Problems Transfering Drive Information to a New Drive

[nerves]

So what I am trying to do is copy my original 80gb hard drive over to a bigger 250gb without having to reformat and redo everything.

So what I am doing is hooking up the 250 via a USB external case and using Norton Ghost to copy my 80gb to the 250.

After the copy has completed I install the 250 into the notebook and boot from that disk.

It tells me "can not find bootmgr". So I put the recovery DVD in and let it boot from that and let windows repair itself. It takes two reboots to repair and then it boots up fine.

Here is the trouble. Now it will boot up to the welcome/log on screen where I can select my profile or my wifes profile. I can use either one and it is the same, they are both admin profiles.

It will say "preparing your desktop" with the spinning "wait" ring next to it. It will do this for almost a minute. then it will bring me to a blank light blue desktop. There is nothing available to click on but I do have an arrow to move around. In the bottom right corner in small script it says, "this copy of windows is not genuine".

I spoke with a Microsoft tech and she gave me this solution. Windows 7 displays "Windows is not Genuine" with error code of 0x80070005

The problem with this is that I do not have access to a command prompt. The only keyboard shortcuts that are working are CTL+ALT+DEL which I have to use shut the computer down, WIN+P and WIN+L.

So should I use a different program to do the disk transfer? Is there a way to access the command prompt without the start menu?

Thanks in advance to you all.

 

[Pauly]

Not sure about the Norton program as i have not used it in many years but there are alternatives, win 7 have a feature in the backup section that lets you take an image of the HDD(and the 100MB boot sector) that could be restored(via booting from win7 dvd)to another drive.
If done successfully then it should be identical on reboot as original install was.

Other option are Acronis or Paragon that have free software to do this that seem quite popular amongst other users here although acronis does not give full package for free but should be enough for what you want to do.

I would take an image of the drive to external media, then unplug old HDD plug in new one then restore image to new HDD(via booting from win7 dvd), also be sure that new drive is set as system and active partition.

Hope this helps

 

[wallyinnc]

Hi nerves, welcome to the forums
Take a look here

I think that if you hit F3 (search for a file or folder) it will bring the search window where you can type command and get a prompt

You might also want to try shift+F10 during the boot process, that will bring a command prompt (I think. I can't test it now, I don't have my Win7 computer, and I know that brings it during the install process, when you are actually under Windows PE)

Let us know if it works

Oh, and here the tutorial for imaging the hard drive

 

[computersplus]

Shortcuts

never shortcut when it comes to your OS do it right and just reinstall Windows it's really not that much work by the time you get done figuring this out you could have just reinstalled and been done

 

[nerves]

Fantastic. Thanks for the quick response. I will attempt the backup with the default windows 7 program and let you all know how it goes.

 

[gregrocker]

Access the Command Prompt by Cntrl Alt Del then Task Manager>Applications tab>New Task>type CMD.

If you cannot then recover using MS fix, use FREE Rescue Kit Express | PARAGON Software Group

Boot the Paragon cd - select Normal Mode , then Boot Corrector.

Correct drive letters in the system registry. Reassign old drive letter to the NEW copied 7 partition.