Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive

I have an old Lenovo t-43 laptop running XP. It has a 40gb hard drive,
which is too small for my needs. With the OS, and the programs I use,
plus some videos and music for when I am on the road, I end up with 28gb
filled, and 12gb available. It's not uncommon for me to go to a WIFI and
download 10gb of programs. videos and so on. Then I get a "drive full"
message, which means it's not entirely full, but very close.

For awhile I was carrying around a 64gb flash drive, but that thing is
always getting misplaced in the car. I decided to go to ebay and find an
80gb hard drive. I found a 160gb drive for $3 more than an 89gb, so I
bought the 160gb.

I dont have the drive yet, but when I get it, I want to clone the
current drive to the new one, so I dont have to reinstall everything.
But how do I do this?

Laptops dont have space for a second HDD. (at least mine dont).

I have one of those cable kits that is for hooking any 3.5" IDE or SATA
drive to a USB port. It dont have the plug for these 2.5" drives, so I
assume I will have to buy one made for these 2.5" laptop drives.

(Do they sell adaptor kits for these laptop drives?)
(Are they labeled for these kind of drives)?

Once I buy the adaptor, I think all I have to do is run Partition Magic
8, (which I have) to clone the drive.

But once it's cloned, will it boot, or do I need to do something to make
it bootable?

But then I was wondering if it's possible to clone the drive to a 64gb
flash drive, then clone it from the flash drive to the new HDD? The only
problem there, is that this computer can not be booted from a USB drive,
so I will probably have to borrow a newer laptop to clone from the USB
to the new HDD.

Will that even work?

wrote:
I have an old Lenovo t-43 laptop running XP. It has a 40gb hard drive,
which is too small for my needs. With the OS, and the programs I use,
plus some videos and music for when I am on the road, I end up with 28gb
filled, and 12gb available. It's not uncommon for me to go to a WIFI and
download 10gb of programs. videos and so on. Then I get a "drive full"
message, which means it's not entirely full, but very close.

For awhile I was carrying around a 64gb flash drive, but that thing is
always getting misplaced in the car. I decided to go to ebay and find an
80gb hard drive. I found a 160gb drive for $3 more than an 89gb, so I
bought the 160gb.

I dont have the drive yet, but when I get it, I want to clone the
current drive to the new one, so I dont have to reinstall everything.
But how do I do this?

Laptops dont have space for a second HDD. (at least mine dont).

I have one of those cable kits that is for hooking any 3.5" IDE or SATA
drive to a USB port. It dont have the plug for these 2.5" drives, so I
assume I will have to buy one made for these 2.5" laptop drives.

(Do they sell adaptor kits for these laptop drives?)
(Are they labeled for these kind of drives)?

Once I buy the adaptor, I think all I have to do is run Partition Magic
8, (which I have) to clone the drive.

But once it's cloned, will it boot, or do I need to do something to make
it bootable?

But then I was wondering if it's possible to clone the drive to a 64gb
flash drive, then clone it from the flash drive to the new HDD? The only
problem there, is that this computer can not be booted from a USB drive,
so I will probably have to borrow a newer laptop to clone from the USB
to the new HDD.

Will that even work?

The combo USB2 adapters usually have 3 connectors.

7 pin SATA data (for 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drives)

40 pin IDE (for 3.5" IDE drives)
44 pin IDE (for 2.5" IDE drives)

https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/me...TAIDE.Main.jpg

*******

You can also get adapters, to convert between 44 pin and 40 pin.

https://www.startech.com/Cables/Driv...dapter~IDE4044

The 44 pin connector has 2mm spacing between pins.
The 40 pin connector has 0.1" spacing between pins.

The connectors are actually using the same protocol,
which is why a passive adapter can convert from one
to the other.

Some of the passive adapters, are meant for motherboard
mounting, others are meant for usage with the cable.
That's in case you cannot figure out why the gender
on the connector "isn't right". They're for different
applications. You have to think carefully about what
the gender says about the connector, and whether it
fits into your plan.

*******

Some laptops take a hard drive adapter that fits in the
optical drive bay. You could use Macrium to clone
disk-to-disk if going that route.

If you own a USB stick, you can use Macrium emergency boot CD,
to boot the laptop, and backup C: to the USB stick. Then,
shut down, and install the new hard drive. Boot the Macrium
emergency boot CD a second time, do a restore from the USB
stick, to the new hard drive. The size of the MRIMG file
in that case, is only big enough to hold the files. If
you have 20GB of files on a 100GB disk, the MRIMG file
is 20GB in size, not 100GB in size. With compression
enabled, it can actually be a bit less than 20GB.

