XP/computer gurus...need help!

[Viper Driver]

I'm at work today and this is the only forum my firewall will let me on. So, I'm hoping that there's a smart Primer out there who can lend a hand.

My current hard drive on my laptop is completely full, so I went out and bought a larger capacity hard drive to replace it. To save some hassle, I used Norton Ghost to clone all of the contents of my old hard drive to my new one. However, I had to assign a drive letter (E: ) to the new hard drive in the process so that the computer sees/recognizes the hard drive. I'm sure you can see where this is going.........

I put the new hard drive in, and the computer will only recognize it as E:. This means that Windows will not load without me reconnecting the old drive (I've got it in an external enclosure for this, set to SLAVE) because all of the startup files are looking for things on the C drive.

So, I reconnect the old C: drive and Windows loads, and then I go into the Administrative Tools/Disk Managment and try to change the disk names. I try this a couple of different ways, but each time I am unable to get the new hard drive reassigned to C:. Something about "not being able to change the drive letter where the boot sectors reside" or something like that.

My next option is to go into REGEDIT32 and manually change the drive assignments in the registry. I go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and swap the two drive parameters between C and E. This works, but it's not a permanent solution because the registry I'm editing (and Windows is reading) is on the old hard disk. This is not acceptable because the whole point of this is to replace the old disk with the new, larger capacity one.

So, I'm at a bit of an impasse, because I don't know how to get into the cloned registry on the new disk drive to rename it. Another option would be to completely overwrite the cloned registry on the new drive with the fixed-and-correct registry that's on the old C: drive. Neither one of these options is available in REGEDIT, at least not anything that is obvious to me. I'm also aware that the actual registry is spread out over several files, and I wouldn't know the first thing about which files to open to close the loop on this.

Anyone have any suggestions, or know how I can get the new drive assignments moved over to the new hard drive without buying some special program and/or hardware?

Chuck

 

[NsXMas]

You have PM.

 

[demigod]

Is this your only computer?

I usually just move all the stuff I want to save over the network to one of my other computers. Pop in the new drive and install Windows. Then move the stuff onto the new hardrive over the network.

 

[NsXMas]

Is this your only computer?

I usually just move all the stuff I want to save over the network to one of my other computers. Pop in the new drive and install Windows. Then move the stuff onto the new hardrive over the network.

That's the hard way to do it.

 

[demigod]

That's the hard way to do it.

For me it's easier because a lot of the stuff I accumulate on my laptop I want to save for other computers as well. So that stuff stays on the File Server. Then my laptop gets a fresh new start.

 

[NsXMas]

For me it's easier because a lot of the stuff I accumulate on my laptop I want to save for other computers as well. So that stuff stays on the File Server. Then my laptop gets a fresh new start.

I save incremental images of my laptop so I never have to rebuild from scratch.

Image 1 = fresh from factory (if I don't have recovery CD or blow away the restore partition)
Image 2 = all factory crap stripped, windows updates done, light customization - user preferences & XP powertoy Tweak UI installed, etc...
Image 3 = all necessary apps installed, except for software that expires - ie anti-virus, etc...

Depending on how often I need to refresh and how, I use image 1, 2 , or 3 as necessary. Saves much time from starting from scratch.

 

[Viper Driver]

I'm trying not to have to go back and spend another several hours doing essentially the same thing I did yesterday. If I can edit the registry on the new hard drive, my problem would be solved. The problem is that Windows won't load on the new hard drive because it's looking for files on the C: drive and not the E: drive. If I could get into REGEDIT32 and edit the registry, it's literally a ten-second process. Alas, that is my dilemma......I've come so far, but I can't figure out how to take that last step across the finish line.

 

[Eclipsed]

You cant change the new drives drive letter to C: if a C: drive already exists. I'd run norton ghost and save the image to a dvd and then install the new drive and ghost it off the cd. That should work fine, its how i image all my boxes here on the base

 

[robr]

Did you mark the new drive's partition as active in the XP disk manager?
Dont know if your BIOS has this option but some BIOS allow you to tell it to boot from controller #x, drive #y specifically (but it has to have an active partition)

 

[robr]

You cant change the new drives drive letter to C: if a C: drive already exists. I'd run norton ghost and save the image to a dvd and then install the new drive and ghost it off the cd. That should work fine, its how i image all my boxes here on the base

with the size of hard drives these days, DVD backups aren't particularly practical. I will typically ghost/driveimage, etc over the network to a NAS or another machine with some major free space.

 

[Viper Driver]

You cant change the new drives drive letter to C: if a C: drive already exists. I'd run norton ghost and save the image to a dvd and then install the new drive and ghost it off the cd. That should work fine, its how i image all my boxes here on the base

Thanks for the suggestion, but I already know that you can't have two C: drives at once, that's not my issue. This is as simple as I can make it..........I need to access the registry that resides on the new drive to edit it. Is there a way to access and edit the registry on the new hard drive?

 

[Viper Driver]

Did you mark the new drive's partition as active in the XP disk manager?
Dont know if your BIOS has this option but some BIOS allow you to tell it to boot from controller #x, drive #y specifically (but it has to have an active partition)

I did mark it as active. The issue with Windows on the new drive is that the drive is E: when all of the programs are looking for stuff on C:. I can tell my laptop which drive to boot from, that's not the issue.

 

[otto_joe]

Do you have a FDD (maybe USB)?
If so try booting with a win98 boot disk and run "fdisk /mbr" to rewrite the master boot record.

