1 Topic by flagrant99 (edited by flagrant99 2009-04-12 07:21:41)

  • flagrant99
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Topic: Can I copy paste bootable partitions?

I have XP MCE 2005 on original Parition 1 and XP on original Partition 2.
Copy and Paste both to new disk.
Set boot flag on parition 1 on new disk.
When booting OS on partition 1 always hangs at Microsoft windows XP Blue screen.
Mouse can move, etc. Even in safe mode.
Booting OS on parition 2 works fine.

Deleted all partitions and tried again with same results.
Is there something extra I need to do?
Using live cd from March 1st 2009.

Note also checked original partition 1 and it still boots fine. (Even though disk is making clicking noises)

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
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Re: Can I copy paste bootable partitions?

Although not a specialist on windows boot up issues, I think it has to do with the boot configuration.
Some links from the microsoft support about boot.ini:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314081
and others. ou can find them by the google search for "boot.ini".

Another method to clone an installation is by copying the entire hard drive content to a new disk, with the Linux dd command, or "clonezilla". This last is especially optimised to copy partitions and drives faster than GParted. Nevertheless, in this case it is rather a boot problem rather than copy problem.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by flagrant99 (edited by flagrant99 2009-04-12 20:47:30)

  • flagrant99
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Re: Can I copy paste bootable partitions?

Thanks for the response smile. I tried copying the partition with Western Digital Data Lifeguard tools. WD-DLG was way slower and failed towards the end. So I found another smaller 500 GB Samsung HD501LJ target drive and copied with gPartred and it worked perfectly! Both paritions boot fine!

So this means there has to be something about my target Western Digital 750GB WD7500AACS that is causing the problem. Perhaps a bad sector? So Ran long test in Data life Guard, Ran checkdisk /r, etc. Everything passes.
Copied again and Gparted says copied successfully, still won't boot 1st partition.

BTW the source drive is a WD15EADS. Well I guess I'll just stick with the samsung.
I am running on X58 chipset with AHCI. Don't know if that would make a difference.
Very, very strange. If anybody has a clue let me know.
I like to understand why things don't work with my 750.

4 Reply by flagrant99

  • flagrant99
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Re: Can I copy paste bootable partitions?

Well my curiosity bugged me, and I tried clonezilla. Clonezilla partition copy did not work. However somehow I got it to perform a disk copy even to a smaller disk size, and during this it copied some hidden section b4 the paritions or something. After this I could not get it to boot at all, so I used gparted again, and now it boots partition 1 on the 750 HD!