[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2.

Thanks a lot for your message. I had actually already decided to do what you suggest and had found out how to do what your link explains - so although the 'dummy' label is definitely usually appropriate for me, in this case it did not apply! :-)

When I come to the cloning bit (and am praying hard that this time it will be 'third time lucky'!) is there any particular virtue in cloning from the external drive. I feel tempted to clone direct from C to D again..... but what do I know? (Very little!)

Bye for now,
Chris.

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Hello Channeal,

 

Acknowledged that you are one step ahead of me with the unallocated space 

 

If you clone from the external to the present D: drive etc and all goes well then you already have your back up OS etc on the external HDD where it should be.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

Acknowledged that you are one step ahead of me with the unallocated space 

 

If you clone from the external to the present D: drive etc and all goes well then you already have your back up OS etc on the external HDD where it should be.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

I had a quiet day 'home alone' today doing housework - and spent a lot of time doing computer stuff too. It was quite an interesting day.....

So.... I cloned from the external drive to drive D - but that didn't work. I then decided to try cloning direct from C to D, so I formatted D again and was about to proceed. However.... I got as far as the 'Cloned Partition Properties' and I found myself looking at the 'Partition Type' drop-down menu. I have never touched this before but now noticed that it was set to 'Primary', with the other options being 'Active' or 'Logical'. I tried to find out more about these two alternatives and from what I read I gained the opinion that an operating system needs to go on an 'Active' partition. (Is that correct?)

Anyway, I reversed everything and went back and tried cloning from Drive C to the external drive a second time. I was really very hopeful that it was going to work this time but (you have probably guessed already!) my optimism was very short lived....

When I restarted, the computer did indeed seem to try to boot from the external drive. There was a brief moment when a blue screen flashed up with what I think from memory was just a couple of lines of white writing. I do not think it was the normal 'blue screen of death' which I seem to remember has a lot more writing - but I only saw if for a brief couple of seconds, as it was quickly replaced by a black screen with white writing - the one that says that Windows was unable to start and then gives the option of starting up in safe mode etc. etc.

Here is the latest Disk Management page so you can see what the current situation there is: -

 

 

Any ideas what might be going on?

 

Chris

Edited by Channeal, 25 June 2014 - 04:55 PM.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

Just a brief update to my last message...... and to say that the same thing happens every time I turn the computer on with the external drive also on. I cannot read what is on the blue screen, although I think there is some kind of number with a few digits, perhaps a file name or something. I was thinking of maybe trying to run chkdsk on the drive some time today in the hope that this might find something.... so if I do manage to do that, I will let you know the results.

Btw, I think I forgot to mention before that clicking on the Safe Mode option does not work either.
Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 27 June 2014 - 12:56 AM.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

I ran chkdsk and it found some errors. The problem still persists though.

 

Here is the report: -

 

Event Type:    Information
Event Source:    Chkdsk
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    26180
Date:        27/06/2014
Time:        11:08:10
User:        N/A
Computer:    USER-0868A33E33
Description:
Checking file system on L:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 8 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 8 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 8 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

  52428095 KB total disk space.
  32915168 KB in 115126 files.
     45216 KB in 17601 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    443767 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  19023944 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  13107023 total allocation units on disk.
   4755986 allocation units available on disk.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
Data:
0000: a0 30 04 00 83 06 02 00    0..?...
0008: e3 f3 02 00 00 00 00 00   ãó......
0010: c1 00 00 00 04 00 00 00   Á.......
0018: 25 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00   %.......
0020: 50 5a d4 08 00 00 00 00   PZÔ.....
0028: c0 f2 be 4c 00 00 00 00   Àò¾L....
0030: c8 e7 1c 10 00 00 00 00   Èç......
0038: 61 57 50 c1 03 00 00 00   aWPÁ....
0040: e3 46 54 b5 00 00 00 00   ãFTµ....
0048: af 81 20 e4 04 00 00 00   ¯ ä....
0050: 00 7f 44 be 00 00 00 00   .D¾....

 

 

 

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

 

PS The following info is from Speccy: -

 

WDC WD25 00JB-00REA0 USB Device
    Manufacturer    Western Digital
    Business Unit/Brand    Mobile/WD Scorpio Free Fall Sensor (FFS)
    Interface    USB
    Capacity    232 GB
    Real size    250,059,350,016 bytes
    RAID Type    None
        S.M.A.R.T
            S.M.A.R.T not supported
        Partition 0
            Partition ID    Disk #7, Partition #0
            Disk Letter    L:
            File System    NTFS
            Volume Serial Number    DCE3CEE7
            Size    49 GB
            Used Space    31.9 GB (63%)
            Free Space    18.1 GB (37%)
        Partition 1
            Partition ID    Disk #7, Partition #1
            Disk Letter    M:
            File System    NTFS
            Volume Serial Number    540C4CB9
            Size    182 GB
            Used Space    94 GB (51%)
            Free Space    88 GB (49%)
 

Edited by Channeal, 27 June 2014 - 04:55 AM.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

I see that you have been most busy while I have been away 

 

Your screenshot in reply #138 shows that the partition (L:) is set as active which is quite correct, please see step 6 here (including the screenshot above it) and then check that the files listed are on your partition (L:)

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

Thanks for your message. Yep, have been a very busy girl here!

 

 

 

I searched for the following files on drive L: -

AUTOEXEC.NT (L:\WINDOWS\system32)
autoexec.nt (L:\WINDOWS\repair)

boot (see below)

CONFIG.NT (L:\WINDOWS\system32)

IO (cound not find either on Drive C or L)

MSDOS (could not find either on C or L)

ntdetect (L:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386)

ntdlr (L:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386)

pagefile.... found only VBScript Script file: pagefileconfig (L:\WINDOWS\system32)

 

 

 

As you will see, there were a couple of files I could not find anywhere. Any idea which folder they are likely to be found in? Or perhaps they might masquerade under another name?

 

I could not find a system file simply named boot. There is a folder called boot, but it only has something to do with Macrium in it. Here are some of the results of my search for files with 'boot' in the title: -

 

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 28 June 2014 - 05:27 AM.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

Where the address bar in your screenshot shows Search Results it should show the contents of L: drive and/or secondly the C: drive.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

Very sorry.... I did a separate search of C (rather than both at once, which came up with too much stuff), but then forgot to save it and show it to you - just me being stupid again!

 

Here it is: -

 

 

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 28 June 2014 - 06:54 AM.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

No worries and definitely not stupid 

 

I can see the bootstrap on both the L: and the C: drives but unfortunately the screenshots only show the bottom of the page and so not all other files and folders.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

Trying again: -

 

Drive C, top

 

 

Drive C, foot

 

 

Drive L, top

 

 

Drive L, foot

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for saying I am not stupid, by the way I hope I don't prove you wrong!

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 28 June 2014 - 08:04 AM.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

Thanks for the screenshots which look "like for like" to me   

 

Change of track I think, please disconnect the external HDD, clone the C: to the formatted D: drive (make the D: drive active) disable the C: drive in the BIOS then check if the computer boots from the D: drive (which will hopefully have been reassigned the drive letter C:).

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

Still dwelling for a moment on what we have been trying to do today....... I never found the IO or the MSDOS files which your link in Message #141 said should be present in XP. I just found a webpage with the following information though: -

 

In Windows XP, the Windows kernel takes the place of the IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS files. However, the COMMAND.COM file still exists. The COMMAND.COM file acts as the command interpreter for any commands issued through a DOS environment. The CONFIG.NT and AUTOEXEC.NT files have replaced the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files.

 

It looks as if the IO and MSDOS files are not present in XP then, in spite of what your link said. I am not 100% clear exactly which alternative files I should be looking for though. Please, do you know? What does it mean by the 'Windows Kernel'?

 

 

Change of track I think, please disconnect the external HDD, clone the C: to the formatted D: drive (make the D: drive active) disable the C: drive in the BIOS then check if the computer boots from the D: drive (which will hopefully have been reassigned the drive letter C:).

 

Okay, sure.... I will try this. I will hopefully be able to do this either tomorrow or Monday. I am going to be busy after that as I am going to be away from Wednesday until next Saturday or Sunday.

 

I should be an expert at this cloning lark by the time I have finished!

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 28 June 2014 - 10:43 AM.

[phillpower2]

Hello Channeal,

 

Serious software is not my forte I'm afraid so for kernel information please see here

 

Please do this at your own convenience there is no rush, it is a good exercise btw because if you were to now do a fresh install of XP you would not be able to update it as Microsoft have apparently pulled the plug on them.

[Channeal]

Hello Phillpower2,

 

Thanks for your message.

 

 

it is a good exercise btw because if you were to now do a fresh install of XP you would not be able to update it as Microsoft have apparently pulled the plug on them.

 

Really? That is seriously not very nice of them!

 

I have just been idly reading more stuff on cloning (while the footballl was on!). I stumbled upon a link in another forum on 'How to Create XP Bootable External Drive'. I am not really sure if it is 'politically correct' to post a link from one forum in another (although I did it once before), but it says that you should disable / remove all of your internal drives before installing to an external drive, because if you install to the external drive with the boot drive still attached, the external drive will not contain the second stage of the boot process, the MBR.' Another person on the same page says (again) that you cannot install XP on an external drive'. The link is from April 2004 by the way, so not an old one like the one in Message #133 (though actually, it is from the same forum). Any thoughts on what they say?

 

You know, I really cannot believe how much I am enjoying doing all this stuff..... even though I haven't been very successful so far! It is crazy...... and my family all think I am really mad!

 

Bye for now,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 28 June 2014 - 01:15 PM.