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How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?



 
 
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  #31  
Old April 28th 10, 10:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Tim Meddick[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,020
Default How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

I rarely use either the MAP or the DISPART command and if I have a major problem,
similar to yours, I always use an M$-DOS boot disk.

The difference being that the DOS command FDISK - does return volume labels (where
they exist) on partitions.

The thing is, without knowing which partition is which - you might be deleting the
netbook's recovery partition - should it have one.

My best guess would be :

-: Partition1 EISA Utilities 6150 MB = RECOVERY PARTITION
C: Partition2 NTFS 68653 MB = WINDOWS PARTITION
E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB = UBUNTU PARTITION
D: Partition1 KINGSTON [FAT] = YOUR USB DRIVE

......so, you could try deleting E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB ....(unless you know
different - that this is NOT the UBUNTU partition!)

My evidence for this is that as you are actually logged in to C:\Windows while you
are running Recovery Console, the partition before it must have been there before or
at the installation of the C: partition - it has no drive-letter associated with it,
so it's probably a hidden partition - usually this means the recovery partition.
That just leaves Partition3 (E

So, as I said, unless you know differently, delete Partition3 (E using DISKPART
then reboot back into the Recovery Console and check it has been deleted using
DISKPART again.

Then try :

FIXMBR
FIXBOOT C:

....once more......

At the end of the day, since I am 99% sure you have a (intact) recovery partition, as
you are booting you should be seeing a message at the bottom of the screen, something
like "Press F10 for recovery options " .

However, should this be the case, and you use the NetBook's in-built recovery
option - it will copy the factory-state Windows installation back to the C: drive -
over-writing your old XP and all the data (music & videos) you may have stored there.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Carl" wrote in message
...
On Apr 27, 5:25 pm, John John - MVP wrote:
Carl wrote:
Hi Tim -


Back home. Started the netbook with the Windows Recovery flash drive.


At the prompt typed FIXMBR C; and hit Enter
No text appeared, it simply brought me back to the prompt


You didn't do it right, FIXMBR uses the device name rather than the
drive letter, for example:

fixmbr \device\harddisk0

Note the double "dd" in the device name (hard+disk)

To get a list of devices use the MAP command.

If the syntax is correct you will get a warning message and you will be
prompted to confirm the action. If you answer Y (yes) to confirm the
action you will receive a message stating that a new master boot record
was successfully written. If the syntax is incorrect you will be
returned to the prompt without any message of any kind.

You can also run the FIXMBR command without specifying any device and
the MBR will be written to the boot device, here again you will receive
a warning message and be asked to confirm the action.

Fixmbr will surely dislodge the GRUB loader from the MBR, you just have
to use the proper syntax.

John


Hi John -

Thank you for weighing in.

The MAP command returned this:

? NTFS 6150MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
C: NTFS 68653MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
E: NTFS 39621MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
D: FAT16 963MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partition1

What's the next step, gentlemen?

Many thanks, once again, for your time and patience.

Carl

Ads
  #32  
Old April 29th 10, 11:49 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 28, 1:20*pm, "Twayne" wrote:
PS re the Subject line: You do not "clone" XP to a drive. A "clone" IS a
hard drive that contains the operating system. What you do is replace a bad
drive with a "cloned" drive, and in theory it will start right up.
* *Your problem could be in your understanding of what you're trying to
achieve. Whatever it is, it is not "cloning ... back to your HD".

HTH,

Thanks for weighing in, Twayne -

You are right; I used the wrong terminology.

One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.

Macintosh allows this and instead of backing up each week, I use
SuperDuper to clone my OS to an external HD. Haven't had to copy that
clone back to my internal HD since Apple came out with OSX, but I did
have to do so once or twice under OS 9 and its predecessors.

Carl
  #33  
Old April 29th 10, 02:44 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
John John - MVP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 780
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

Carl wrote:
On Apr 28, 1:20 pm, "Twayne" wrote:
PS re the Subject line: You do not "clone" XP to a drive. A "clone" IS a
hard drive that contains the operating system. What you do is replace a bad
drive with a "cloned" drive, and in theory it will start right up.
Your problem could be in your understanding of what you're trying to
achieve. Whatever it is, it is not "cloning ... back to your HD".

HTH,

Thanks for weighing in, Twayne -

You are right; I used the wrong terminology.

One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.

Macintosh allows this and instead of backing up each week, I use
SuperDuper to clone my OS to an external HD. Haven't had to copy that
clone back to my internal HD since Apple came out with OSX, but I did
have to do so once or twice under OS 9 and its predecessors.


