Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?

[Jon K]

Made a nice bootable XXclone of Windows XP disc.
But the laptop won't boot from FireWire or USB drives so I can't boot
from it.

How can I restore from that clone? Is there a CD image somewhere I
can download and burn using a different computer that I could then
boot on the (hosed) computer to restore from the clone?

Thanks,

Jon

[Dan Anderson]

Hi Jon,

 

Reading between the lines, the situation seems to be one where the current hard drive on your laptop is toast, and you are trying to use a cloned version that you created earlier, but you perhaps had not previously tested to see if it could boot up on its own (otherwise you should have encountered the current problem earlier) ... or maybe you are now doing the testing and your current hard drive is still okay (hopefully that is the case)?

 

Pending comments from others, my understanding is that the hard drive to which you are cloning needs to be one that you can physically swap with your source hard drive in case you need to replace your current hard drive, and both your testing and use of such a clone drive on a stand-alone basis would of necessity involve a physical swap. 

 

If you can carry out the physical swap but have problems getting the clone drive to boot, the solution may involve using some other bootable CD or DVD to access your C drive to edit the boot.ini file.

 

(With regards to your question of a CD or DVD image of your hard drive, my understanding is that xxclone does not work that way; there is other software that uses an imaging approach ... although such an approach has its own risks and limitations.)

 

Please clarify if the above does not correctly interpret your circumstances, and whether you can make a physical swap of the drives.  Others might identify some other considerations.

 

Dan  (just an xxclone user)

---

[foxidrive]

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:05:43 -0800 (PST), Jon K <kanne...@comcast.net>
wrote:

Maybe booting up a linux cdrom live OS and copying the cloned drive from
USB/Firefire to the internal drive. The internal drive should already be
bootable and have the right volume number.

[Dan Anderson]

Foxidrive, it seem unlikely that a simple copy would work, or otherwise there would seem to be no need for software like xxclone etc to make cloned copies of the source drive.  But if it could work, that would be good to know.        ...Dan 

 

---

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Anderson

To: xxc...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 8:56 AM

Subject: [xxclone] re: Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?

Hi Jon,

 

Reading between the lines, the situation seems to be one where the current hard drive on your laptop is toast, and you are trying to use a cloned version that you created earlier, but you perhaps had not previously tested to see if it could boot up on its own (otherwise you should have encountered the current problem earlier) ... or maybe you are now doing the testing and your current hard drive is still okay (hopefully that is the case)?

 

Pending comments from others, my understanding is that the hard drive to which you are cloning needs to be one that you can physically swap with your source hard drive in case you need to replace your current hard drive, and both your testing and use of such a clone drive on a stand-alone basis would of necessity involve a physical swap. 

 

If you can carry out the physical swap but have problems getting the clone drive to boot, the solution may involve using some other bootable CD or DVD to access your C drive to edit the boot.ini file.

 

(With regards to your question of a CD or DVD image of your hard drive, my understanding is that xxclone does not work that way; there is other software that uses an imaging approach ... although such an approach has its own risks and limitations.)

 

Please clarify if the above does not correctly interpret your circumstances, and whether you can make a physical swap of the drives.  Others might identify some other considerations.

 

Dan  (just an xxclone user)

---

----- Original Message -----

From: Jon K

To: The Xxclone Forum

Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 5:05 PM

Subject: [xxclone] Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?

[foxidrive]

Dan, XXclone makes a simple copy - but uses volume shadow copy for the
registry and open files.

On a clone copy via a Live OS there is nothing in use on either drive so a
simple copy should work - except file permissions will be fubar if Linux
doesn't copy them properly.

Another live OS on CD is Bart's PE which runs windows and should copy the
permissions correctly - if it can see the USB/Fireware drive.

On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:10:04 -0500, "Dan Anderson"
<dan.an...@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>Foxidrive, it seem unlikely that a simple copy would work, or otherwise there would seem to be no need for software like xxclone etc to make cloned copies of the source drive. But if it could work, that would be good to know. ...Dan
>

>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: foxidrive
> To: xxc...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 9:02 AM
> Subject: [xxclone] Re: Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?
>
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:05:43 -0800 (PST), Jon K <kanne...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Made a nice bootable XXclone of Windows XP disc.
> >But the laptop won't boot from FireWire or USB drives so I can't boot
> >from it.
> >
> >How can I restore from that clone? Is there a CD image somewhere I
> >can download and burn using a different computer that I could then
> >boot on the (hosed) computer to restore from the clone?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Jon
>
> Maybe booting up a linux cdrom live OS and copying the cloned drive from
> USB/Firefire to the internal drive. The internal drive should already be
> bootable and have the right volume number.
>

