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#46
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Tom: First of all it's not unusual for a system to abort the boot process when it detects a connected defective HDD, even if the latter is the secondary, and not the boot drive in the system and all connected HDDs have been properly jumpered/connected. We have experienced this a number of times in the PATA-IDE environment. I would guess that was at the root of the failure-to-boot problem you previously experienced. Keeping in mind that we're talking about a Cable Select jumper configuration in the following... Let's assume you have two non-defective HDDs (as you will have shortly); one HDD serving at the boot drive, the other connected as the secondary HDD. And, of course, your BIOS HDD boot priority order would reflect a first boot to the bootable HDD. Standard operating procedure, right? You *could* (in most cases) use the middle connector on the IDE data cable to connect the boot drive and the end connector to the secondary HDD. In most (but not *all*) cases the system will boot & function without problems and the secondary HDD will be detected & functional in all respects. The PC user would not detect anything amiss. What has happened re the preceding scenario is that the boot drive is, in effect, connected to the system as a Slave, and the secondary HDD is the Master. As I've indicated, in most cases there will be no adverse effect on the system performance-wise. But for a variety of reasons which we need not go into now, this is not good practice. Simply stated it is *always* wise to connect your PATA boot drive as Master (on the primary IDE channel) and your secondary HDD as Slave to the Master. So this would entail connecting the boot drive to the end connector of the IDE data cable and the secondary HDD to the middle connector of that data cable. Again, we're talking about a CS configuration. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: When I use Cable Select and connect my current OS HDD, which I assume is my bootable HDD, to the IDE cable end position it appears in my BIOS as the Primary Slave with the other HDD connected in the middle. My BIOS for some reason always detects the Primary Master in the middle position when two HDD's are connected. The only way to connect my OS HDD as the Primary Master when two HDD's are connected is to put it in the middle position according to the BIOS. When using Cable Select if I put the OS HHD at the end of cable and the new HDD in the middle my BIOS will indicate the OS HHD as Primary Slave. The way that I have identified the HHD is by their serial number that appears in the BIOS. The boot drive is my current OS HDD isn't it? I assume that it is. Again I can't get the HDD connected to the end position when two HHD's are connected to appear as Primary Master using Cable Select. It is wrong for HDD's to appear as I have described isn't it or am I missing something? If so is there anything that I can do to correct? Hopefully I have explained my current situation and what I am faced with. I just don't want to ruin a new HHD.... Tom P.S. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but as I mentioned before, the end connector is gray and not black and the middle connector is black not gray as they are outlined in WD instructions, For some reason on this Sony computer the IDE cable connectors are not color coded properly for their position. Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna |
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#47
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Tom: First of all it's not unusual for a system to abort the boot process when it detects a connected defective HDD, even if the latter is the secondary, and not the boot drive in the system and all connected HDDs have been properly jumpered/connected. We have experienced this a number of times in the PATA-IDE environment. I would guess that was at the root of the failure-to-boot problem you previously experienced. Keeping in mind that we're talking about a Cable Select jumper configuration in the following... Let's assume you have two non-defective HDDs (as you will have shortly); one HDD serving at the boot drive, the other connected as the secondary HDD. And, of course, your BIOS HDD boot priority order would reflect a first boot to the bootable HDD. Standard operating procedure, right? You *could* (in most cases) use the middle connector on the IDE data cable to connect the boot drive and the end connector to the secondary HDD. In most (but not *all*) cases the system will boot & function without problems and the secondary HDD will be detected & functional in all respects. The PC user would not detect anything amiss. What has happened re the preceding scenario is that the boot drive is, in effect, connected to the system as a Slave, and the secondary HDD is the Master. As I've indicated, in most cases there will be no adverse effect on the system performance-wise. But for a variety of reasons which we need not go into now, this is not good practice. Simply stated it is *always* wise to connect your PATA boot drive as Master (on the primary IDE channel) and your secondary HDD as Slave to the Master. So this would entail connecting the boot drive to the end connector of the IDE data cable and the secondary HDD to the middle connector of that data cable. Again, we're talking about a CS configuration. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: When I use Cable Select and connect my current OS HDD, which I assume is my bootable HDD, to the IDE cable end position it appears in my BIOS as the Primary Slave with the other HDD connected in the middle. My BIOS for some reason always detects the Primary Master in the middle position when two HDD's are connected. The only way to connect my OS HDD as the Primary Master when two HDD's are connected is to put it in the middle position according to the BIOS. When using Cable Select if I put the OS HHD at the end of cable and the new HDD in the middle my BIOS will indicate the OS HHD as Primary Slave. The way that I have identified the HHD is by their serial number that appears in the BIOS. The boot drive is my current OS HDD isn't it? I assume that it is. Again I can't get the HDD connected to the end position when two HHD's are connected to appear as Primary Master using Cable Select. It is wrong for HDD's to appear as I have described isn't it or am I missing something? If so is there anything that I can do to correct? Hopefully I have explained my current situation and what I am faced with. I just don't want to ruin a new HHD.... Tom P.S. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but as I mentioned before, the end connector is gray and not black and the middle connector is black not gray as they are outlined in WD instructions, For some reason on this Sony computer the IDE cable connectors are not color coded properly for their position. Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna |
#48
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. "Anna" wrote in message ... Tom: First of all it's not unusual for a system to abort the boot process when it detects a connected defective HDD, even if the latter is the secondary, and not the boot drive in the system and all connected HDDs have been properly jumpered/connected. We have experienced this a number of times in the PATA-IDE environment. I would guess that was at the root of the failure-to-boot problem you previously experienced. Keeping in mind that we're talking about a Cable Select jumper configuration in the following... Let's assume you have two non-defective HDDs (as you will have shortly); one HDD serving at the boot drive, the other connected as the secondary HDD. And, of course, your BIOS HDD boot priority order would reflect a first boot to the bootable HDD. Standard operating procedure, right? You *could* (in most cases) use the middle connector on the IDE data cable to connect the boot drive and the end connector to the secondary HDD. In most (but not *all*) cases the system will boot & function without problems and the secondary HDD will be detected & functional in all respects. The PC user would not detect anything amiss. What has happened re the preceding scenario is that the boot drive is, in effect, connected to the system as a Slave, and the secondary HDD is the Master. As I've indicated, in most cases there will be no adverse effect on the system performance-wise. But for a variety of reasons which we need not go into now, this is not good practice. Simply stated it is *always* wise to connect your PATA boot drive as Master (on the primary IDE channel) and your secondary HDD as Slave to the Master. So this would entail connecting the boot drive to the end connector of the IDE data cable and the secondary HDD to the middle connector of that data cable. Again, we're talking about a CS configuration. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: When I use Cable Select and connect my current OS HDD, which I assume is my bootable HDD, to the IDE cable end position it appears in my BIOS as the Primary Slave with the other HDD connected in the middle. My BIOS for some reason always detects the Primary Master in the middle position when two HDD's are connected. The only way to connect my OS HDD as the Primary Master when two HDD's are connected is to put it in the middle position according to the BIOS. When using Cable Select if I put the OS HHD at the end of cable and the new HDD in the middle my BIOS will indicate the OS HHD as Primary Slave. The way that I have identified the HHD is by their serial number that appears in the BIOS. The boot drive is my current OS HDD isn't it? I assume that it is. Again I can't get the HDD connected to the end position when two HHD's are connected to appear as Primary Master using Cable Select. It is wrong for HDD's to appear as I have described isn't it or am I missing something? If so is there anything that I can do to correct? Hopefully I have explained my current situation and what I am faced with. I just don't want to ruin a new HHD.... Tom P.S. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but as I mentioned before, the end connector is gray and not black and the middle connector is black not gray as they are outlined in WD instructions, For some reason on this Sony computer the IDE cable connectors are not color coded properly for their position. Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna |
#49
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. "Anna" wrote in message ... Tom: First of all it's not unusual for a system to abort the boot process when it detects a connected defective HDD, even if the latter is the secondary, and not the boot drive in the system and all connected HDDs have been properly jumpered/connected. We have experienced this a number of times in the PATA-IDE environment. I would guess that was at the root of the failure-to-boot problem you previously experienced. Keeping in mind that we're talking about a Cable Select jumper configuration in the following... Let's assume you have two non-defective HDDs (as you will have shortly); one HDD serving at the boot drive, the other connected as the secondary HDD. And, of course, your BIOS HDD boot priority order would reflect a first boot to the bootable HDD. Standard operating procedure, right? You *could* (in most cases) use the middle connector on the IDE data cable to connect the boot drive and the end connector to the secondary HDD. In most (but not *all*) cases the system will boot & function without problems and the secondary HDD will be detected & functional in all respects. The PC user would not detect anything amiss. What has happened re the preceding scenario is that the boot drive is, in effect, connected to the system as a Slave, and the secondary HDD is the Master. As I've indicated, in most cases there will be no adverse effect on the system performance-wise. But for a variety of reasons which we need not go into now, this is not good practice. Simply stated it is *always* wise to connect your PATA boot drive as Master (on the primary IDE channel) and your secondary HDD as Slave to the Master. So this would entail connecting the boot drive to the end connector of the IDE data cable and the secondary HDD to the middle connector of that data cable. Again, we're talking about a CS configuration. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: When I use Cable Select and connect my current OS HDD, which I assume is my bootable HDD, to the IDE cable end position it appears in my BIOS as the Primary Slave with the other HDD connected in the middle. My BIOS for some reason always detects the Primary Master in the middle position when two HDD's are connected. The only way to connect my OS HDD as the Primary Master when two HDD's are connected is to put it in the middle position according to the BIOS. When using Cable Select if I put the OS HHD at the end of cable and the new HDD in the middle my BIOS will indicate the OS HHD as Primary Slave. The way that I have identified the HHD is by their serial number that appears in the BIOS. The boot drive is my current OS HDD isn't it? I assume that it is. Again I can't get the HDD connected to the end position when two HHD's are connected to appear as Primary Master using Cable Select. It is wrong for HDD's to appear as I have described isn't it or am I missing something? If so is there anything that I can do to correct? Hopefully I have explained my current situation and what I am faced with. I just don't want to ruin a new HHD.... Tom P.S. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but as I mentioned before, the end connector is gray and not black and the middle connector is black not gray as they are outlined in WD instructions, For some reason on this Sony computer the IDE cable connectors are not color coded properly for their position. Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna |
#50
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. Tom: Actually I hadn't realized that you internally-connected the secondary HDD *only* for purposes of the disk-cloning operation. I just (mistakenly) assumed that both HDDs were always connected in the system except for the time when you desired a boot to the "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the clone, *immediately* following the disk-cloning operation - presumably to determine that the clone "took". At that time you would temporarily disconnect the "source" HDD from the system so that the system would boot directly to the newly-cloned HDD and thus avoid any *possible* problems involving drive letter assignments in the future re the cloned HDD - an issue that was previously discussed involving the disk-cloning process. Assuming no problems with newly-cloned disk, you would connect your source HDD. (See my note below re the Casper disk-cloning program). Again, I really cannot account for the problems you experienced with the exception of the defective HDD situation which we previously discussed. I could only repeat what I've already posted re using the Cable Select configuration re connecting one or two HDDs in the system. Rather than go through the HDD connecting - disconnecting - reconnecting process you've described as it involves the disk-cloning operation with the Acronis program, have you considered simply installing one of your HDDs as a USB device in an external enclosure? Since I take it you use your secondary HDD solely as the recipient of the clone this would avoid any potential problems involving a future boot to an internally-connected destination HDD. Another obvious option would be to simply use your Acronis program for disk-imaging purposes to the internally-connected secondary HDD. Although that drive would not be bootable under those circumstances, you would still have a comprehensive backup of your system. I don't know if you've seen my posts concerning the Casper disk-cloning program indicating our strong preference for that program for comprehensive backup purposes. One of the many reasons we prefer that program bears upon an issue you've raised, i.e., the potential need for disconnecting the source HDD immediately following the disk-cloning operation and make an initial boot to the newly-cloned drive. With Casper there's never a problem in this area. At least during the nearly three years we've been using the program and cloned or help clone hundreds of various HDDs we've *never* run into that potential problem. The user can internally connect his or her destination HDD, clone the contents of the source HDD to the destination disk, and have no need to disconnect either the source or destination HDD following the disk-cloning operation. Following the disk-cloning operation, the user can boot straightaway to his/her source HDD (with the newly-cloned HDD still connected) and there will be no problem booting to the cloned HDD at some future time. And with the recent release of the Casper 6 program a new capability has been added to the program - a USB external HDD used as the recipient of the clone can now be bootable. Naturally the motherboard's BIOS must support this capability, i.e., booting from a USB-installed device. Many of the older MBs do not have this capability although virtually all the MBs produced during the past few years have that capability. Re your "P.S."...There shouldn't be any problem negatively affecting your motherboard in terms of causing any permanent problems or causing the board to become defective. I'm sure you're wise enough to disconnect the A/C power from the PC before manipulating any components. Anna |
#51