What do you mean "you could NOT copy back the clone of your HD to your
internal HD". We create clones and images all the time here and restore
them back anytime without any problems. Of course, Windows PCs are much
more varied than Macs, PCs come in a mutltitude of hardware
configurations so moving clones or restoring images to different
computers is not generally supported, whereas a Mac is a Mac is a Mac,
so moving a clone or restoring an image to another Mac might not be a
problem.

John
  #34  
Old April 29th 10, 03:23 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
John John - MVP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 780
Default How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?


Tim Meddick wrote:
I rarely use either the MAP or the DISPART command and if I have a major
problem, similar to yours, I always use an M$-DOS boot disk.

The difference being that the DOS command FDISK - does return volume
labels (where they exist) on partitions.

The thing is, without knowing which partition is which - you might be
deleting the netbook's recovery partition - should it have one.

My best guess would be :

-: Partition1 EISA Utilities 6150 MB = RECOVERY PARTITION
C: Partition2 NTFS 68653 MB = WINDOWS PARTITION
E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB = UBUNTU PARTITION


Begs the question of why would Ubuntu be installed on a proprietary NTFS
partition?


D: Partition1 KINGSTON [FAT] = YOUR USB DRIVE

.....so, you could try deleting E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB
....(unless you know different - that this is NOT the UBUNTU partition!)

My evidence for this is that as you are actually logged in to C:\Windows
while you are running Recovery Console, the partition before it must
have been there before or at the installation of the C: partition - it
has no drive-letter associated with it, so it's probably a hidden
partition - usually this means the recovery partition. That just leaves
Partition3 (E


I think that at this stage finding the Active status of the partitions
might help. Carl (or Bob) would need to create a Windows 98 Startup
disk on USB and use Fdisk to see what is going on with the active
partition flag. I haven't ever made a W98 bootable USB stick but a
quick search on the net leads to sites like this with all the
information and downloads for the necessary files:

http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm
How to Create a bootable USB Memory Key

You should be able to toggle the active partition with Fdisk but I would
also stick PowerQuest's (Symantec} 16-bit PtEdit utility on the stick:
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/tools.htm

John
  #35  
Old April 29th 10, 07:06 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 29, 9:44*am, John John - MVP wrote:
Carl wrote:
On Apr 28, 1:20 pm, "Twayne" wrote:
PS re the Subject line: You do not "clone" XP to a drive. A "clone" IS a
hard drive that contains the operating system. What you do is replace a bad
drive with a "cloned" drive, and in theory it will start right up.
* *Your problem could be in your understanding of what you're trying to
achieve. Whatever it is, it is not "cloning ... back to your HD".


HTH,

Thanks for weighing in, Twayne -


You are right; I used the wrong terminology.


One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.


Macintosh allows this and instead of backing up each week, I use
SuperDuper to clone my OS to an external HD. *Haven't had to copy that
clone back to my internal HD since Apple came out with OSX, but I did
have to do so once or twice under OS 9 and its predecessors.


What do you mean "you could NOT copy back the clone of your HD to your
internal HD". *We create clones and images all the time here and restore
them back anytime without any problems. *Of course, Windows PCs are much
more varied than Macs, PCs come in a mutltitude of hardware
configurations so moving clones or restoring images to different
computers is not generally supported, whereas a Mac is a Mac is a Mac,
so moving a clone or restoring an image to another Mac might not be a
problem.

John


John -

Lest my misuse of terminology confuses the situation, let me explain.

What I should have said was I was told, that for licensing reasons, M/
S will not allow you to boot your machine from Windows on an external
USB hard drive.

I have a Seagate external HD.

I used Seagate's free software to clone my Netbook's HD to an external
USB HD.

If I connect that USB HD, boot up, change the Boot Device Priority to
list that USB HD first, then exit and save the configuration, I get
nothing but a blinking white cursor on a black screen.

The first time this happened, I asked on this forum, I believe, and
was told that what I was doing was not possible because M/S did not
allow you to boot from an external HD.

I just tried it, and I am looking at the blinking cursor.

Was I misinformed?

Carl

  #36  
Old April 29th 10, 07:30 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 29, 10:23*am, John John - MVP wrote:
Tim Meddick wrote:
I rarely use either the MAP or the DISPART command and if I have a major
problem, similar to yours, I always use an M$-DOS boot disk.