Also after cloning a drive you will also have to manually go in and reset windows system restore function. I can't remember the steps off the top of my head right now though.

Otto

 

[NsXMas]

Chuch - here's an offline registry editor:

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Good luck.

# It works offline, that is, you have to shutdown your computer and boot off a floppydisk or CD.
# It is also an almost fully functional registry editor!

 

[Viper Driver]

Chuch - here's an offline registry editor:

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Good luck.

You are the man! I'll give that a shot.

 

[nsxotic911]

See this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q223188

Plus some other leads:
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=250104

 

[jond]

You need to just clone the drive outside of windows. As simple as that and your problems are over. Dont play with the registry like you're talking about, the thing will never run 100% right I can almost guarantee.

Search around the internet for a ghost boot disk. Not sure if the new version supports it.

 

[Viper Driver]

You need to just clone the drive outside of windows. As simple as that and your problems are over. Dont play with the registry like you're talking about, the thing will never run 100% right I can almost guarantee.

Search around the internet for a ghost boot disk. Not sure if the new version supports it.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the thread, I have a cloned disk sitting in my hot little hands. The problem is that the drive has been renamed to E: and I have not found a way to rename it to C:. Windows won't load with just the E: drive, it just hangs up.

 

[robr]

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the thread, I have a cloned disk sitting in my hot little hands. The problem is that the drive has been renamed to E: and I have not found a way to rename it to C:. Windows won't load with just the E: drive, it just hangs up.

I believe what jond is trying to say is the clone program you used, you ran from within windows while windows was booted, which is why you needed to assign the new drive E:. If you had done a DOS level clone, you would never have had to assign a drive letter and wouldn't be having these issues. I've read about your problem before though (a LONG time ago) and am trying to google a resolution. The answer is definitely not parse the registry looking for all references to C: and changing them to E: if that's what you're thinking of.

 

[robr]

This might do the trick. This will actually let you rename C: to another drive letter, thus freeing up C: which you can then use to rename E:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188

Actually before you do that, read the thread here, there may be some danger just doing the above:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1029418874

 

[NsXMas]

Chuck - I think if the other methods didn't work, the best course of action is to re-do your image under DOS.

This will minimize any future problems. Even if you were able to switch the drive from E: to C: who knows what problems will pop up down the road?

Re-imaging under DOS keeps it clean without any registry changes and gives your old system back exactly the way it was on your new drive.

 

[Viper Driver]

Chuck - I think if the other methods didn't work, the best course of action is to re-do your image under DOS.

This will minimize any future problems. Even if you were able to switch the drive from E: to C: who knows what problems will pop up down the road?

Re-imaging under DOS keeps it clean without any registry changes and gives your old system back exactly the way it was on your new drive.

Yeah, after another frustrating night, I'm pretty sure I'm back to square one. I'm going to wipe the new hard drive and start over from scratch. :frown: I'm at work again and away from my laptop, but I'm not real clear on exactly how I'm going to go about doing this with Norton Ghost. I don't think that there is a way to do this strictly from DOS, as you have to open the program in Windows and it has to see the hard drive you want to clone to (ie., it has to be given a drive letter, which is why I'm in the predicament I'm in). Then again, maybe I'm wrong....actually, I hope that I'm wrong and there is a simple solution in Ghost for this. You'd think that a program designed to back up your hard disk would make things easy to move everything over to a new disk in the event of HDD failure.

Thanks to everyone for their help on this, it really has been appreciated! :smile:

 

[robr]

Yeah, after another frustrating night, I'm pretty sure I'm back to square one. I'm going to wipe the new hard drive and start over from scratch. :frown: I'm at work again and away from my laptop, but I'm not real clear on exactly how I'm going to go about doing this with Norton Ghost. I don't think that there is a way to do this strictly from DOS, as you have to open the program in Windows and it has to see the hard drive you want to clone to (ie., it has to be given a drive letter, which is why I'm in the predicament I'm in). Then again, maybe I'm wrong....actually, I hope that I'm wrong and there is a simple solution in Ghost for this. You'd think that a program designed to back up your hard disk would make things easy to move everything over to a new disk in the event of HDD failure.

Thanks to everyone for their help on this, it really has been appreciated! :smile:

I haven't used Ghost since Norton bought it, but I'm sure there must be a way to do it without Windows... the original Ghost wouldn't even run in Windows. There's also DriveImage and Acronis True Image as well if god forbid, Norton can't do it. You didn't need a drive letter either, you could simply specify 'duplicate drive, all partition on IDE channel 1, drive 0 to IDE channel 1, drive 1'

 

[Viper Driver]

I haven't used Ghost since Norton bought it, but I'm sure there must be a way to do it without Windows... the original Ghost wouldn't even run in Windows. There's also DriveImage and Acronis True Image as well if god forbid, Norton can't do it. You didn't need a drive letter either, you could simply specify 'duplicate drive, all partition on IDE channel 1, drive 0 to IDE channel 1, drive 1'

One question on drive replication, though.....does it only create a partition that's the same size as the original, or does it allow me to use the entire disk?

 

[nsxotic911]

Viper Driver - if you are still having problems, might I suggest putting your question on the windows forums? I think you might get more people that are expert with Windows on the Windows Forums than an NSX forum

Many many years ago.. I did lots of IT/tech work... but now I forgot everything I wish I could help more sad... I used to take pride in it.