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. Tom: Actually I hadn't realized that you internally-connected the secondary HDD *only* for purposes of the disk-cloning operation. I just (mistakenly) assumed that both HDDs were always connected in the system except for the time when you desired a boot to the "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the clone, *immediately* following the disk-cloning operation - presumably to determine that the clone "took". At that time you would temporarily disconnect the "source" HDD from the system so that the system would boot directly to the newly-cloned HDD and thus avoid any *possible* problems involving drive letter assignments in the future re the cloned HDD - an issue that was previously discussed involving the disk-cloning process. Assuming no problems with newly-cloned disk, you would connect your source HDD. (See my note below re the Casper disk-cloning program). Again, I really cannot account for the problems you experienced with the exception of the defective HDD situation which we previously discussed. I could only repeat what I've already posted re using the Cable Select configuration re connecting one or two HDDs in the system. Rather than go through the HDD connecting - disconnecting - reconnecting process you've described as it involves the disk-cloning operation with the Acronis program, have you considered simply installing one of your HDDs as a USB device in an external enclosure? Since I take it you use your secondary HDD solely as the recipient of the clone this would avoid any potential problems involving a future boot to an internally-connected destination HDD. Another obvious option would be to simply use your Acronis program for disk-imaging purposes to the internally-connected secondary HDD. Although that drive would not be bootable under those circumstances, you would still have a comprehensive backup of your system. I don't know if you've seen my posts concerning the Casper disk-cloning program indicating our strong preference for that program for comprehensive backup purposes. One of the many reasons we prefer that program bears upon an issue you've raised, i.e., the potential need for disconnecting the source HDD immediately following the disk-cloning operation and make an initial boot to the newly-cloned drive. With Casper there's never a problem in this area. At least during the nearly three years we've been using the program and cloned or help clone hundreds of various HDDs we've *never* run into that potential problem. The user can internally connect his or her destination HDD, clone the contents of the source HDD to the destination disk, and have no need to disconnect either the source or destination HDD following the disk-cloning operation. Following the disk-cloning operation, the user can boot straightaway to his/her source HDD (with the newly-cloned HDD still connected) and there will be no problem booting to the cloned HDD at some future time. And with the recent release of the Casper 6 program a new capability has been added to the program - a USB external HDD used as the recipient of the clone can now be bootable. Naturally the motherboard's BIOS must support this capability, i.e., booting from a USB-installed device. Many of the older MBs do not have this capability although virtually all the MBs produced during the past few years have that capability. Re your "P.S."...There shouldn't be any problem negatively affecting your motherboard in terms of causing any permanent problems or causing the board to become defective. I'm sure you're wise enough to disconnect the A/C power from the PC before manipulating any components. Anna |
#52
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom P.S. Still mind boggling as to why the old OS HDD when connected to the IDE cable end position using CS comes up Primary Slave and the new HDD connected to the middle position comes up Primary Master?? This is why I have always had to reverse and connect the old OS HDD in the middle to get it as Primary Master. When two HDD's are connected using CS the middle is always Primary Master and the end is Primary Slave. Guess this will always be an unknown.... "Anna" wrote in message ... Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. Tom: Actually I hadn't realized that you internally-connected the secondary HDD *only* for purposes of the disk-cloning operation. I just (mistakenly) assumed that both HDDs were always connected in the system except for the time when you desired a boot to the "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the clone, *immediately* following the disk-cloning operation - presumably to determine that the clone "took". At that time you would temporarily disconnect the "source" HDD from the system so that the system would boot directly to the newly-cloned HDD and thus avoid any *possible* problems involving drive letter assignments in the future re the cloned HDD - an issue that was previously discussed involving the disk-cloning process. Assuming no problems with newly-cloned disk, you would connect your source HDD. (See my note below re the Casper disk-cloning program). Again, I really cannot account for the problems you experienced with the exception of the defective HDD situation which we previously discussed. I could only repeat what I've already posted re using the Cable Select configuration re connecting one or two HDDs in the system. Rather than go through the HDD connecting - disconnecting - reconnecting process you've described as it involves the disk-cloning operation with the Acronis program, have you considered simply installing one of your HDDs as a USB device in an external enclosure? Since I take it you use your secondary HDD solely as the recipient of the clone this would avoid any potential problems involving a future boot to an internally-connected destination HDD. Another obvious option would be to simply use your Acronis program for disk-imaging purposes to the internally-connected secondary HDD. Although that drive would not be bootable under those circumstances, you would still have a comprehensive backup of your system. I don't know if you've seen my posts concerning the Casper disk-cloning program indicating our strong preference for that program for comprehensive backup purposes. One of the many reasons we prefer that program bears upon an issue you've raised, i.e., the potential need for disconnecting the source HDD immediately following the disk-cloning operation and make an initial boot to the newly-cloned drive. With Casper there's never a problem in this area. At least during the nearly three years we've been using the program and cloned or help clone hundreds of various HDDs we've *never* run into that potential problem. The user can internally connect his or her destination HDD, clone the contents of the source HDD to the destination disk, and have no need to disconnect either the source or destination HDD following the disk-cloning operation. Following the disk-cloning operation, the user can boot straightaway to his/her source HDD (with the newly-cloned HDD still connected) and there will be no problem booting to the cloned HDD at some future time. And with the recent release of the Casper 6 program a new capability has been added to the program - a USB external HDD used as the recipient of the clone can now be bootable. Naturally the motherboard's BIOS must support this capability, i.e., booting from a USB-installed device. Many of the older MBs do not have this capability although virtually all the MBs produced during the past few years have that capability. Re your "P.S."