The difference being that the DOS command FDISK - does return volume
labels (where they exist) on partitions.


The thing is, without knowing which partition is which - you might be
deleting the netbook's *recovery partition - should it have one.


My best guess would be :


-: Partition1 EISA Utilities 6150 MB *= RECOVERY PARTITION
C: Partition2 NTFS 68653 MB = WINDOWS PARTITION
E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB = *UBUNTU PARTITION


Begs the question of why would Ubuntu be installed on a proprietary NTFS
partition?

D: *Partition1 KINGSTON [FAT] = YOUR USB DRIVE


.....so, you could try deleting E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB
....(unless you know different - that this is NOT the UBUNTU partition!)


My evidence for this is that as you are actually logged in to C:\Windows
while you are running Recovery Console, the partition before it must
have been there before or at the installation of the C: partition - it
has no drive-letter associated with it, so it's probably a hidden
partition - usually this means the recovery partition. That just leaves
Partition3 (E


I think that at this stage finding the Active status of the partitions
might help. *Carl (or Bob) would need to create a Windows 98 Startup
disk on USB and use Fdisk to see what is going on with the active
partition flag. *I haven't ever made a W98 bootable USB stick but a
quick search on the net leads to sites like this with all the
information and downloads for the necessary files:

http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm
How to Create a bootable USB Memory Key

You should be able to toggle the active partition with Fdisk but I would
also stick PowerQuest's (Symantec} 16-bit PtEdit utility on the stick:http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/tools.htm

John


Gentlemen -

I DO NOT BELIEVE IT!!!!

It worked!

I cannot thank you enough.

Here's what I did:

I deleted the E partition.

I ran MAP again

Returned:
? NTFS 6150MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
C: NTFS 68653MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
F: NTFS 39621MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
D: FAT16 963MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partition1

I removed the USB flash drive and restarted, and it booted normally,
into Windows and all appears fine.

If you two would bear with me, I will summarize all of the guidance,
step by step, that you give me and post it at the end of this thread
plus post it on the Samsung Netbook site for others having this
problem.

I know there are many others with the problem because when I Googled
the GRUB problem, I got multiple hits but none of them worked for me
and most relied on an external HD and booting from a Windows CD.

Tim said it could be done w/o an external HD and he was right.

I'll try to write my summary this weekend and post it back here.

BTW, just to be sure, shut down my computer and started again and
again, all is well.

My deepest thanks,
Carl

BTW, when I start up , I am offered the choice of booting up in either
M/S Windows XP Home Edition or Ubuntu, so there must be something on
the HD that I need to get rid of in order to weed Ubuntu entirely from
my HD, no?
  #37  
Old April 29th 10, 08:01 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
John John - MVP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 780
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

Carl wrote:
On Apr 29, 9:44 am, John John - MVP wrote:
Carl wrote:
On Apr 28, 1:20 pm, "Twayne" wrote:
PS re the Subject line: You do not "clone" XP to a drive. A "clone" IS a
hard drive that contains the operating system. What you do is replace a bad
drive with a "cloned" drive, and in theory it will start right up.
Your problem could be in your understanding of what you're trying to
achieve. Whatever it is, it is not "cloning ... back to your HD".
HTH,
Thanks for weighing in, Twayne -
You are right; I used the wrong terminology.
One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.
Macintosh allows this and instead of backing up each week, I use
SuperDuper to clone my OS to an external HD. Haven't had to copy that
clone back to my internal HD since Apple came out with OSX, but I did
have to do so once or twice under OS 9 and its predecessors.

What do you mean "you could NOT copy back the clone of your HD to your
internal HD". We create clones and images all the time here and restore
them back anytime without any problems. Of course, Windows PCs are much
more varied than Macs, PCs come in a mutltitude of hardware
configurations so moving clones or restoring images to different
computers is not generally supported, whereas a Mac is a Mac is a Mac,
so moving a clone or restoring an image to another Mac might not be a
problem.

John


John -

Lest my misuse of terminology confuses the situation, let me explain.

What I should have said was I was told, that for licensing reasons, M/
S will not allow you to boot your machine from Windows on an external
USB hard drive.

I have a Seagate external HD.

I used Seagate's free software to clone my Netbook's HD to an external
USB HD.

If I connect that USB HD, boot up, change the Boot Device Priority to
list that USB HD first, then exit and save the configuration, I get
nothing but a blinking white cursor on a black screen.

