure my blood pressure stays stratospheric: While reloading my software, I discovered that my SBC-Yahoo install CD was cracked! How the HELL does that happen??? Luckily, a friend of mine works for SBC in their DSL installation department. Me sported me a fresh disc, and here I am, back on TFP!

Thanks for all of the help, everyone!

04-13-2004, 04:39 PM	#1 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	dual boot... need to replace 1 drive did a search... didn't see my answer I'm running Win XP Home. Athlon XP, 256 meg ram. My C drive is 20gig WD, F drive is 40gig WD. I boot the C drive for non-internet access, the F drive for internet access (I know it's weird, but that's the way it is). The whole set up is 2 years in service, so I don't begrudge any parts for wearing out. My 40 gig is dying... it will freeze unpredictably, and upon reboot, the mobo won't recognize it. After a few minutes of shutdown, it boots fine, but I get a message stating that the system has just recovered from a serious error. The system does not run excessively hot... @50 celcius at the processor, @30 celcius system temp average, but it seems that the hard drive is overheating (?) and is in it's death throes (no unusual noise, though). I've decided that I need to replace that 40 gig drive and I wish to exactly duplicate my current system arrangement. Back in my Win98 days, I used DiskCopy with success, but the version I own doesn't work with WinXP. Do I need something similar for this operation, or does XP have a suitable built-in function? I don't care that I come off as a wimpish newbie, but detailed advice would be greatly appreciated. I've built, rebuilt, torn down and assembled a hundred systems, but this fix has me nervous. It would be nearly impossible to replace everything on that drive and the wife and kids would .... well their reaction would not be very pleasant. Thanks, everyone! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

04-13-2004, 06:58 PM	#2 (permalink)
sailor beauty in the breakdown Location: Chapel Hill, NC	I believe Norton Ghost is what you are looking for. I dont know if it will work with a drive of a different size, but it should, so long as all the rest of the hardware is the same. Although it may be easier to just reinstall XP on the new drive and get rid of the multiple partitions And dont worry about being a "wimpish newbie", everyone has to start somewhere __________________ "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." --Plato

04-13-2004, 08:33 PM	#3 (permalink)
Speed_Gibson Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Location: right here of course	this may not help, but my setup for partitions has been: ALL NTFS C drive [10 GB] - Holds Win2k which has booted into 3 times in two plus years and the MBR D drive [10 GB] - Main WinXP setup E/F/G/H - the rest of the 80 GB drive broken up chunks no larger than 15 GB. Just swapped my 60 GB out (it went to the nix box for a College Linux installation earlier this afternoon) for a new 160 GB drive. Went against my better judgement out of necessity - I need larger partitions for DVD ripping - and set it up with four 40 GB chunks that ended up being O/P/Q/R drive. pic: __________________ Started talking to yourself I see. Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation. Black Adder*

04-13-2004, 08:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	I'm not looking to change the drive size. I'm just trying to anticipate a drive failure and get it replaced before catastrophe strikes. I don't have multiple partitions, just two hard drives: a 20g and a 40g. They are set up as master and slave, respectively, but each have WinXP installed on them. They share data between them, despite the separate OS. I haven't used RAID. Right now, the plan is to get rid of all non essentials (the kids can reinstall Age of Empires, Red Alert, etc.) and make a compressed copy of the failing drive on the good drive for back-up purposes. That way, if copying the drives fails, I can try a clean install of my neccessary programs and just copy my data back from the other drive. Meanwhile, I do some research on Norton Ghost (although, I've never had anything but grief from any Norton product!) Thanks, sailor! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

04-13-2004, 08:50 PM	#5 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	I've re-read my original post, and can't see how I conveyed the idea that I had a multiple partion set-up, although I'm sorry if I did! Speed... that's a heck of a thingie that you've got there. I'd get lost in a minute! I need to keep it simple. My concern is that my wife and son have a lot of business related data that I can't risk (she's the secretary for a state-wide chess association and the treasurer of a bowling league, he's a chess instructor, tournament director and the secretary of a bowling league. I encourage back-ups, but...). I appreciate the input! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

06-09-2004, 12:24 AM	#10 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	Slacker that I am, I finally got around to replacing my 40g. I found an identical 40g Western Digital, I acquired a copy of Norton Ghost (an entire copy of System Works, actually, but I ain't putting all of that crap on my system... don't trust Norton!). I unplugged my CD-RW and plugged the new drive in, set the partition and formatted it. I found a floppy and made a boot disc with Ghost and started the system with the bootable Ghost. Got reports of "inconsistencies" and "processor errors" and nothing much else. I did a scan disc and a defrag of my old drive and tried again... just in case that was causing the problem... no luck. Screw it. I went to Western Digital's web site and downloaded "Data Lifeguard" and used it to copy the drive. The final count claimed to have copied @9,000 more files than were available on the disk (!). I swapped the drives cables and booted up using the new drive. Everything went fine right up to the point where I should get the Welcome screen. Instead, I get a WinXP slash screen and the system stops right there. The mouse cursor will move, but the system is dead, otherwise. Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing. I must hit the reset. Right now, I'm tired, as well as grumpy... confused and pissed off a bit, too! I hate begging, if there isn't a pretty female involved, but this is me begging. HELP ME!!! PLEASE?!?!?!? Thanks! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