Macrium supports resize-on-restore, so a smaller C: partition
can be used to "fill" a larger drive. That saves a step
later with a Partition Manager.

Obviously, a partition manager has lots of options like
this covered, and I've certainly done clones that way
in the past. It all depends on whether you need to use
the "backup/restore method", to get around a lack of
drive bays or not.

You can use the USB to SATA/IDE adapter, instead of the
optical drive bay method. And clone over that way. Then,
it would depend on whether your software "respects" the
USB adapter. I've had problems before, where the USB adapter
doesn't show up in a tool, so I'm robbed of the convenience
of doing it that way. Perhaps it was my older copy
of Partition Magic which had an issue. Just because
you've got that adapter, doesn't always means everything
you do is a "slam-dunk". Just so you're warned in advance.

The backup/restore method might work. The emergency boot
CD should be made on the machine which will be the
target, so that the boot-CD-making-software can load
the correct drivers for the platform. For example, if
you had USB3 ports, you'd endeavor to make sure that
USB3 drivers were included on the emergency CD. Another
example, is network drivers. File sharing won't work,
unless the emergency CD has a network driver. There's
usually a dialog which notes which drivers are going
onto the CD. And you review those, before wasting
a CD. I use CDRW or DVDRW materials, so if I screw up,
I just burn a second time. Modern (non-Memorex) re-writeable
media is pretty good now, so I hardly have trouble any
more with media. In fact, at the moment, I'm sporting
some CMC media (which would normally not be my first
choice), and it actually works. My computer store didn't
have any Ritek in the aisle any more. I had to take
a chance on some crap instead.

With the experience level you have under your belt,
this is "just work to do". There's probably more than
one way to attempt to do it. If first you don't
succeed, then Plan B or Plan C and so on. You know
the drill by now.

*******

Since your WinXP is patched up to SP3, there won't
be any worries about 48 bit LBA support. That should
just work too. Since you're doing a clone, there's no
way to lose the data in any case. Your original drive
is your backup copy. A nice safe set of operating
conditions.

*******

You could also do some of your prep work on your
desktop. But only if you have one of those
40 to 44 pin passive adapters.

When I receive a new drive, I like to pop it into
HDTune, and do a read benchmark. Just to make sure
it has a nice smooth curve, with no "flat spots".
The presence of a swath of abnormally slow read
transfer rate, would indicate some spared-out
sectors are present.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

The area around 72% in this HDTune example, looks
like a bad area. The whole disk doesn't look all
that healthy - I just wanted to show a "wide"
area which was bad. And the 72% area just barely
meets that criterion.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/foru...d= 1305052454

This one looks pretty good. Only a couple of the yellow
seek dots are outliers, and not enough to worry about.
The stair-step appearance of the blue transfer curve,
is zoned recording on the platter (that's a format they use).
The "noise level" on the blue part, cannot get much lower,
because of the timing routines used to measure transfer
rate. OS activity can interfere with the test... An
OS like Windows 10, would be the worst for that
(interfering with your benchmarking work). I've had
some new disk drives, that didn't look quite this good.
This drive is a keeper.

http://www.buildegg.com/bewp/wp-cont...LS-00L3B_A.png

Paul

In message ,
writes:
I have an old Lenovo t-43 laptop running XP. It has a 40gb hard drive,
which is too small for my needs. With the OS, and the programs I use,
[]
80gb hard drive. I found a 160gb drive for $3 more than an 89gb, so I
bought the 160gb.

I dont have the drive yet, but when I get it, I want to clone the
current drive to the new one, so I dont have to reinstall everything.
But how do I do this?

Laptops dont have space for a second HDD. (at least mine dont).

Does it have an optical drive?

I have one of those cable kits that is for hooking any 3.5" IDE or SATA
drive to a USB port. It dont have the plug for these 2.5" drives, so I
assume I will have to buy one made for these 2.5" laptop drives.

All the ones I've seen have a plug with two sides to it: one for the
3.5" drives, and one for the 2.5" drives. (With the ones that do SATA as
well having the SATA connector in the middle of that plug.) I'd be
surprised if, if it does SATA, it doesn't also do 2.5".

(Do they sell adaptor kits for these laptop drives?)
(Are they labeled for these kind of drives)?

Once I buy the adaptor, I think all I have to do is run Partition Magic
8, (which I have) to clone the drive.

Cloning _from within the OS you're running_ is IMO flaky to do, though
some utilities (certainly Macrium, I don't know about PM) claim to be
able to. If you'll be running it on another computer, i. e. just using
the drive passively, that should be fine.

Make sure you clone C: and any unlettered ("hidden") partitions. (For a
40G drive, just cloning the whole drive is probably easiest.)

But once it's cloned, will it boot, or do I need to do something to make
it bootable?

When I did it - though I imaged C: and the hidden to an image on an
external drive, then restored from that image to the new (bigger) drive,
rather than cloning - it booted, though the first time some Samsung
recovery software cut in and offered to run (it's a Samsung netbook), so
I let it, and after a few minutes my old desktop appeared as before. (I
then used a partition manager to enlarge C: and recreate D:. It is
possible I might have been able to do that at the restoring-image stage:
I just wanted to do one thing at a time.)

But then I was wondering if it's possible to clone the drive to a 64gb
flash drive, then clone it from the flash drive to the new HDD? The only
problem there, is that this computer can not be booted from a USB drive,
so I will probably have to borrow a newer laptop to clone from the USB
to the new HDD.

Sounds like you only have the one PC, so you would ...

Will that even work?


But, especially given that you have that cable set, I'd get another
drive - whatever's cheapest, probably a 3.5" SATA one; that way you can
image the present drive to the external drive, IMO using a boot CD made
using Macrium or Acronis so you don't have to do it from inside XP, then
(again using the boot CD) restore from the image to the new drive: that
way, you'll still have the external drive to make backup images on in
future. Always good to make backups! (As I know to my cost! my HD just
stopped spinning one day; the heads (or probably only one) had stuck to
the platter, probably due to overheating. Fortunately, when I gave up
all else and actually opened the drive in a clean cabinet, I was able to
free them/it, and the drive then worked well enough to extract the
image.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with
some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style. - Maya Angelou,
quoted by Annabel Nnochiri, in RT 2017/5/13-19

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Cloning _from within the OS you're running_ is IMO flaky to do, though
some utilities (certainly Macrium, I don't know about PM) claim to be
able to.

I'd say at least 20-30 programs know how to do that.

VSS is part of the solution.

The first article implies it works only for NTFS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy

Yet, the evidence is, it works for FAT32 too. It's just
hard finding documentation to that effect. All we have to
go on, is observations from users, like this one.

https://serverfault.com/questions/87...r-fat32-volume

HTH,
Paul

On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 13:46:04 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
I have an old Lenovo t-43 laptop running XP. It has a 40gb hard drive,
which is too small for my needs. With the OS, and the programs I use,
[]
80gb hard drive. I found a 160gb drive for $3 more than an 89gb, so I
bought the 160gb.

I dont have the drive yet, but when I get it, I want to clone the
current drive to the new one, so I dont have to reinstall everything.
But how do I do this?

Laptops dont have space for a second HDD. (at least mine dont).

Does it have an optical drive?

I have one of those cable kits that is for hooking any 3.5" IDE or SATA
drive to a USB port. It dont have the plug for these 2.5" drives, so I
assume I will have to buy one made for these 2.5" laptop drives.

All the ones I've seen have a plug with two sides to it: one for the
3.5" drives, and one for the 2.5" drives. (With the ones that do SATA as
well having the SATA connector in the middle of that plug.) I'd be
surprised if, if it does SATA, it doesn't also do 2.5".

(Do they sell adaptor kits for these laptop drives?)
(Are they labeled for these kind of drives)?

Once I buy the adaptor, I think all I have to do is run Partition Magic
8, (which I have) to clone the drive.

Cloning _from within the OS you're running_ is IMO flaky to do, though
some utilities (certainly Macrium, I don't know about PM) claim to be
able to. If you'll be running it on another computer, i. e. just using
the drive passively, that should be fine.

Make sure you clone C: and any unlettered ("hidden") partitions. (For a
40G drive, just cloning the whole drive is probably easiest.)

But once it's cloned, will it boot, or do I need to do something to make
it bootable?

