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Keef
4th Nov 2009, 01:43
I think I'm having a series of senior moments.

Win 7 Released Version is all installed on the desktop, running fine. I chose the opportunity to retire the old Maxtor IDE hard drive that has been Drive C D and E for several years. I promoted the (newer) Western Digital IDE to "boot drive", left the second SATA drive in place (drives F to L), and installed a third (300GB SATA) drive as drive M, to be sure I wouldn't run out of space.

After all was done, I realised that the boot drive was making unhappy noises - it may be in need of my professional services soon. I ran EASEUS disk copier (booting from the CD) and cloned the IDE to the third (300GB) SATA.

What I can't do is get the machine to boot off that drive.

I've run EasyBCD and added an entry for it (although for some reason the option to call it Windows 7 wasn't there) and told it that one's primary.
I've told the BOOT config that the SATA is boot drive.

It won't boot. I get an error message that the drive is missing a BOOT file (I forget the detailed path and name, but BOOT is in it).

I put the Windows DVD back in, and it tells me there is indeed a problem, has a good go at fixing it, then reports that it can't fix it. It goes on line to MS and fails there, too.

What am I missing?

I've put the IDE back in, swapped the settings back, and the old IDE is still working and still groaning.

I suppose I could do a fresh install to the SATA drive, check that boots (take maybe half an hour) and then clone the stuff again (which will take about five hours, fortunately unattended). But that's a copout!

fhegner
4th Nov 2009, 03:30
Put the faulty drive in two zip bags and leave in the freezer overnight or longer...then retry.

green granite
4th Nov 2009, 07:01
Noticed this on the Easeus web site, not certain quite what it means, it implies that the two discs must be the same sort, ie both ide or both sata

Note: Please pay absolute attention to that only one of the two hard disks can be saved after completion of the copying process and before starting the operating system. It should be connected to the same channel as the original hard disk, i.e. either remove the medium with the copy on it or connect it instead of the original medium.

Keef
4th Nov 2009, 08:17
Thank you - hadn't seen that bit! I thought EASEUS made a clone that could be used as backup or new operating system.

Shucks. I should have installed to the new SATA drive last month. Oh well.