WD Hard drive not booting...yet...

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I have 2 hard disks in my system now. I used a utility called Mini Tool Partition Wizard to copy my 80GB disk onto a 320GB WD Caviar. I have modified the bootloader with the handy dandy easybcd program. Now when I boot my machine there are 2 choices for a Windows7 operating system. With the new one all I get is a black screen. What does this mean? I can see all the files copied on the drive. The Mini Tool created a drive D: (System reserved) and it made the copy of drive C: onto drive E. Why does it create this separate system reserved drive? I assume those files are located on the 320GB hd. Does booting the machine need to access that?


Thanks for the help.
 

fantastik250

Distinguished
Tell me which drive System Reserved is in. Go to disk management in windows 7 (It may show up as create and format hard disk partitions).

Now which hard drive do you want to boot from? If it's from the 320GB, unplug your 80GB and see if it boots from your 320 GB.

+1 to rolli59, cloning makes a difference.
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
Well, why doesn't this tool do what it's supposed to do? My C: drive is the 80GB which works. Then there is D: which called system reserved. Then Drive E is the 320GB. I want to boot from either drive. Right now I have dual boot setup, it's just that the 320GB doesn't go into windows. It just sits there with a black screen.
 

rdc85

Honorable
U could try acronis FREE WD edition since u had WD HDD... (I'm using it to backup/clone the HDD)

edit : I would clone C: OS and D: System ---> restore it to 320GB, I not sure about restoring MBR to bigger HDD, never try it before......

correct me if i'm wrong by restoring mbr u will get C: and D: in new WD, and unallocated space for new partition.....

(the part of "unallocated space" that i'm not know well, it could be free or it just destroy the remaining space in HDD.. so Please be a lab rat for me ... hauhaha)

joking, ehm... i will let the other fill the info about unallocated space or if u eventually try it, i hope u post the result.....
 
Yes, you need to do a clone, not copy. Copying will not include certain system files and the boot manager segment of the drive that are needed to make the drive bootable. You must use a program that is specifically created to move a drive with an OS installed to another drive, and make it a bootable partition.
Acronis True Image will do this, drive sizes only need to be big enough to hold the amount of data being cloned, bigger or smaller total drive space is not an issue, and the extra space can be allocated as part of the cloning/cloned partition, or made into an entirely separate partition/s as desired.
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
That's just fantastic. You mean now that I have copied 70GB of files from my old drive to my new drive, I have to now wipe the drive again and start over with a cloning program? Come on...this can't be the case.

Does anyone on this forum have experience with this software? It's only been downloaded about 5 million times on cnet.com
 



It would take less time to start over and redo than what you have spent so far trying to find a work around. Its going to take you what, 30 minutes to do it over again? If it took longer than that to start with, there must have been issues from the very beginning of some kind!
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I disconnected my source disk and attempted to reboot. Didn't work. Isn't it bad to continue wiping used hard drives? It was used before and already wiped. I'm waiting for a response from support. If I have to wipe it again and clone you recommend acronis true image? Does the free trial make a bootable clone?
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I have wiped the drive with the acronis software. Now when I try the clone disk, I select the source disk, but then in the next screen I can't select any of the disks as the destination disk. Do I have to reformat? I thought this wasn't going to delete any partitions. There is a red circle with a white x in it for this drive.

I cannot even see either my C: or E: drive under disk management. E:\ is not accessible. Access is denied
This is the message I get. I can't change the permissions. What is going on here? I tried to create a partition with Acronis, and I can't do that..When I try to "add a disk" in acronis, I select my large disk, and a message pops up saying there are partitions on the disk which could contain useful information, press ok to delete. So I press ok, but it never allows me to advanced to the next screen of the wizard...
 

rdc85

Honorable
Err.. what did u do? step by step..
system partition is never able be accessed.

- First i will dell/format 320 Gb WD drive.....

- Second Run Acronis making clone for drive C: and D: than save it in DVD/Flasdisk/external HDD (size vary depend the size of data cloned and compression level)

- Third make Bootable Acronis Disk from Acronis software in CD/DVD/Flashdisk (only +400mb size)

- Four Shut down, Boot from Bootable Acronis disk, and run Acronis True image

- Last insert cloned image flashdisk/dvd/external HDD. Select the image and restore it to 320 Gb WD

U are done. Disconnect the old drive letting WD drive alone and boot from there.........

That how i would clone HDD.......
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I have managed to get my disk cloned. I didn't do it the way you described though, and I just used the Acronis wizard. Selected source, selected destination. I was able to get ownership of the drive. It will will not boot though. If I select the new drive as the 1st hard drive in the boot sequence (and I should be able to boot from either drive) , I get the message that BOOMGR is missing. What can I do about this?
 

rdc85

Honorable
Files needed to Boot Win 7 is in system partition (100 mb ones). it will need to be cloned and restored to the new drive .... (dunno why they put in there, it is a hassle when there an failure but maybe it's security issue)

If the system partition is already been restored and mbr also been restored to new drive, u still cannot boot that confusing.......

there is a turn around way to do it if u had no luck,

- U could make simple 80 Gb partition in WD,
- Disconect the old HDD.
- install w7 in WD 80Gb partition, it will create system partition automatically..
- After finish. Restore the C: image backup to the new installed WD 80Gb partition.
- U will get your old win back and all other things in there.
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I don't have a Windows 7 disk...if I did I wouldn't be sitting here trying to clone my old disk.

I tried to boot from the WD and it tries to start Windows. I can see the white text "Starting Windows" but those little icons whirling around never appear and it just hangs there. The clone should be fine. There is another partition sitting on the drive call D: which is system reserved 61MB. What is that? Why is it there?

I used the Acronis program which everyone thinks is so great and it will make a bootable disk. Well.... guess again... This program just creates a mess. I followed their freaking instructions for cloning and this is what I"m left with.

I used a program called EasyBCD to edit the booloader and this is what it says:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows 7
Timeout: 30 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: D:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
 

sking

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
93
0
18,640
I'm not cloning my files again. I need the bootmgr missing error fixed. What is this D: partition ? 100MB. System reserved. My C: Drive doesn't have a separate partition on it. Does it? This partition is on the new drive. What is its purpose? Does it have the MBR information?
 

rdc85

Honorable



err it no longer free to DL ...