VBBRett
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Norton Ghost not working?
I am trying to do a complete copy of my hard drive with Norton Ghost to a new hard drive that I have available. My old hard drive is 100gb and my new hard drive is 200gb. The new hard drive is inside a USB 2.0 SATA drive enclosure. I want to back everything up from my operating system to all my files onto the new hard drive because i want to install the new hard drive as an upgrade. I have been trying to do this for some thing with Norton Ghost and it hasn't worked and I am wondering why? What am I doing wrong that it won't boot up or even start when I thought I cloned the drive onto the new drive and it will not reboot when I install the 200gb drive into my laptop. Can anybody help?
Just saw that you have a laptop. In that case, use "other approach" above. Create backup-image-file Recovery Point onto a external usb2 drive.
Make sure your new laptop drive has been wiped. Look for utility from drive manufacturer website.
Make sure your new laptop drive has been wiped. Look for utility from drive manufacturer website.
ASKER
Shouldn't I be able to see the new drive located in the hard drive enclosure in Windows explorer? It doesn't show up in explorer but it shows up in Norton Ghost. By the way, I am trying to copy my original Windows Vista Ultimate O/S and since it is a Dell Inspiron Laptop, there is only room for one hard drive.
What version of Ghost are you using? Ghost 12 or 14 are certified for Vista.
For laptops, I suggest:
1. Be sure your new laptop drive is blank/unformatted and wiped.
2. Create backup-image-files (Recovery Points) of ALL your partitions to an external usb2 drive (NOT your new laptop drive). For Dell you probably have 3 partitions. See Disk Managment to verify. Either create job definition of My Computer (which does all 3) or 3 separate ones.
3. Shut down laptop
4. Remove old laptop hard drive
5. install new (wiped) laptop drive in laptop.
6. Boot from Ghost Recovery CD.
7. Restore all 3 partitions IN ORDER that they existed on your old laptop.
8. Boot new laptop.
For laptops, I suggest:
1. Be sure your new laptop drive is blank/unformatted and wiped.
2. Create backup-image-files (Recovery Points) of ALL your partitions to an external usb2 drive (NOT your new laptop drive). For Dell you probably have 3 partitions. See Disk Managment to verify. Either create job definition of My Computer (which does all 3) or 3 separate ones.
3. Shut down laptop
4. Remove old laptop hard drive
5. install new (wiped) laptop drive in laptop.
6. Boot from Ghost Recovery CD.
7. Restore all 3 partitions IN ORDER that they existed on your old laptop.
8. Boot new laptop.
ASKER
I am using Norton Ghost 12. Does Norton Ghost 14 work better and make things easier? So besides my Hard Drive Enclosure, I need another external usb hard drive that is at least the size of my original hard drive? Let me get this straight:
1) Do a backup to the external USB drive.
2) Take out my old hard drive and put in the new.
3) Start the computer with the boot disk with the new drive installed and the external USB drive attached.
4) Install the backup to the new drive from the USB external drive.
Windows should be installed with all original files at this point, correct?
Do I need a boot disc? What is the boot disc?
1) Do a backup to the external USB drive.
2) Take out my old hard drive and put in the new.
3) Start the computer with the boot disk with the new drive installed and the external USB drive attached.
4) Install the backup to the new drive from the USB external drive.
Windows should be installed with all original files at this point, correct?
Do I need a boot disc? What is the boot disc?
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Here's some more info:
How does Windows XP remember drive letters?
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/223188
How does Windows XP remember drive letters?
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/223188
Have you been able to get the new laptop drive working yet?
If the extra (sometimes confusing) steps of Ghost are still an issue, many people have had good success with BootitNG which lets you do everything all at once:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm
If the extra (sometimes confusing) steps of Ghost are still an issue, many people have had good success with BootitNG which lets you do everything all at once:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm
Are both the OLD drive and the NEW drive SATA? If so, I would suggest mounting the new drive in your pc and do a disk to disk copy instead of using the external usb2 enclosure. I've read of some issues in trying to do disk to disk copies directly to a drive inside an enclosure and them removing it and installing it inside the pc.
Also be sure that the NEW drive is completely blank/unused/unformatted. Use a Disk Wipe utility to erase it. The reason for this is that if you try to do a disk to disk and the new drive already has a drive letter assigned (such as e: or other), then when you boot that new drive, XP remembers the drive signature of the new drive, and it gets assigned a drive letter of e: and not c: which is what you intend. Easiest way to fix that is erase the drive first. Ghost wants to copy to unallocated space anyway.
If you are usuing the Ghost copy drive function, be away it copies only one partiton. You have to repeat for mutliple partitions.
The other approach is to create a Recovery Point (backup image-file) and store it on the usb2 drive. Then take a different new/blank/unformatted hard drive, shut down pc, install it in the pc, boot from Ghost CD, restore usb2 Recovery Point onto the blank drive. I like this approach better because it is a full offline-approach.