unable to boot cloned hdd

[jedibob7]

recently my 1Tb seagate decided that it's S.M.A.R.T. would fail so I went out and bought a 500gb to back up my data using HDClone as I've only used about 390gb on the TB and now I can't get the cloned HDD to boot at first when I booted it the screen would just stay at the flashing underscore which I recognized as an OS issue and I booted it with the recovery disk that did not recognize there was even an OS to fix. I can view all of the files if I use it as a removable disk so I know the clone worked I just can't get it to boot

 

[pbcopter]

Do you have any other hard drives connected?
If so, disconnect them and then use the Windows DVD to do a startup repair.

 

[jedibob7]

I did what you said and now the disk is seeing three 0mb partitions

 

[SIW2]

How many partitions did you have?

Did you leave unallocated space at the end of the drive?

 

[jedibob7]

only one, and yes there was

 

[SIW2]

Boot Gparted cd.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/

Create a small partition - a few gb is fine - at the right edge of the drive. That should be inside the unallocated space.

(You might not see that when you boot Gparted - the whole drive may appear raw/unallocated. )

Don't forget to Apply so it actually creates the partition.

You should then be able to run a partition undelete utility and recover your main single partition.

Partition Wizard boot disc is good for that.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

Boot it up, do a quick scan of the whole drive.

Tick the partition (s) you wish to keep - don't forget to yes, Apply.

Lastly, you will likely need to boot win 7 repair disc/dvd and do a startup repair to correct the bcd entry.

 

[SIW2]

Ominous silence follows . LOL.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you have a backup image from earlier than the clone of the failing/failed HD?

When you can see the partitions, make sure the 100mb System Reserved partition (preferred - if you have it) or the Win7 partition itself are marked Active to run the Repairs.

Si- can you explain what the small partition in right-end Unallocated space is for, so we can learn? How does Unalloc space cause the clone to be lost?

 

[SIW2]

Gparted should get it's info directly from the drive controller.

It should at least be able to see the drive - tho. not necesssarily the filesystem.

Creating a partition will rerwrite the partition table correctly - so it will be seen by windows apps. - e.g. pw - which can then with a bit of luck resurrect the original partition (s)

Unallocated space didn't cause the problem - it is handy it is there - OP can make the new small partition inside it.



Greg,

Did you see THIS - seems to be the same PW bug .

 

[jedibob7]

I can't quite get Gparted to work after I choose the "mode" it just displays a series of diagonal lines where I can move my mouse

 

[SIW2]

That doesn't sound encouraging.

I always use a previous version Gparted 3.9.4 .iso

GParted - Browse /gparted-live-stable/OldFiles/0.3.9-4 at SourceForge.net

You could just try booting Partition Wizard - see if it finds anything.

 

[jedibob7]

alright I made an 11gb partition then used partition wizard to restore one of the 4mb partitons (there were 3 that were exactly the same and I just chose one of them although the cloned partition was not there) then I used the recovery disk to try and repair it(the recovery disk didn't see my drive) did it anyways said it repaired something and yet on the next boot I still get the flashing underscore -.-

 

[SIW2]

Unless you are able to recover the actual windows partition - the one you cloned - you aren't going to get anywhere.

Leaving aside the faint possibilty of drive corruption - your cloning doesn't seem to have worked.

Can you still acces the original drive ok - the one that is in danger of failing?

If so - I would forget about cloning per se and make an image - using an app. with a good track record.

The image can then be restored to your new drive.

Macrium free and Paragon backup and recovery free are pretty popular.

Macrium can go quicker if that's important to you.

 

[SIW2]

Does that mean the old version of Gparted (3.9.4 ) could see and partition the Hd - when the new one couldn't?

 

[jedibob7]

yes the new one did not work while the old one worked fine and I'm wary of backing up the failing disk because last I checked half of my desktop icons disappeared and I think that means that I've lost a good amount of data

 

[mjf]

A small "unaccounted" region at the end of a disk can be the signs of a dynamic disk. Dynamic disk use it for disk management.

If the original HDD is still working it could be useful to reinstall it, take a disk management screen shot and make an image.
Post the screen shot and if the disk looks ok then repeat the cloning process.

 

[jedibob7]

Hey guys sorry I havent replied in almost a week just crazy things happening (OS's failing, clones destroying other partitions, partitions becoming corrupt, etc.) but today by magic and such I got my main partition to boot and created a disk image and booted it (I'm currently typing this from it) everything works and I just wanted to thank you guys for all of your help ^^