When I did it - though I imaged C: and the hidden to an image on an
external drive, then restored from that image to the new (bigger) drive,
rather than cloning - it booted, though the first time some Samsung
recovery software cut in and offered to run (it's a Samsung netbook), so
I let it, and after a few minutes my old desktop appeared as before. (I
then used a partition manager to enlarge C: and recreate D:. It is
possible I might have been able to do that at the restoring-image stage:
I just wanted to do one thing at a time.)

But then I was wondering if it's possible to clone the drive to a 64gb
flash drive, then clone it from the flash drive to the new HDD? The only
problem there, is that this computer can not be booted from a USB drive,
so I will probably have to borrow a newer laptop to clone from the USB
to the new HDD.

Sounds like you only have the one PC, so you would ...

Will that even work?


But, especially given that you have that cable set, I'd get another
drive - whatever's cheapest, probably a 3.5" SATA one; that way you can
image the present drive to the external drive, IMO using a boot CD made
using Macrium or Acronis so you don't have to do it from inside XP, then
(again using the boot CD) restore from the image to the new drive: that
way, you'll still have the external drive to make backup images on in
future. Always good to make backups! (As I know to my cost! my HD just
stopped spinning one day; the heads (or probably only one) had stuck to
the platter, probably due to overheating. Fortunately, when I gave up
all else and actually opened the drive in a clean cabinet, I was able to
free them/it, and the drive then worked well enough to extract the
image.)


Thanks for all the replies.
I bought on ebay, two 40 pin (3.5" drive) to 44pin (2.5" laptop drive)
connectors.

Here is the plan, I hope it will work.

I have a desktop puter with XP booting from a SATA drive. There is a IDE
connector on the motherboard. The plan is to connect both the old 40gb
drive and the new 160gb drive to that IDE connector, using those
adaptors. I hope it boots from the SATA drive, not the OS on that 40gb
drive. (I dont know if there is a way to control that). If it works to
that point, I will simply run Partition Magic from the boot drive, and
clone that 40gb to the 160gb drive.

Ques: If I clone that whole 40gb drive, will I get a 40gb partition on
the new drive? Actually, that would be fine. I will keep the 40gb
partition as the boot one, and the remaining 120gb will be for
downloading and storing videos and music.

Before cloning, I may dump my current music and videos to a flash drive,
so there is less to clone. THe main thing that needs to be cloned is the
OS and the programs.

I can move that file storage back from the flash drive later.

One other thing, will XP need to be re verified with MS due to the new
hard drive?

, while using improper usenet message composition style
by unnecessarily full-quoting an entire thread, wrote:

I have a desktop computer

Good.

Go get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost 2003. There should be a floppy
image of it floating around the internet somewhere. Burn the image to a
floppy. (maybe burn isin't the right term, but you get the idea).

Set your motherboard to boot from floppy. Put the floppy in the drive.

If you have a ps/2 mouse, plug it into the motherboard. If you don't,
then that might be a problem. If your motherboard has IDE ports (which
you say it does) then it should have ps/2 mouse port.

Next, unplug all existing drives in the system from the motherboard.
You don't want them connected to the motherboard during cloning.

Now, you have the drive you want to clone (a 40 gb ide) and the drive
you want as the destination of the clone (160 gb).

Connect both of those drives to the motherboard. Doesn't matter how or
to which IDE port.

Next, boot the system from the floppy.

Ghost will start. Ask you a few questions - say no to forensic
identification.

Choose copy - disk to disk

Choose the source drive. It will be the 40 gb drive.

Choose the destination drive. It will be the 160 gb drive.

It will show you the layout of the destination drive - the volume sizes
will be increased because the destination drive is larger.

Tell it to start the copy. Yes, you know that everything on the
destination drive will be wiped out.

Copy will happen at anywhere from 800 mb/sec to maybe double that,
depending on how new / fast the motherboard is.

When it's done, close Ghost and turn off the computer, disconnect your
drives, install the 160 gb drive in the laptop and see if it boots.

Ghost normally duplicates most aspects of the source drive, like volume
serial number (VSN). XP will do a check of hardware at boot and you
will lose a vote for having a different drive-size but will not lose the
VSN vote. There'a a program called xpinfo.exe that will tell you how
many votes your system currently has. You need 5 for XP to remain
validated. You get 3 just from the MAC address, 1 for amount of ram, 1
for video card, 2 or 3 for the hard drive (size, VSN, maybe something
else). If you go below 5 votes, XP will force you to reconnect with the
Micro$haft mothership and re-validate your XP installation.

