Can't boot from cloned drive

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1

I used the proportional option to clone a 200 GB HD to a new  WD 500 GB drive.  My OS is Win XP.  The operation seemed to go OK because I can open my document files and launch apps from the new drive, but  after removing the old drive and setting the bios to show the new drive as the boot drive, the system will not boot.  Instead, I get an error message that a system file could not be found.  Should I reformat the new drive and clone again or am I just missing a step?

Arvis

2

What did you use to clone the drive the WD Acronis? You might look on Acronis forums for tips they have a lot of useful stuff there. It sounds like there is a problem with the master boot file. Maybe this will help  http://www.ehow.com/how_5124229_fix-windows-xp-boot-sector.html 

Joe

3

The old 200 GB drive, did not have any issues, like bad sectors? If that is the case, it is not good to make a clone of a drive that is failing.

Also, just for the heck of it, scan your new drive for errors.

4

Try to clone it again, if you can access the files then the cloning process was “partially” successful, but it could have skipped cloning the boot sector that allows the OS to start. And I’d suggest Norton Ghost or the commercial version of Acronis rather than the WD version.

5

Check this post http://forum.acronis.com/forum/3355 especially #11 by Grover. There are mixed feeligs about cloning and imaging. Grover has a lot of helpful stuff posted too.

Joe

6

I’d highly recommend against cloning - you should always start with a fresh install on a new drive. Even if the clone works and is 100% succesful, you’ll still run into all sorts of strange stuff. Cloning should only be used if you have old, rare software you can’t get any more and need it for some business critical process.