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Dan Anderson
> To: xxc...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 8:56 AM
> Subject: [xxclone] re: Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?
>
>
> Hi Jon,
>
> Reading between the lines, the situation seems to be one where the current hard drive on your laptop is toast, and you are trying to use a cloned version that you created earlier, but you perhaps had not previously tested to see if it could boot up on its own (otherwise you should have encountered the current problem earlier) ... or maybe you are now doing the testing and your current hard drive is still okay (hopefully that is the case)?
>
> Pending comments from others, my understanding is that the hard drive to which you are cloning needs to be one that you can physically swap with your source hard drive in case you need to replace your current hard drive, and both your testing and use of such a clone drive on a stand-alone basis would of necessity involve a physical swap.
>
> If you can carry out the physical swap but have problems getting the clone drive to boot, the solution may involve using some other bootable CD or DVD to access your C drive to edit the boot.ini file.
>
> (With regards to your question of a CD or DVD image of your hard drive, my understanding is that xxclone does not work that way; there is other software that uses an imaging approach ... although such an approach has its own risks and limitations.)
>
> Please clarify if the above does not correctly interpret your circumstances, and whether you can make a physical swap of the drives. Others might identify some other considerations.
>
> Dan (just an xxclone user)
>

>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[DES]

The Clone is intended to Physically (Electrically in the case of dual
internal drives) replace the Original. To be usable the "Cloned to"
Drive must then obviously be the same type (physical size & connection
type) as the original. This is something not stated anywhere, but
should be understood? xxclone provides a Test Boot feature as a
confidence factor that the Clone is indeed good. This Test Boot starts
on the Original (using the MBR and NTLDR of the Original) and passes
the Boot Sequence to the Destination via the added Second Operating
System in the Original Boot.ini. It's Windows that will not normally
boot a USB (or Firewire) drive as Windows copy protection. When
xxclone "makes a drive bootable", it touches the registry of the
Destination, swapping the Drive Letter and Volume Label Assignments
between the Source and Destination (pay attention here) "in the
registry of the Destination". You may see this data @ HKLM\System
\MountedDevices\. The Destination System file (Hive) may be loaded
into the running Registry, and examined (and Edited, and Unloaded back
to whence it came) in the Windows Registry Editor as a False (not
valid) Key ("False Keys" present No Danger of any form to the
operating registry.) The Window's installation is Keyed to the
VolumeID (Disk Signature) of the physical drive (and of course the
Drive Letter it was installed to). Other software also uses the
VolumeID as copy protection making it a good idea to duplicate this
across cloned to drives, preventing having to reinstall various
software.

DES

[DES]

And something else I completely forgot, a lot of laptops include a
Hidden Partition (for restoration purposes!), Asus, Dell, more I'm
sure. These little jewels screw up the partition assignment in the
boot.ini something fierce adding yet another complication most users
(and xxclone) is unaware of. Making something like Paragon's Partition
Manager necessary as one way to see the actual disk layout.

DES

[Virg]

Des wrote:
And something else I completely forgot, a lot of laptops include a
Hidden Partition (for restoration purposes!), Asus, Dell, more I'm
sure. These little jewels screw up the partition assignment in the
boot.ini something fierce adding yet another complication most users
(and xxclone) is unaware of. Making something like Paragon's Partition
Manager necessary as one way to see the actual disk layout.

DES

Very good point, Des, and not only laptops. I cloned my cousin's Dell
desktop to a second internal drive, utilizing the test boot option. Then
booted to the clone with no problem, using the test boot, and discovered
that I couldn't boot back to the original drive. That's when I discovered
the hidden partition on the original drive and changed the boot.ini to
reflect the correct one.

Virg





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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07:52:00

[foxidrive]

On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:03:30 -0800 (PST), DES <des...@Cox.net> wrote:

>The Clone is intended to Physically (Electrically in the case of dual
>internal drives) replace the Original. To be usable the "Cloned to"
>Drive must then obviously be the same type (physical size & connection
>type) as the original. This is something not stated anywhere, but
>should be understood?

Not true.

[DES]

And what exactly isn't true, the word "usable"? Then that's correct, a
different physical size or connection type clone is indeed Usable.
Just not able to replace the original. Ah, if you could boot it, then
you could clone it back to another "similar to" drive which would
replace the original!