In message ,
writes:
[]
Thanks for all the replies.
I bought on ebay, two 40 pin (3.5" drive) to 44pin (2.5" laptop drive)
connectors.

Here is the plan, I hope it will work.

I have a desktop puter with XP booting from a SATA drive. There is a IDE
connector on the motherboard. The plan is to connect both the old 40gb
drive and the new 160gb drive to that IDE connector, using those

You _may_ need to get _power_ to the little drives (unless those
adaptors include a plug for drive power).

adaptors. I hope it boots from the SATA drive, not the OS on that 40gb
drive. (I dont know if there is a way to control that). If it works to

There may be something in your BIOS settings.

that point, I will simply run Partition Magic from the boot drive, and
clone that 40gb to the 160gb drive.

Ques: If I clone that whole 40gb drive, will I get a 40gb partition on
the new drive? Actually, that would be fine. I will keep the 40gb
partition as the boot one, and the remaining 120gb will be for
downloading and storing videos and music.

Sounds a good policy. Most of us (with some exceptions) prefer to keep
data (pictures, music, videos, documents ... basically anything a
program _produces_ as opposed to the various parts of the software
itself) on a separate, usually D:, partition.

Before cloning, I may dump my current music and videos to a flash drive,
so there is less to clone. THe main thing that needs to be cloned is the
OS and the programs.

Depends on your (and Partition Magic's) interpretation of the word
"clone". Some interpretations assume clone to mean a complete copy of
the drive, including the unused parts. If PM can only copy the used
parts, it _will_ be quicker. (Though the movement you propose to a flash
drive - and back - will be slow, assuming your flash drive - and
interfaces to it - are USB2 at best; it'd be a lot quicker via internal
disc transfer, I _think_. [You can always move the stuff from C: to the
new D: partition afterwards.]

I can move that file storage back from the flash drive later.

One other thing, will XP need to be re verified with MS due to the new
hard drive?

Well, mine didn't. Is it an XP that came preinstalled, or one you
installed yourself? (Though I don't _think_ that affects the answer to
that question.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We're plumbing shallows we didn't know existed here" - Jeremy Paxman (as
quizmaster of "University Challenge"), 1998 (when losing team suddenly put on a
spurt by showing knowledge of things like the Eurovision Song Contest ...)

In message , Some Guy writes:
, while using improper usenet message composition style
by unnecessarily full-quoting an entire thread, wrote:

I have a desktop computer

Good.

Go get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost 2003. There should be a floppy
image of it floating around the internet somewhere. Burn the image to
a floppy. (maybe burn isin't the right term, but you get the idea).
("Write" will do.) Or get a copy of Macrium or Acronis, and make the
boot CD from that. Or, maybe, the Partition Magic you already have might
be sufficient, if it does cloning/imaging, which you've implied it will.

Set your motherboard to boot from floppy. Put the floppy in the drive.

Or CD as appropriate. (If you're going to try with PM, running from the
machine's existing XP HD, you'll need to make sure it boots from that,
not the IDE discs you're proposing to connect. I'm not sure how to do
that, or even if you can, though I'd hope you can. If you can, I imagine
it'll be a BIOS setting.)

If you have a ps/2 mouse, plug it into the motherboard. If you don't,
then that might be a problem. If your motherboard has IDE ports (which
you say it does) then it should have ps/2 mouse port.

I _think_ Macrium and Acronis will work with a USB mouse (Macrium
certainly works with my trackpad).

Next, unplug all existing drives in the system from the motherboard.
You don't want them connected to the motherboard during cloning.

Good advice, though if you're going to use the PM you've already got,
you probably can't do that.

Now, you have the drive you want to clone (a 40 gb ide) and the drive
you want as the destination of the clone (160 gb).

Connect both of those drives to the motherboard. Doesn't matter how or
to which IDE port.

Same would apply if booting from the Macrium or Acronis CD.

Next, boot the system from the floppy.
Or CD.

Ghost will start. Ask you a few questions - say no to forensic
identification.

Choose copy - disk to disk

Choose the source drive. It will be the 40 gb drive.

Choose the destination drive. It will be the 160 gb drive.

Macrium or Acronis will be similar.

It will show you the layout of the destination drive - the volume sizes
will be increased because the destination drive is larger.

Tell it to start the copy. Yes, you know that everything on the
destination drive will be wiped out.

Copy will happen at anywhere from 800 mb/sec to maybe double that,
depending on how new / fast the motherboard is.

When it's done, close Ghost and turn off the computer, disconnect your
drives, install the 160 gb drive in the laptop and see if it boots.

Ghost normally duplicates most aspects of the source drive, like volume
serial number (VSN). XP will do a check of hardware at boot and you
will lose a vote for having a different drive-size but will not lose
the VSN vote. There'a a program called xpinfo.exe that will tell you

Any idea where to get that?

how many votes your system currently has. You need 5 for XP to remain
validated. You get 3 just from the MAC address, 1 for amount of ram, 1
for video card, 2 or 3 for the hard drive (size, VSN, maybe something
else). If you go below 5 votes, XP will force you to reconnect with
the Micro$haft mothership and re-validate your XP installation.

Don't the votes regenerate after a period (120 days or some such), to
allow people to upgrade/repair their PC?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We're plumbing shallows we didn't know existed here" - Jeremy Paxman (as
quizmaster of "University Challenge"), 1998 (when losing team suddenly put on a
spurt by showing knowledge of things like the Eurovision Song Contest ...)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Go get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost 2003.

Or get a copy of Macrium or Acronis,

If the computer has a working floppy drive, and you can manage to create
a working copy of Ghost on it, then there is nothing easier than booting
a system from floppy vs messing around with CD drives and bios
settings, as well as trying to figure out how to connect 3 IDE devices
(2 drives and 1 CD drive) and getting everything to work.

And in my experience, the other CD-based programs can frequently not
generate a bootable clone. I've cloned over 100 drives from a handful
of different XP-SP2 and SP3 master drives using Ghost.

If you want to use a CD-based drive copy program, get your hands on a
copy of Hiren's BootCD and putz around with the various software on it.

Potential problems with going the Ghost route is getting a working
combination of floppy drive and floppy disk. Over time both seem to go
bad, bad sectors, alignment problems, dust, etc.

Copy will happen at anywhere from 800 mb/sec to maybe double that,
depending on how new / fast the motherboard is.

Correction - 800 mb/minute. Two IDE drives on a Pentium-4 PC.

When cloning sata-to-sata on a Core2 motherboard I can typically get
3500 mb/minute.

There'a a program called xpinfo.exe that will tell you

Any idea where to get that?

I just checked he

http://www.licenturion.com/xp/xpinfo-exe.zip

This "licenturion" looks familiar to me.

By the way, this is where you can get Ghost 2003:

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...HOST_BOOTx.zip

Don't the votes regenerate after a period (120 days or some such), to
allow people to upgrade/repair their PC?

Yes, a system that hasn't tried to re-validate itself in the past 120
days should be in the clear to do it again, but I think the risk is too
high if you can avoid it. The risk that your product key has, for
what-ever reason, been added to Micro$haft's black-list of keys.

In message , Some Guy writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Go get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost 2003.

Or get a copy of Macrium or Acronis,

If the computer has a working floppy drive, and you can manage to
create a working copy of Ghost on it, then there is nothing easier than
booting a system from floppy vs messing around with CD drives and bios
settings, as well as trying to figure out how to connect 3 IDE devices
(2 drives and 1 CD drive) and getting everything to work.

On the whole, you are probably right. Though there may still be some
"messing around with BIOS settings" required if it isn't set to boot
from floppy first.

And in my experience, the other CD-based programs can frequently not
generate a bootable clone. I've cloned over 100 drives from a handful
of different XP-SP2 and SP3 master drives using Ghost.

They work more often than not though.

Just out of curiosity, why have you cloned so many from "a handful"?

If you want to use a CD-based drive copy program, get your hands on a
copy of Hiren's BootCD and putz around with the various software on it.

Is that going to be either easier or better than Macrium or Acronis? (Or
does Hiren include one or both of those?)

Potential problems with going the Ghost route is getting a working
combination of floppy drive and floppy disk. Over time both seem to go
bad, bad sectors, alignment problems, dust, etc.

CDs can deteriorate too, although - especially if not written at maximum
speed - less so than floppies.

Copy will happen at anywhere from 800 mb/sec to maybe double that,
depending on how new / fast the motherboard is.

Correction - 800 mb/minute. Two IDE drives on a Pentium-4 PC.

When cloning sata-to-sata on a Core2 motherboard I can typically get
3500 mb/minute.

There'a a program called xpinfo.exe that will tell you
Any idea where to get that?

I just checked he

http://www.licenturion.com/xp/xpinfo-exe.zip

Thanks for that. Incidentally, xpinfo doesn't work with OEM (or VLK).
[]
By the way, this is where you can get Ghost 2003:

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...a3653cce1c3f14
7b3d4/GHOST_BOOTx.zip

Thanks for that too. I've downloaded both.

Don't the votes regenerate after a period (120 days or some such), to
allow people to upgrade/repair their PC?

Yes, a system that hasn't tried to re-validate itself in the past 120
days should be in the clear to do it again, but I think the risk is too
high if you can avoid it. The risk that your product key has, for
what-ever reason, been added to Micro$haft's black-list of keys.

Does XPinfo (on machines where it works!) cover this, or only compare
the system to how it was at (last) activation? (Or original activation?)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

To keep leaf vegetables clean and crisp, cook lightly, then plunge into iced
water (the vegetables, that is). - manual for a Russell Hobbs electric steamer

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Just out of curiosity, why have you cloned so many from "a handful"?

We made several hundred windows-based systems with custom hardware
during the 2000's and early 2010's. These were "turn-key" and had
Windoze pre-installed on them. About half were win-98, the latter half
being XP. The CD's were bought in packs of 5 (System Builder) and were
included when these systems were shipped, but I found it easier to just
keep a master drive updated periodically with patches, customized
settings and accessory software and just clone the drive vs trying to
replicate that with each system build. I know there was a sysprep tool
that was supposed to accomplish that, but we wanted these systems to
just boot right up the first time the customer used it, no entering in
the license key and going out to validate itself. Sometimes (quite
often actually) these systems did not end up being connected to the
internet anyways.

The hardware in these systems were updated a few times over this
time-frame, so many of them shared exactly the same hardware
configuration (motherboard, cpu, ram, cd drive, hard drive, video, etc).
So cloning the hard drive was an easy decision.

I kept a notebook of all the XP keys that went out for these systems,
knowing practically all of them would never actually be used (ie - seen
by a Micro$haft activation server). From time to time when I needed to
build an XP system for personal or in-house use, I'd just reach into
that list and use one of those keys. The system-builder keys are great
because they are not tied to any specific hardware or system make /
model like OEM keys are.

Is that going to be either easier or better than Macrium or Acronis? (Or
does Hiren include one or both of those?)

Hiren's BootCD is at version 15.3 (or maybe higher?). Previous versions
have included Macrium Reflect 4.2.3775 and Acronis True Image 8.1.945
(or higher). I don't know if the current / latest version still includes
Macrium or Acronis. Sometimes commercial stuff gets removed from
Hiren's so different versions will contain a different mix of software.
You probably need to get older (maybe more desirable) versions of
Hiren's from mirror sites or torrent.

Yes, a system that hasn't tried to re-validate itself in the past 120
days should be in the clear to do it again, but I think the risk is
too high if you can avoid it. The risk that your product key has, for
what-ever reason, been added to Micro$haft's black-list of keys.

Does XPinfo (on machines where it works!) cover this, or only compare
the system to how it was at (last) activation? (Or original activation?)

I think I knew that XPinfo didn't work with VLK, but I thought it did
work with OEM licenses. I can tell you it works with system builder and
retail licenses, and *I think* MSDN / Technet subscriptions too.

XPinfo will tell you the current state of which components are the same
now vs when XP was last validated (which is usually, but not necessarily
when XP was originally installed).

In message , Some Guy writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Just out of curiosity, why have you cloned so many from "a handful"?

We made several hundred windows-based systems with custom hardware
[]
Thanks, interesting.
[]
Is that going to be either easier or better than Macrium or Acronis?
(Or does Hiren include one or both of those?)

Hiren's BootCD is at version 15.3 (or maybe higher?). Previous
versions have included Macrium Reflect 4.2.3775 and Acronis True Image
8.1.945 (or higher). I don't know if the current / latest version still
includes Macrium or Acronis. Sometimes commercial stuff gets removed
from Hiren's so different versions will contain a different mix of
software. You probably need to get older (maybe more desirable)
versions of Hiren's from mirror sites or torrent.

If you want to play; if you just want Macrium or Acronis, of course, you
can get them from source. (I like my Macrium, as it fits on a mini-CD; I
like mini-CDs, as they're easier to keep with - in this case - my backup
drive, than a full-size CD would be, and less likely to get broken.)