The first time this happened, I asked on this forum, I believe, and
was told that what I was doing was not possible because M/S did not
allow you to boot from an external HD.

I just tried it, and I am looking at the blinking cursor.

Was I misinformed?


This has nothing to do with Microsoft's licensing, it' a technical
limitation of the Windows operating system. What happens with Windows
is that the USB stack is initialized well after the Windows session
manager has started, so in essence Windows can't boot off a USB drive
because Windows has to initialize the stack before it can use it, a
catch 22 kind of situation. If you search the internet you will find
information on how some have hacked the stack drivers to make them boot
devices which in turn allows the ntldr boot manager to load the stack
before the session manager is started. This is unsupported by
Microsoft, they have never bothered rewriting the boot up routine to
have ntldr load the stack so Windows can't boot off a USB drive.

John
  #38  
Old April 29th 10, 08:05 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Tim Meddick[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,020
Default How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

I am so pleased! (told you that you'd get there in the end!)

Concerning the bogus menu entry on startup.....

When you ran the FIXBOOT C: command, on your merry travels, Windows re-wrote your
BOOT.INI file that deals with the start(up) menu (which lives in the root of your
[C:] system drive) adding any valid operating systems it could detect at the time.

When you did this, the UBUNTU partition STILL EXISTED, but now does not, so if you
did selected this option at boot now, I very much doubt you'd get anything but an
system error.

To get rid of it, either :

1). Goto "Control Panel" - "System Properties" - "Advanced" tab - "Startup and
Recovery" (Settings button).

....and in the "System Startup" [top] section, press on the "Edit" button.

Highlight and delete the ONE line containing the word "Ubuntu" and save / close.

- you won't see the "Ubuntu" menu item on startup any more.


2). Type MSCONFIG into the "Run" box on the start menu and click on the BOOT.INI
"tab".

Press the button marked "Check all boot paths" This should result in all invalid
entries in the menu to be removed.

Press [ok] to save and exit.

3). Open a command prompt, and type the following command[s] :

attrib -r -h -s c:\boot.ini
notepad c:\boot.ini

....then edit the file (as in 1), removing the line that contains the word "Ubuntu"
and then "save" and exit. Again, the offending menu entry will be gone....

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Carl" wrote in message
...
On Apr 29, 10:23 am, John John - MVP wrote:
Tim Meddick wrote:
I rarely use either the MAP or the DISPART command and if I have a major
problem, similar to yours, I always use an M$-DOS boot disk.


The difference being that the DOS command FDISK - does return volume
labels (where they exist) on partitions.


The thing is, without knowing which partition is which - you might be
deleting the netbook's recovery partition - should it have one.


My best guess would be :


-: Partition1 EISA Utilities 6150 MB = RECOVERY PARTITION
C: Partition2 NTFS 68653 MB = WINDOWS PARTITION
E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB = UBUNTU PARTITION


Begs the question of why would Ubuntu be installed on a proprietary NTFS
partition?

D: Partition1 KINGSTON [FAT] = YOUR USB DRIVE


.....so, you could try deleting E: Partition3 NTFS 39622 MB
....(unless you know different - that this is NOT the UBUNTU partition!)


My evidence for this is that as you are actually logged in to C:\Windows
while you are running Recovery Console, the partition before it must
have been there before or at the installation of the C: partition - it
has no drive-letter associated with it, so it's probably a hidden
partition - usually this means the recovery partition. That just leaves
Partition3 (E


I think that at this stage finding the Active status of the partitions
might help. Carl (or Bob) would need to create a Windows 98 Startup
disk on USB and use Fdisk to see what is going on with the active
partition flag. I haven't ever made a W98 bootable USB stick but a
quick search on the net leads to sites like this with all the
information and downloads for the necessary files:

http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm
How to Create a bootable USB Memory Key

You should be able to toggle the active partition with Fdisk but I would
also stick PowerQuest's (Symantec} 16-bit PtEdit utility on the
stick:http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/tools.htm

John


Gentlemen -

I DO NOT BELIEVE IT!!!!

It worked!

I cannot thank you enough.

Here's what I did:

I deleted the E partition.

I ran MAP again

Returned:
? NTFS 6150MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
C: NTFS 68653MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
F: NTFS 39621MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
D: FAT16 963MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partition1

I removed the USB flash drive and restarted, and it booted normally,
into Windows and all appears fine.

If you two would bear with me, I will summarize all of the guidance,
step by step, that you give me and post it at the end of this thread
plus post it on the Samsung Netbook site for others having this
problem.

I know there are many others with the problem because when I Googled
the GRUB problem, I got multiple hits but none of them worked for me
and most relied on an external HD and booting from a Windows CD.

Tim said it could be done w/o an external HD and he was right.

I'll try to write my summary this weekend and post it back here.

BTW, just to be sure, shut down my computer and started again and
again, all is well.

My deepest thanks,
Carl

BTW, when I start up , I am offered the choice of booting up in either
M/S Windows XP Home Edition or Ubuntu, so there must be something on
the HD that I need to get rid of in order to weed Ubuntu entirely from
my HD, no?

  #39  
Old April 29th 10, 11:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

In message
,
Carl writes:
[]
You are right; I used the wrong terminology.


One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.


Yes, you can.
[]
What I should have said was I was told, that for licensing reasons, M/
S will not allow you to boot your machine from Windows on an external
USB hard drive.


As another has said, it's technical rather than licencing reasons (and
there are people who've hacked it so that it can be done).

I have a Seagate external HD.

I used Seagate's free software to clone my Netbook's HD to an external
USB HD.


Very wise. (Not wise not to be sure how to restore it, though.)

If I connect that USB HD, boot up, change the Boot Device Priority to
list that USB HD first, then exit and save the configuration, I get
nothing but a blinking white cursor on a black screen.

The first time this happened, I asked on this forum, I believe, and
was told that what I was doing was not possible because M/S did not
allow you to boot from an external HD.

I just tried it, and I am looking at the blinking cursor.

Was I misinformed?

[]
You can clone your HD (to all sorts of things - USB, DVD, external HD).
You can copy the clone back to your HD, for example after a corruption,
and it will restore a system that works as it did when you made the
clone.

You cannot boot from whatever it is you cloned to - only the original
(or a replacement) HD after you've done the cloning-back.

Whatever software you used to make the clone should have offered to make
some boot media that would be able to do the cloning-back. (I suppose it
is still valid to claim it's a cloning utility if it doesn't do this,
but it's not a lot of use without it.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

A language is a dialect that has an army and a navy. -Max Weinreich, linguist
and author (1894-1969)
  #40  
Old April 30th 10, 03:07 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 29, 6:18*pm, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:
In message
,Carl writes:

[]

You are right; I used the wrong terminology.


One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.


Yes, you can.
[]

What I should have said was I was told, that for licensing reasons, M/
S will not allow you to boot your machine from Windows on an external
USB hard drive.


As another has said, it's technical rather than licencing reasons (and
there are people who've hacked it so that it can be done).



I have a Seagate external HD.


I used Seagate's free software to clone my Netbook's HD to an external
USB HD.


Very wise. (Not wise not to be sure how to restore it, though.)

If I connect that USB HD, boot up, change the Boot Device Priority to
list that USB HD first, then exit and save the configuration, I get
nothing but a blinking white cursor on a black screen.


The first time this happened, I asked on this forum, I believe, and
was told that what I was doing was not possible because M/S did not
allow you to boot from an external HD.


I just tried it, and I am looking at the blinking cursor.


Was I misinformed?


[]
You can clone your HD (to all sorts of things - USB, DVD, external HD).
You can copy the clone back to your HD, for example after a corruption,
and it will restore a system that works as it did when you made the
clone.

You cannot boot from whatever it is you cloned to - only the original
(or a replacement) HD after you've done the cloning-back.

Whatever software you used to make the clone should have offered to make
some boot media that would be able to do the cloning-back. (I suppose it
is still valid to claim it's a cloning utility if it doesn't do this,
but it's not a lot of use without it.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
**http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htmfor ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

A language is a dialect that has an army and a navy. -Max Weinreich, linguist
and author (1894-1969)


Thanks for that explanation, J.P.

This weekend, I will make another clone using the Seagate software
and watch carefully to see if there is any offer to make some sort of
boot media that will enable the clone to be copied back to the
internal HD.

Perhaps I missed it on my first clone; I am very new to Windows.

