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Old April 17th 10, 11:39 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
J. P. Gilliver (John)
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Posts: 5,291
Default How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

In message
, Bob
writes:
Long, sad story made short.

I have a Samsung Netbook running Windows XP Home, SP3.


Snap (LC-20 here).

I set it up to dual boot with Ubuntu, just so I could play around with
Ubuntu.


I've set up a dual boot with BartPE.
[snip]
Now, when I try to boot the Netbook, I get this:
GRUB loading.
error: no such partition
grub rescue


I'm pretty sure that's still something Linux-y.

When I research what this means, the solutions, all on Linux sites are
baffling.

So...

I cloned my Netbook HD about a month ago to an external HD.

How would I go about erasing the HD of the Netbook and cloning back to
the Netbook HD the
operating system from the external HD? Is this possible?


As others have said, it may be possible to rescue the situation without
having to get to the point of a reinstall, but it could be awkward
getting to the point where you can.

I _always_,when people are enthusing about how wonderful any
backup/clone/whatever utility is, ask them "yes, but just _how_ do you
restore from it if Windows won't start?". The usual way is something
bootable: these days that's either a CD or a USB, *with the PC being
configurable to boot from USB*. Often the cloning prog. will offer to
make a CD (or something similar to put on a USB stick) when doing its
cloning. (Often the CD or whatever is actually some Linux version,
though they often don't tell you that!)

Whether your backup to external HD also included the "restore"
functionality in what it put on the external HD, I don't know - though I
suspect not. (I'm sure booting from a USB HD is possible, but I think it
involves more than booting from a USB stick or CD drive.)

As for erasing the drive, the restore-from-clone software _might_ do
that anyway (or rather just overwrite, rather than specifically
erasing).

Remember, Netbooks do not come with an optical drive.


I'd say get one - they're cheap enough, and handy to have occasionally:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-External...qid=1271498436
Slimline USB CD reader £ 11.29
http://www.amazon.co.uk/DVD556S-H02-...qid=1271499288
slimline DVD writer with lightscribe £ 43.95
(Prices are pounds - probably cheaper in USA) - and all variants in
between (not slimline is cheaper, not lightscribe is cheaper, not DVD
write is a _little_ cheaper). They usually run off the USB port
(sometimes needing two), though to do lightscribe may need the PSU
supplied.

Many thanks.


YW.

As others have said, you may well be able to get to a point you can
rescue things without having to do a complete restore.

Oh, I almost forgot: you say in another post that you've managed to get
into the BIOS setup. That's where you will have to change the boot
sequence, to (try to) boot from USB first, if that's the way you have to
go. I'm pretty certain most netbooks - including ours - can be set to
boot from a USB optical drive.

I use ERUNT to save (and BartPE dual boot to restore -and yes, I _have_
checked that I know how to do it!); ERUNT doesn't do a complete
clone/backup by any means, it just saves the registry and lots of other
important files, so it's far from as safe as a complete backup. However,
I was rescued from unstartable Windows many times using ERU/ERD under
Windows 9x, so it was nice to find someone (just Google for ERUNT) had
written an equivalent for NT-based OSs (XP, Vista, ...). It's a darn
sight quicker than a full clone of course.
--
J. P. Gilliver. 27 years experience in the electronics industry - seeking
employment (also computer, tester, trainer ...); email for details: CV at
http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/CV2010-4.pdf !

There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And
one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
-John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995)
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