Yes, a system that hasn't tried to re-validate itself in the past
120 days should be in the clear to do it again, but I think the risk
is too high if you can avoid it. The risk that your product key
has, for what-ever reason, been added to Micro$haft's black-list of keys.
Does XPinfo (on machines where it works!) cover this, or only
compare the system to how it was at (last) activation? (Or original
activation?)

I think I knew that XPinfo didn't work with VLK, but I thought it did
work with OEM licenses. I can tell you it works with system builder
and retail licenses, and *I think* MSDN / Technet subscriptions too.

The wording in the readme is something like "won't work with any version
that does not require activation, such as OEM or volume licencing keys".

XPinfo will tell you the current state of which components are the same
now vs when XP was last validated (which is usually, but not
necessarily when XP was originally installed).

It didn't work on this machine (came - new - with XP installed). Well, I
say didn't work: it at first came up with an error box saying "Cannot
collect configuration data (-204). (a) You are running a volume-licensed
version or OEM release of Windows XP. (b) You have not activated your
installation of XP, yet. OK". (I assume there's an implied "OR" between
those.) When I click OK, it comes up with another window headed "Fully
Licensed" in big letters, below which are ten text boxes for things like
Processor model, which are indeed greyed out; it does show the first 15
characters of the key though.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

It didn't work on this machine (came - new - with XP installed). Well, I
say didn't work: it at first came up with an error box saying "Cannot
collect configuration data (-204). (a) You are running a volume-licensed
version or OEM release of Windows XP. (b) You have not activated your
installation of XP, yet. OK". (I assume there's an implied "OR" between
those.) When I click OK, it comes up with another window headed "Fully
Licensed" in big letters, below which are ten text boxes for things like
Processor model, which are indeed greyed out; it does show the first 15
characters of the key though.

Take your key sequence (the entire part of it that XPInfo shows, or
maybe just 1 or 2 of the sequences) and do a google search on that.

If your key is OEM, then your key should be well-known and will appear
in some list or discussion somewhere at some time.

If you can't find any mention of any part of your key on the internet,
chances are very high it's not oem or vlk.

In message , Some Guy writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

It didn't work on this machine (came - new - with XP installed).
Well, I say didn't work: it at first came up with an error box saying
"Cannot collect configuration data (-204). (a) You are running a
volume-licensed version or OEM release of Windows XP. (b) You have
not activated your installation of XP, yet. OK". (I assume there's an
implied "OR" between those.) When I click OK, it comes up with
another window headed "Fully Licensed" in big letters, below which
are ten text boxes for things like Processor model, which are indeed
greyed out; it does show the first 15 characters of the key though.

Take your key sequence (the entire part of it that XPInfo shows, or
maybe just 1 or 2 of the sequences) and do a google search on that.

If your key is OEM, then your key should be well-known and will appear
in some list or discussion somewhere at some time.

If you can't find any mention of any part of your key on the internet,
chances are very high it's not oem or vlk.

Oh, I'm sure it's legal - the machine was bought new from a reputable
store. But I did what you suggested anyway (using the yyyyy-yyyyy-yyyyy
part that xpinfo showed), and Google says "About 1,260 results". So I
guess it is indeed OEM.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.

On Tue, 7 Nov 2017 12:46:05 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

Thanks for that. Incidentally, xpinfo doesn't work with OEM (or VLK).
[]
By the way, this is where you can get Ghost 2003:

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...a3653cce1c3f14
7b3d4/GHOST_BOOTx.zip

Thanks for that too. I've downloaded both.



It looks like you are saying that you downloaded the Ghost zipfile. Is
that correct?
It is refusing to download for me. It starts downloading and fails after
about 10 seconds, saying "source could not be read".

Maybe this has something to do with my slow dialup internet, but it dont
even try. I have tried to DL this thing at least 10 times, used
different browsers too.
Another browser said:
"Does not appear to be a valid archive"

The file is 1.3mb. It will take a half hour on my dialup, but I can
usually DL files of that size without problems.

This does look to be thge best way to clone these drives. I dont even
want to attempt to do it with a CD, because I've been thru trying to
configure CD drives and Hard drives on the same cable, and it naver
worked. Not to mention I only have connectors for TWO IDEs and would
need THREE. On top of that, I will do anything to avoid burning CDs.
Thats generally another nightmare, especially if they need to be
bootable.

I'll have to drive to town and see if I can download it at a WIFI, but
it sure seems like the file is borked, and I'm not willing to drive 10
miles for nothing.