Carl.
  #41  
Old April 30th 10, 11:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 29, 3:01*pm, John John - MVP wrote:
Carl wrote:
On Apr 29, 9:44 am, John John - MVP wrote:
Carl wrote:
On Apr 28, 1:20 pm, "Twayne" wrote:
PS re the Subject line: You do not "clone" XP to a drive. A "clone" IS a
hard drive that contains the operating system. What you do is replace a bad
drive with a "cloned" drive, and in theory it will start right up.
* *Your problem could be in your understanding of what you're trying to
achieve. Whatever it is, it is not "cloning ... back to your HD".
HTH,
Thanks for weighing in, Twayne -
You are right; I used the wrong terminology.
One of the big surprises and disappointments of my introduction to
Microsoft Windows was to learn that, after making a clone of your HD,
if you have trouble, such as I am now having, that you could NOT copy
back the clone of your HD to your internal HD.
Macintosh allows this and instead of backing up each week, I use
SuperDuper to clone my OS to an external HD. *Haven't had to copy that
clone back to my internal HD since Apple came out with OSX, but I did
have to do so once or twice under OS 9 and its predecessors.
What do you mean "you could NOT copy back the clone of your HD to your
internal HD". *We create clones and images all the time here and restore
them back anytime without any problems. *Of course, Windows PCs are much
more varied than Macs, PCs come in a mutltitude of hardware
configurations so moving clones or restoring images to different
computers is not generally supported, whereas a Mac is a Mac is a Mac,
so moving a clone or restoring an image to another Mac might not be a
problem.


John


John -


Lest my misuse of terminology confuses the situation, let me explain.


What I should have said was I was told, that for licensing reasons, M/
S will not allow you to boot your machine from Windows on an external
USB hard drive.


I have a Seagate external HD.


I used Seagate's free software to clone my Netbook's HD to an external
USB HD.


If I connect that USB HD, boot up, change the Boot Device Priority to
list that USB HD first, then exit and save the configuration, I get
nothing but a blinking white cursor on a black screen.


The first time this happened, I asked on this forum, I believe, and
was told that what I was doing was not possible because M/S did not
allow you to boot from an external HD.


I just tried it, and I am looking at the blinking cursor.


Was I misinformed?


This has nothing to do with Microsoft's licensing, it' a technical
limitation of the Windows operating system. *What happens with Windows
is that the USB stack is initialized well after the Windows session
manager has started, so in essence Windows can't boot off a USB drive
because Windows has to initialize the stack before it can use it, a
catch 22 kind of situation. *If you search the internet you will find
information on how some have hacked the stack drivers to make them boot
devices which in turn allows the ntldr boot manager to load the stack
before the session manager is started. *This is unsupported by
Microsoft, they have never bothered rewriting the boot up routine to
have ntldr load the stack so Windows can't boot off a USB drive.

John


BTW, shame on Microsoft for not bothering to rewri
  #42  
Old April 30th 10, 09:35 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Tim Meddick[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,020
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

Carl,
BTW - Did you read my reply on how to stop the unwanted "Ubuntu" entry on the
startup-menu?

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Carl" wrote in message
...

Thanks for that explanation, J.P.


clipped


  #43  
Old May 1st 10, 01:06 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On Apr 30, 4:35*pm, "Tim Meddick" wrote:
Carl,
* * * * BTW - Did you read my reply on how to stop the unwanted "Ubuntu" entry on the
startup-menu?

==

Cheers, * *Tim Meddick, * *Peckham, London. * *:-)


Yes, I did Tim, I just have bee so terribly busy at work that I have
not had time to do it. I will do so this weekend and report back.

I cannot tell you how pleased I am at solving this problem. All
thanks to your patience and good advice.

Carl
  #44  
Old May 1st 10, 10:31 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Carl[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 89
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

On May 1, 8:06*am, Carl wrote:
On Apr 30, 4:35*pm, "Tim Meddick" wrote:

Carl,
* * * * BTW - Did you read my reply on how to stop the unwanted "Ubuntu" entry on the
startup-menu?



Hi Tim -

I followed your instructions, restarted the Netbook and it booted
directly to the Windows log-in screen.

Ubuntu is 100% gone.

Thanks very much.

Carl
  #45  
Old May 3rd 10, 08:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Tim Meddick[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,020
Default PS How to clone Windows XP back to your HD?

I am just very glad to know it!

and... thankyou for re-posting that your problem was resolved.

So many don't bother, and it can be mildly frustrating.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Carl" wrote in message
...
On May 1, 8:06 am, Carl wrote:
On Apr 30, 4:35 pm, "Tim Meddick" wrote:

Carl,
BTW - Did you read my reply on how to stop the unwanted "Ubuntu" entry
on the
startup-menu?



Hi Tim -

I followed your instructions, restarted the Netbook and it booted
directly to the Windows log-in screen.

Ubuntu is 100% gone.

Thanks very much.

Carl

 




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