...There shouldn't be any problem negatively affecting your motherboard in terms of causing any permanent problems or causing the board to become defective. I'm sure you're wise enough to disconnect the A/C power from the PC before manipulating any components. Anna |
#53
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom P.S. Still mind boggling as to why the old OS HDD when connected to the IDE cable end position using CS comes up Primary Slave and the new HDD connected to the middle position comes up Primary Master?? This is why I have always had to reverse and connect the old OS HDD in the middle to get it as Primary Master. When two HDD's are connected using CS the middle is always Primary Master and the end is Primary Slave. Guess this will always be an unknown.... "Anna" wrote in message ... Tom: With respect to this issue, all I can tell you based upon our experience with a wide variety of PCs is that when two PATA HDDs properly jumpered for Cable Select are properly connected to the IDE data cable to the Primary IDE channel, the HDD connected to the end connector is designated by the system as Primary Master and the HDD connected to the middle connector as Primary Slave. We're naturally assuming that all involved components are non-defective, i.e., the motherboard's IDE channel, the IDE data cable, and both HDDs. And that the proper connections have been made. Generally speaking we have found that the three connectors on the IDE data cable are blue, black, and gray; the blue connector usually connected to the IDE channel, the black connector being the middle connector, and the gray connector the end connector. But we have come across a sizeable number of data cables with different color combinations. As I've previously indicated it is the *position* of the data cable connector (middle or end) and not the color of the connector, that determines whether the system will designate the attached HDD as either Master or Slave when the HDDs are jumpered CS. So that the HDD connected to the end connector is designated Master, while the HDD connected to the middle connector is designated Slave. As I believe I may have previously mentioned - should a user be working with a single HDD (containing the bootable OS) jumpered CS and connects the drive to the middle connector on the IDE data cable the system will detect that drive as a Slave. Generally speaking and as a practical matter there's usually no harm in that configuration and by & large we've found no discernable effect on performance, but it's better practice (for a number of reasons) to connect the drive to the end connector where it will be designated as Master. However, on the other hand, we have come across a number of motherboards who will balk at booting a HDD in the Slave position. I honestly don't know why you're experiencing the situation you describe. It might be worthwhile (assuming you haven't done so already) to contact Sony tech support to see if they can shed some light on this. In any event there's really nothing to be concerned about re misconfiguring the HDD connections; doing so would have no effect on causing a non-defective HDD to become defective or "ruining" it. Anna "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: I suppose you have gathered by now that the only time that I have two HDD's connected is during the cloning process and this is correct. I never have two HDD's connected otherwise. Again in reviewing my notes for past cloning using CS I have always had to connect the current OS HDD in the middle position to get it to appear as Primary Master. Otherwise it appears as Primary Slave. I therefore have had to connect the new HDD to the end position where it will appear as Primary Slave. Using the above procedures for past cloning I have never had a problem until this last time when I did not disconnect the cloned HDD immediately afterwards upon shutdown. And of course after I did not disconnect and rebooted I could not get the cloned HDD to appear as a disk drive even though the BIOS indicated it as Primary Slave. As far as I know this cloned HDD was not defective in any way prior to my cloning it. I might add that my normal connections for the single OS HDD is to connect it to the IDE cable end position and then it does appear in BIOS as Primary Master and this is the way that I currently have it. In reviewing my notes I always ran a scandisk on the currently installed HDD prior to cloning. Next after connecting the new HDD I formatted it prior to cloning. I did neither of these processes in my last clone attempt and do not know if by not doing so it contributed to the cloning problem that I encountered. Based upon all this do you have any recommendations using the CS with Jumper pins in 1 & 2 position to use when I get the new HDD? If not, I am going to try once again using the same CS connection procedures I have used in the past including the checkdsk on OS HDD and format new HDD as mentioned above. Again I appreciate all your postings in this regards, Tom P.S. I just hope that I haven't caused something with my motherboard that will cause my new HDD not to appear as I disk drive upon initial boot. I must have something that is not right somewhere for the HDD's not to appear correct using the CS. Tom: Actually I hadn't realized that you internally-connected the secondary HDD *only* for purposes of the disk-cloning operation. I just (mistakenly) assumed that both HDDs were always connected in the system except for the time when you desired a boot to the "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the clone, *immediately* following the disk-cloning operation - presumably to determine that the clone "took". At that time you would temporarily disconnect the "source" HDD from the system so that the system would boot directly to the newly-cloned HDD and thus avoid any *possible* problems involving drive letter assignments in the future re the cloned HDD - an issue that was previously discussed involving the disk-cloning process. Assuming no problems with newly-cloned disk, you would connect your source HDD. (See my note below re the Casper disk-cloning program). Again, I really cannot account for the problems you experienced with the exception of the defective HDD situation which we previously discussed. I could only repeat what I've already posted re using the Cable Select configuration re connecting one or two HDDs in the system. Rather than go through the HDD connecting - disconnecting - reconnecting process you've described as it involves the disk-cloning operation with the Acronis program, have you considered simply installing one of your HDDs as a USB device in an external enclosure? Since I take it you use your secondary HDD solely as the recipient of the clone this would avoid any potential problems involving a future boot to an internally-connected destination HDD. Another obvious option would be to simply use your Acronis program for disk-imaging purposes to the internally-connected secondary HDD. Although that drive would not be bootable under those circumstances, you would still have a comprehensive backup of your system. I don't know if you've seen my posts concerning the Casper disk-cloning program indicating our strong preference for that program for comprehensive backup purposes. One of the many reasons we prefer that program bears upon an issue you've raised, i.e., the potential need for disconnecting the source HDD immediately following the disk-cloning operation and make an initial boot to the newly-cloned drive. With Casper there's never a problem in this area. At least during the nearly three years we've been using the program and cloned or help clone hundreds of various HDDs we've *never* run into that potential problem. The user can internally connect his or her destination HDD, clone the contents of the source HDD to the destination disk, and have no need to disconnect either the source or destination HDD following the disk-cloning operation. Following the disk-cloning operation, the user can boot straightaway to his/her source HDD (with the newly-cloned HDD still connected) and there will be no problem booting to the cloned HDD at some future time. And with the recent release of the Casper 6 program a new capability has been added to the program - a USB external HDD used as the recipient of the clone can now be bootable. Naturally the motherboard's BIOS must support this capability, i.e., booting from a USB-installed device. Many of the older MBs do not have this capability although virtually all the MBs produced during the past few years have that capability. Re your "P.S."...There shouldn't be any problem negatively affecting your motherboard in terms of causing any permanent problems or causing the board to become defective. I'm sure you're wise enough to disconnect the A/C power from the PC before manipulating any components. Anna |
#54
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
"ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
#55
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
"ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
#56
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
I received the new HDD and proceeded as carefully as I could in following the correct procedures. 1. When I connected the new HDD in the Primary Slave position it indicated finding new hardware etc; however, the HDD did not appear with a drive letter assigned. I used Disk Management and finally initialized the disk, but sill no drive letter. I noticed that it said "Unallocated" so I right clicked and had very few options, but one was "New Partition". I finally clicked on it and it did assign the next drive letter "F" and immediately started Formatting the disk. 2. It took a good awhile to finally Format and it got to 100% and indicated the disk was "Healthy. Original Disk was "O" Local Drive "C" and new Disk was "1" something. 3. I then clicked on Acronis and ran it's Clone procedures and everything went as normal. Took about 15 minutes to clone the new HDD and said to hit any key to shut down which I did. At this point I thought everything was fine. 4. I reconnected the new HDD and changed the Jumper pin to 1 & 2, disconnected the old HDD, and thought that I was set to go. 5. Low and behold I now apparently have a cloned HDD that is NOT bootable, as it would not boot and I got the message to insert disk or whatever. At this point I am just about fed up with HDD's and have no idea what to do next to get the cloned HDD to boot. If you can tell me where I am and what I need to do next I will be most appreciative. I still can't believe the new HDD will not boot. Thanks, Tom "Anna" wrote in message ... "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
I received the new HDD and proceeded as carefully as I could in following the correct procedures. 1. When I connected the new HDD in the Primary Slave position it indicated finding new hardware etc; however, the HDD did not appear with a drive letter assigned. I used Disk Management and finally initialized the disk, but sill no drive letter. I noticed that it said "Unallocated" so I right clicked and had very few options, but one was "New Partition". I finally clicked on it and it did assign the next drive letter "F" and immediately started Formatting the disk. 2. It took a good awhile to finally Format and it got to 100% and indicated the disk was "Healthy. Original Disk was "O" Local Drive "C" and new Disk was "1" something. 3. I then clicked on Acronis and ran it's Clone procedures and everything went as normal. Took about 15 minutes to clone the new HDD and said to hit any key to shut down which I did. At this point I thought everything was fine. 4. I reconnected the new HDD and changed the Jumper pin to 1 & 2, disconnected the old HDD, and thought that I was set to go. 5. Low and behold I now apparently have a cloned HDD that is NOT bootable, as it would not boot and I got the message to insert disk or whatever. At this point I am just about fed up with HDD's and have no idea what to do next to get the cloned HDD to boot. If you can tell me where I am and what I need to do next I will be most appreciative. I still can't believe the new HDD will not boot. Thanks, Tom "Anna" wrote in message ... "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