06-09-2004, 10:50 AM	#11 (permalink)
theburner Canadian Beer Ambassador Location: Cumming, GA	Grumpy, a few things I can think of. Didn't read the whole thread, just your last "plead for assistance". 1) If the source drive was already failing it may have caused a corrupt copy. Not much you can do there. I did use a program called "Get Data Back" once to gleen data off a failing drive. It is the same program CompUSA uses, but charges you 2 arms and a leg to do. It searches for files you specify (or the whole disk) and informs you of the condition of the files you find. 2) I had a 40GB Drive go bad, it was a recall by the OEM. Can't remember who it was, but the symptoms sound IDENTICAL. Go to the OEM website, and type in the part number. If there was a recall, you might just get a 60 or 80 GB Replacement Free. I know that Norton is paying more attention to multiple installs. I just tried to install my systemworks copy here at work and got a corrupt install. Tried it on my buddies computer and same deal. The disk is fine (no scratches, cracks etc) but during install it does come up saying "registering". If you TOTALLY disconnect your system from telephone, network, and / or broadband it skips this process but gives you 15 days to register before shutting down. My buddy did this with my copy and it installed perfectly. Hope some of this helps. __________________ Take Off Eh!

06-09-2004, 12:13 PM	#12 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	Logical thoughts. However, I've still working with the drive I believe to be failing. It's the boot disk I'm logged in on now. You'd think I'd be able to copy it cleanly. Norton gave the option of registration by mail, which I checked and printed the form. Should be good to go from that standpoint. I just believe that Norton blows the program knows I feel that way and refuses to cooperate. Has anyone used Data Lifeguard before? Any experiences or tips? WD's site was no help. Thanks for the response, theburner. __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

06-11-2004, 06:20 AM	#13 (permalink)
theburner Canadian Beer Ambassador Location: Cumming, GA	Grumpy.. A couple of other thoughts I had. 1) What size power supply are you using? I recently added a 9800PRO graphics card and didn't pay too much attention to the Molex chain I attached it too. (had 2 x SATA and IDE Optical already on the chain). My Sata Drives started throwing me curves (longer load times, longer copy.. I could still use the drives but the performance suffered BIG TIME). After much troubleshooting I finally cracked the case and followed the power cables.. I unhooked everything and then re-attached the power cables to evenly distribute the power consumption.. Voila.. My drives worked as advertised again. Norton does give you the option of register via mail, but watch the loading process. About the 80-90% range during load the system tries to either dial or LAN it's way out to register before you are even prompted. My buddy called it "stealth registration". I would check the power connections, it is so easy to just add the molex to the first chain you find rather than the one that has the least power consumption. __________________ Take Off Eh!

06-11-2004, 10:34 AM	#14 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	Thanks, theburner. I'll check it out. __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

07-12-2004, 04:47 PM	#15 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	@%$$#%$$##%$!&&@@!!!!!!!! After repeated copying, formatting, recopying, reloading frustrating bullshit...... Windows was screwing me. WD's Datalifeguard was doing a great job of copying the contents of the old hard drive to the new one, but when I tried to boot using the new hard drive, Windows was re-assigning my drive letters and the boot directory was not being properly read. I discovered this when, out of frustration, I decided to reload XP on top of the existing program. I got the system to boot, but none of my programs or drivers would load. Windows relabled the harddrive a "E:" while the old drive was "F:"! I tried logging into my c: drive and manually changing the drive letter, but found that the C: drive OS still called it the "F:" drive! When I logged onto that drive, Windows labeled it "E:" and would not le me re-label it because it was my boot disc. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!! So, this weekend, I said "Fuck this shit!" and formatted and reloaded EVERYTHING! Now my system has but one OS, on my 20g drive and one data disc, my new 40g drive. My old 40g is still available and functional so that I can retrieve the files on it as I need them (I unplug my CD-RW and plug in the hard drive). PS: One little adventure, just to make sure my blood pressure stays stratospheric: While reloading my software, I discovered that my SBC-Yahoo install CD was cracked! How the HELL does that happen??? Luckily, a friend of mine works for SBC in their DSL installation department. Me sported me a fresh disc, and here I am, back on TFP! Thanks for all of the help, everyone! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard