Clone/Drive copy problem (NTFS)

[410]

I’m looking for a cloning program for a Win2000 (NTFS) system. The notes with XXCOPY say it won’t create a bootable disk on a Win2000 setup, so that’s out.

I’ve used Nortons Ghost in the past with no problems, but when I tried to use it this time, with Ghost Ver 5 I got the message “NTFS Error: Logfile has not been flushed (f1 = 0). Restart NT and try again.”

Using Ver 6,5, I get the message “User Abort 2904. Read sector failure, result = 4, drive = 128, sectors 106510950 to 106510951.”

I’ve tried SCANDISK and CHKDSK to no avail. The system that’s refusing to be copied is running fine.

I can make Ver 6.5 run by selecting ‘ignore errors’, but when I attempt to run the cloned partition, it won’t boot.

Any suggestions?

[FL310]

This is actually a very old problem and SHOULD not happen with Ghost versions younger than 5.1

Ghost thinks that the NTFS driver is not compatible and issues the warning. You should, however, be able to work around that problem by starting the backup and restore of images with the -NTIL switch.

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[410]

Thanks for the fast answer 310. Could you be a little more specific in what's involved in actrivating the NTTL switch?

[FL310]

I am not using Ghost, I burn images on DVD as backup...some do this with CD.
Have a look what the commandline is to start your backup or restore of Ghost and simply add -NTIL
Watch out it is NTIL not NTTL as you stated, and the - (minus) has to be there as well.
If in doubt, consult your help files and search for SWITCH.

I found the info on a distributor circular from 1998....

[fobotcso]

I can't fault Partition Magic 6.0. I've just completed a Clone job on the boot disk of a notebook using another PC as a host and an external caddy to hold the old and new HDDs and the Host PCs HDD for the transfer. Very, although not entirely, intuitive and as long as you take it slowly...

Actuall there is one reservation about Partition Magic. When joing two Partitions it made a big fuss about relationships that didn't exist and ended up corrupting the registry.

No problem, I just repeated the process without joining two Partitions. Very happy with the result but it is a slow process.

Reported in Mac the Knife's thread about "A Good Dodge".

[410]

Further to my problems with Nortons and copying/cloning my HD, when I run CHKDSK, I get the message “Warning! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.” I imagine this is my problem, as Nortons Ver 5’s error message is “NTFS Error: NTFS logfile has not been flushed (f1 = 0). Restart NT and then try again.”

Any suggestions on how I “specify” the F parameter or “flush” the NTFS logfile? I’ve cloned HDs with Nortons in the past without encountering this problem.


Another question, unrelated to my first. I have an ASUS A7V 133 motherboard. One of the features that sold me on this motherboard was its four IDE slots – two ATA 66 and two ATA 100 slots. When I first set the system up, the ATA 100 slots were accessible, but for some reason I can’t fathom, they’ve now gone dormant. I now can’t get the computer to recognise anything attached to the ATA 100 slots. I’ve updated the BIOS, but I still get the same message on boot up: “ATA 100 BIOS not loaded as no drivers attached”. (That might not be word perfect; I’m transcribing the message from memory.) This message comes up even when I’ve got a HD attached to the ATA 100 slot(s).

Not as big a problem as the F parameter, but as with most things-PC, I suspect the problem is fixibale with the smallest step – if only I knew what that step was.

[fobotcso]

This is an old DOS routine:

Cchkdsk /f or Cchkdsk d: /f where d: is a drive other than the default.

simple as that. You can do this in a Command window.

Got me out of a deep, deep hole as recently as last week when Partition Magic aborted in the middle of an operation (operator error!) and one of my FATs was corrupted.

I held my breath while restoring access to over 20GB of video data. All backed up, of course, but, Oh!, what a long job to recover the situation.

Chkdsk repaired the second FAT

[Cornish Jack]

I don't normally get too excited about computer software, since most everything I've used has had problems. However, as a result of my recent difficulties with setting up a 'bitsa', (see 'A long winded problem'), I purchased a copy of On Track's Disk Manager. It was enthused over in Scott Mueller's PC 'bible' in 1994, so it's been around a while.
Verdict? Absolutely cracking ! I have never seen anything quite as well thought out. Partitioning AND formatting a 3.2 Gb IDE took approx 20 SECONDS The manual is part of the program and is excellent. The options include the ability to rearrange your Master/Slave set-ups in the bios without jumper changes !! . Best of all, it provides for low level formatting for all normally used IDE drives , so it can by-pass the Bios if that is causing problems. Took about 40 minutes for the download on a 42K connection. ......... exits, gurgling happily

[410]

Thanks for the pointers, fobotsco and FL310. Even with PartitionMagic, I'm having problems... It warns that the cloned copy may not be bootable, (Win2000) and sure enough, the paging file is the wrong size or missing on the clone. (I'm selecting 'primary partition', and 'not hidden', not the default 'logical drive' and 'hidden' - is that my problem?
I've written in a min-max size the same size at the original, (it was blank), but the cloned system still locks up on start with the message about the too small or mising paging file.
I've tried copying the original paging.sys file via XTREE GOLD, but it won't let me do so.

[fobotcso]

The warning "may not be bootable" is standard and you shouldn't let it stop you.

But the Crucialthing is to make sure that the Partition you are trying to make bootable is the Primary Partition on that drive (yes, and unhidden) and that it is active.

This option is in the Operations/Advanced menu. Highlight the partition in question and right click and make your selection.

But Be Careful. If you make the Partition Primary and Active and the beast will still not Boot up....!

Have your rescue disks handy before doing this!

By The Way, don't fret about the pagefile.sys. Windows will rebuild it when it boots up successfully. Pagefile.sys is just a Hard Disk extension of RAM.