Well good news finally! I reconnected the new cloned HDD this morning and tried to boot and it failed, as I mentioned in my prior posting last night. I rebooted to see what the BIOS indicated and no disk was found in either the Primary Master or Primary Slave. I had made a bootable CD with Acronis as they recommended, but of course it would not work because of the disk not being found. For some reason I thought of the Jumper pin which was in positions 1 & 2 (the same position as my old HDD), but anyway I removed the Jumper entirely. Guess what....with the Jumper pin removed the disk showed up in the BIOS as Primary Master! Got a Windows screen shortly that said I should reboot to I suppose get the disk squared away (I forget exactly what it said and why the reboot). But when it rebooted everything on the new HDD works as should be. Now I have two HDD's that work; however, with both connected to the end IDE cable the old works with the Jumper pin in 1&2 and the new will only work with the Jumper pin totally removed. If you have any idea as to why I would love to hear it. Anyway I just want to thank you immensely for all your time and effort in helping me resolve this issue and I really do appreciate all that you have done. Tom P.S. You helped me learn a lot more about HDD's than I ever knew, but I now know there is a lot more that I can learn. "Anna" wrote in message ... "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
Hi Anna:
Well good news finally! I reconnected the new cloned HDD this morning and tried to boot and it failed, as I mentioned in my prior posting last night. I rebooted to see what the BIOS indicated and no disk was found in either the Primary Master or Primary Slave. I had made a bootable CD with Acronis as they recommended, but of course it would not work because of the disk not being found. For some reason I thought of the Jumper pin which was in positions 1 & 2 (the same position as my old HDD), but anyway I removed the Jumper entirely. Guess what....with the Jumper pin removed the disk showed up in the BIOS as Primary Master! Got a Windows screen shortly that said I should reboot to I suppose get the disk squared away (I forget exactly what it said and why the reboot). But when it rebooted everything on the new HDD works as should be. Now I have two HDD's that work; however, with both connected to the end IDE cable the old works with the Jumper pin in 1&2 and the new will only work with the Jumper pin totally removed. If you have any idea as to why I would love to hear it. Anyway I just want to thank you immensely for all your time and effort in helping me resolve this issue and I really do appreciate all that you have done. Tom P.S. You helped me learn a lot more about HDD's than I ever knew, but I now know there is a lot more that I can learn. "Anna" wrote in message ... "ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: In the past using Acronis when I finished cloning the new HDD and shut down I could then disconnect the prior OS HDD and connect the newly cloned HDD as my main OS HDD and had no trouble booting with it. I am using the HDD's as back up so to speak. I save the old OS HDD as my back up and then use the newly cloned as my primary HDD. About every six months I would do this process where I would have an updated back up HDD. This way my back up HDD was a truly functional bootable HDD and to use it all that I had to do was reconnect it as Primary Master in case of HDD failure. Also it allowed me to distribute the operating time on each hard drive. I am merely cloning them on a rotational purpose so to speak whereas I will always have a replacement HDD ready if need be. I agree with you about Casper vs Acronis and if I knew then what I know now I would have purchased Casper. Oh well.... Again thanks, Tom (P.S. SNIPPED) Tom: If I correctly understand you, you're undertaking the disk-cloning operation every six months. Do I have this right? Should that be the case, there's really no significant advantage to the Casper disk-cloning program over the Acronis one as related to the disk-cloning process. While I believe there are a number of advantages with Casper viz-a-viz the Acronis program as they relate to user friendliness and simplicity of operations, they are not crucial advantages if & when the user employs a disk-cloning program on a relatively infrequent basis, e.g., every six months or thereabouts. Frankly any reasonably well-behaved disk-cloning (or even disk imaging) program should suffice for a user under those circumstances. The truly significant advantage (in my view) of Casper as compared with every other disk-cloning & disk-imaging program I've ever worked with is its rather extroardinary ability to quickly clone the contents of one HDD to another HDD. But this ability manifests itself *only* when the program is utilized on a routine & frequent basis - say every few days or weekly or even on a daily basis. As you may know I've commented in detail on this process so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that through Casper's "SmartClone" technology the backup (cloning) operation takes only a fraction of the time it would take other disk-cloning/disk-imaging programs. So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically & routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be relatively slight provided they undertake the disk-cloning operation on a fairly frequent basis. Anna |