"Generally" people are making clones to replace\upgrade a drive. I use
them as Bootable Backups, negating System Restore, etc. But in either
case cloning to a physical drive that can not directly replace the
original seems rather round a bout?

Kan gave some advice years ago about Restoration, the short version is
forget it. Very good advice. Cloning covers all the possibilities
under the shortest learning curve. It helps a lot though to understand
exactly what makes a copy a clone (in the bootable backup sense).

DES

[foxidrive]

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:54:41 -0800 (PST), DES <des...@Cox.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>On Nov 23, 10:55 pm, foxidrive <foxidri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:03:30 -0800 (PST), DES <des...@Cox.net> wrote:
>> >The Clone is intended to Physically (Electrically in the case of dual
>> >internal drives) replace the Original. To be usable the "Cloned to"
>> >Drive must then obviously be the same type (physical size & connection
>> >type) as the original. This is something not stated anywhere, but
>> >should be understood?
>>
>> Not true.
>
>And what exactly isn't true

The two drives don't have to be the same type, size or connection.

[Dan Fitzgerald]

I concur. I have used a SATA drive as a clone for an IDE and it worked just fine.

[DES]

On Nov 24, 8:34 am, Dan Fitzgerald <danfi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I concur. I have used a SATA drive as a clone for an IDE and it worked just
> fine.

Great! Then either one of you guys could supply him with instructions
on how to put the (probably) 3.5" IDE drive from the external Firewire
enclosure into his (probably) 2.5" SATA Laptop?

DES

[Dan Anderson]

There seems to be a mix of perspectives here.

 

The common ground would seem to be:

a)  the xxclone process does not itself require hard drives to have the same size (physical or GB) and connections in order to transfer an operating system, but

b) if the original hard drive fails, then the clone hard drive must be one that can be physically installed into the computer to replace the original hard drive ... therefore if the computer (most notably a laptop) has limitations with regards to the size and connections that it can reasonably accommodate, then the clone hard drive must satisfy those hardware requirements.

 

The discussion does raise the question whether a clone hard drive that is the wrong physical size (as per Des' description) and/or with the wrong connections, could be temporarily patched into the laptop using a temporary interface, at least long-enough for the operating system on that drive to boot so that xxclone could be run to transfer the operating system to another hard drive that would meet the physical requirements.

 

The above approach would only be necessary if the original hard drive is already toast and a pragmatic approach is needed, using the misfit clone drive, to get to a final solution.

 

Dan

 

---

----- Original Message -----

From: DES

To: The Xxclone Forum

Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:42 PM

Subject: [xxclone] Re: Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Fitzgerald

To: xxc...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:34 AM

Subject: [xxclone] Re: Can't boot FIreWire drive. Now what?

I concur. I have used a SATA drive as a clone for an IDE and it worked just fine.

[DES]

On Nov 24, 12:37 pm, "Dan Anderson" <dan.ander...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> There seems to be a mix of perspectives here.
>
> The common ground would seem to be:
> a)  the xxclone process does not itself require hard drives to have the same size (physical or GB) and connections in order to transfer an operating system, but
> b) if the original hard drive fails, then the clone hard drive must be one that can be physically installed into the computer to replace the original hard drive ... therefore if the computer (most notably a laptop) has limitations with regards to the size and connections that it can reasonably accommodate, then the clone hard drive must satisfy those hardware requirements.
>
> The discussion does raise the question whether a clone hard drive that is the wrong physical size (as per Des' description) and/or with the wrong connections, could be temporarily patched into the laptop using a temporary interface, at least long-enough for the operating system on that drive to boot so that xxclone could be run to transfer the operating system to another hard drive that would meet the physical requirements.
>
> The above approach would only be necessary if the original hard drive is already toast and a pragmatic approach is needed, using the misfit clone drive, to get to a final solution.
>
> Dan

You're too polite Dan, I was trying to explain this when sarcasm (and
the comparing of Oranges & "Apples") overcame me!

There is another Hope, see Clonezilla: http://clonezilla.org/,
specifically clonezilla live. This "Live CD" approach (there are
others like the Bart CD) can clone (image actually) a drive
independent of Operating System, file type, or bit type. (This
approach should even be able to duplicate the Hidden Partitions now
found on many laptops?) It's not a maintenance tool, an Incremental
Copier would still be preferred for that (I like SyncBackSE for too
many reasons to mention), but the disk creation tool. I've always just
manually converted the updated Copy to a Clone with the Windows
Registry Editor and a prepared .reg file, as this was happening before
there was an xxclone.

DES