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Cloned Additional Hard Drive Not Recognized
"ColTom2" wrote in message ... Hi Anna: I received the new HDD and proceeded as carefully as I could in following the correct procedures. 1. When I connected the new HDD in the Primary Slave position it indicated finding new hardware etc; however, the HDD did not appear with a drive letter assigned. I used Disk Management and finally initialized the disk, but sill no drive letter. I noticed that it said "Unallocated" so I right clicked and had very few options, but one was "New Partition". I finally clicked on it and it did assign the next drive letter "F" and immediately started Formatting the disk. 2. It took a good awhile to finally Format and it got to 100% and indicated the disk was "Healthy. Original Disk was "O" Local Drive "C" and new Disk was "1" something. 3. I then clicked on Acronis and ran it's Clone procedures and everything went as normal. Took about 15 minutes to clone the new HDD and said to hit any key to shut down which I did. At this point I thought everything was fine. 4. I reconnected the new HDD and changed the Jumper pin to 1 & 2, disconnected the old HDD, and thought that I was set to go. 5. Low and behold I now apparently have a cloned HDD that is NOT bootable, as it would not boot and I got the message to insert disk or whatever. At this point I am just about fed up with HDD's and have no idea what to do next to get the cloned HDD to boot. If you can tell me where I am and what I need to do next I will be most appreciative. I still can't believe the new HDD will not boot. Thanks, Tom Tom: With respect to 1, 2, & 3 above... When a brand-new unpartitioned/unformatted HDD is installed in the machine as a secondary HDD the XP OS requires that the disk be "initialized" before it can be integrated into the system and be partitioned & formatted. This "initialization" process as I'm sure you discovered is quite simple & quick. Ordinarily the OS will generate a message to this effect, i.e., the need for initialization when the system boots to the user's boot drive and the user accesses the Disk Management snap-in utility. But not always in our experience. In any event there is that need to initialize the disk before proceeding with the partitioning/formatting process so that one or more drive letters will be assigned to the disk. Actually there was probably no need for you to undertake the preceding process since you were intending to clone the contents of your "source" (boot) HDD to the new "destination" HDD using your Acronis disk-cloning program. As long as you were making a disk-to-disk copy, the disk-cloning process in & of itself would carry out the partitioning/formatting process without user intervention and an appropriate drive letter (or letters) would have been assigned by the OS to the cloned destination disk following completion of the disk-cloning process. Under those circumstances there really wasn't any need for you to invoke the Disk Management utility in connection with that process. Ordinarily the only time there *would* be a need for the DM process would be when you wanted to manipulate the number & size of partitions on the destination HDD so that they would be different from the number/size of the partitions on your source HDD. (And even over that latter circumstance you could achieve this manipulation using Casper's disk-cloning process; I'm unsure whether you could do the same with the Acronis program although I believe you could). It's been some time since I've worked with the Acronis program so I hope I'm correct re the preceding info. If I'm not I trust you or someone coming upon this thread will correct me. With respect to 4... I'm not clear as to why there was a need for you to change the jumper configuration on your newly-cloned HDD. You're indicating at this point, i.e., immediately following the disk-cloning process, you now jumpered the disk Cable Select? Do I have this right? But wasn't it jumpered CS from the time you first installed the disk? In any event, are you absolutely sure the disk was jumpered CS at this point after you disconnected your source HDD? The potential problem here is that if you didn't correctly jumper the disk CS and that Western Digital disk is the *only* HDD connected in the system, then it must be jumpered what WD terms "Single". Failure to do so will usually (but not always) result in a failure-to-boot situation. (I'm assuming in all this is that following the disk-cloning operation with both your source & destination HDDs connected you took a peek at the new HDD via Windows Explorer or some such and as best you could determine it appeared all the files/folders seemed to have been correctly copied). All-in-all it sounds like a simple misconfiguration of one sort or another is at the root of the problem (assuming the disk-cloning operation was successful). It's hard to imagine you're dealing with another defective HDD. Assuming you're unable to resolve the problem at this point, would you consider doing the following?... Download & install the trial version of Casper 6 from http://www.fssdev.com/products/free/ Give it a whirl and see how it goes. Note that this trial edition is slightly crippled in that it will create a partition on the destination HDD only sufficient in size to hold the contents of your source HDD. So that (in your case) where your source HDD is a 250 GB HDD and the total data contents on that drive total, for example, 55 GB, the 250 GB HDD that you're using as the destination HDD will contain a partition of 55 GB to hold those contents. The remaining disk space on the destination HDD will be unpartitioned/unallocated. (Naturally you could later use Disk Management to create & format whatever other partitions you desired on that destination HDD). Of course there is no similar limitation in the licensed version of Casper 6. In any event there's no harm or permanent situation in using the trial edition of Casper 6, so give it a shot just in case it's the Acronis disk-cloning operation that's somehow involved in this problem you've related. Anna |
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