Hard Drive Replacement Using Free Tools?

[Steve Sr.]

Don't worry, the BR14 will take care of the Windows bootability, by default. Even if you decide to change the number, size and order of partitions.

Well... Not so much... Apparently with a Dual Boot MBR system like this.

I first installed the old drives again to check the drive letter assignments. I didn't remember if I had made any permanent hard drive letter assignments yet, these appear to have had names assigned to them. Here is what I originally had:

A: Floppy
B: N/A
C: Disk 0 P1 - 2K Boot
D: DVD-ROM
E: CD-RW
F: Disk 0 P2 - Data
G: Disk 0 P3 - Scratch
H: Disk 1 P1 - XP Boot
I: Disk 1 P2 - Data
J: Disk 1 P3 - Scratch

When I installed the new drives I got the dual boot screen but at least one of the choices had changed. I believe that the XP choice had been replaced as follows:

Win 2000 (on volume 1) <--- I think this should have been XP and the default boot choice.
Windows 2000 Professional

Selecting either choice puts up the Win 2K splash screen followed by BSOD Stop 0x7B - Inaccessible boot device.

So it would appear that BR14 screwed up some of the info need to boot either OS on either the backup or restore operation. How do I go about troubleshooting this?


Thanks,
Steve

[fireworker]

Damn. I overlooked that when Paragon recovered Windows partitions, it try to provide bootability for the current PC, without suspecting that these Windows should be booted on a completely different PC, with a different configuration. Mea culpa.
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How do I go about troubleshooting this?

The first thing that comes to mind is to restore the system partitions - directly on the target PC. To do this, you will need a flash drive - bootable BR14. Backups beforehand need copy to the free space of the new disk (only not on the boot, the one that will be restored, partition).

[Steve Sr.]

This sounds like a Paragon design issue...

MBR backup should restore to MBR.
UEFI backup should restore to UEFI.

It shouldn't matter what machine is doing the backup or restoring. Anything else is a design deficiency! Are there any configuration settings to force a correct restore?

[fireworker]

This sounds like a Paragon design issue...

MBR backup should restore to MBR.
UEFI backup should restore to UEFI.

It shouldn't matter what machine is doing the backup or restoring. Anything else is a design deficiency! Are there any configuration settings to force a correct restore?

No no. The problem is not with Paragon, and MBR is perfect OK. There is still a very weak hope that Paragon is just not correct (for the target PC config) edited the boot.ini file.

Steve, can you attach the new and old boot.ini files here?

[fireworker]

It would be possible to forbid Paragon updating boot parameters, but it seems that this option in the settings of BR14 Free does not exist..

BTW in RK14 there is a tool "Boot Corrector" ..

I will now write to the technical support of Paragon request to respond in this thread. I hope they will offer a clear and optimal solution.
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Damn, today is the day off.

[Steve Sr.]

Here is some more information...

I wanted to see if the new restored drives and partitions were visible on the target PC. After several failures I finally figured out how to make x32 BIOS recovery CD (PC won't USB flash boot). The secret (I think) is to select Linux + BIOS = x32. The RK14 boots O.K. on the XP PC but hangs on the screen with the disk drive on it.

From this I am assuming that the partition table(s) are incorrect type or corrupted. I have not removed the new drives yet from the XP PC to see if they can be read on the Win7 PC. Even if they can there isn't much point as they need to be seen on the target PC. So either the backup or restore was a colossal FAIL! Sometimes wizards are really stupid! They make decisions and assumptions without telling the user what they are doing and why!


Thanks,
Steve

[fireworker]

Steve, nothing catastrophic has happened so far. You have unmodified old disks and backup copies of these disks. Just for some reason new disks do not load. I'm sure that the partition tables for them are in perfect order.
Perhaps the problem is only in the boot.ini file, I want to see it.
Connect the first (drive 0) new disk to the Win7 computer, start "disk management" (Run -> diskmgmt.msc) and assign the first (system) partition to the new drive any letter. Then start Notepad with Administrator rights, Open File -> X: \ boot.ini (where instead of "X" you assigned) copy and place here, please.

Sometimes wizards are really stupid! They make decisions and assumptions without telling the user what they are doing and why!

Personally, I do not like the fact that I can not learn in detail what manipulations the Paragon programs produce after restoring Windows system partitions, and especially do not like the fact that this auto-updating partition can not be disabled in some programs.
I hope the support will soon wake up, come here and fix it.
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PC won't USB flash boot

Which motherboard model is in your old PC?

[Steve Sr.]

Steve, nothing catastrophic has happened so far. You have unmodified old disks and backup copies of these disks. Just for some reason new disks do not load.

I am trying to avoid running the failing disk as much as possible. It has already done the "click-of-death" dance once before. Better to learn now than when you really need to restore!

Perhaps the problem is only in the boot.ini file, I want to see it.
Connect the first (drive 0) new disk to the Win7 computer, start "disk management" (Run -> diskmgmt.msc) and assign the first (system) partition to the new drive any letter. Then start Notepad with Administrator rights, Open File -> X: \ boot.ini (where instead of "X" you assigned) copy and place here, please.

I just plugged in the restored disk 0 into the Win7 PC and before booting proceeded to run Chkdsk on the 3 partitions so the drive is apparently mountable in Win 7. I also pulled the updated boot.ini file from it.

Both original and restored boot files are attached. BR14 did make some changes but I don't believe that it is enough to cause the issues that I am seeing. The system tries to boot 2K at least but fails with a BSOD part way into the boot process.

The other issue is that the RK14 x32 Linux can't see either drive (or any partitions) in the target machine. This leads me to believe that there are bigger issues with either the backup or restore process that were hidden behind the various "wizards"... Like perhaps the hard boot sector offset required for BIOS systems.

Which motherboard model is in your old PC?

ASUS P4C-800E. I believe that it has the latest BIOS in it. I am mainly keeping it around for a backup and special audio and optical disk hardware that won't run on the Win 7 PC. I believe that this BIOS is just before they introduced Flash booting.

[fireworker]

1. Please replace Restored boot.ini to Original. (when recovering, Paragon did not find the second HDD and corrected the boot.ini so that both menu entry refer to the same OS)
2. Could it be that you accidentally interchange the cables (or HDDs) when installing new disks in the old PC (disk0 became disk1 and vice versa)?

[Steve Sr.]

1. Please replace Restored boot.ini to Original.

Both boot choices are now on the menu -
2K - Same boot issue BSOD 0x78 Stop.
XP - After running CHKDSK a couple of times and a boot loop or two actually booted and appears to be alive!

(when recovering, Paragon did not find the second HDD and corrected the boot.ini so that both menu entry refer to the same OS)

How nice of Paragon to help me out! :-P It could have asked... or at least told me what it was doing.

2. Could it be that you accidentally interchange the cables (or HDDs) when installing new disks in the old PC (disk0 became disk1 and vice versa)?

Not possible. This was verified when I checked the drive letter assignments with the old drives.

I did some more work on the RK14 CD. I plugged it into another known good XP PC and it eventually came up with the rescue environment. This proves that RK14 will at least run in a 32-bit BIOS system. Later this evening after fixing the boot.ini file I put it back into the target XP PC... and started a stop watch on my phone. After about 5 minutes! of hard drive picture on the screen the rescue environment finally appeared. So it looks like we have the rescue environment available to troubleshoot the 2K boot issue if needed. Just have to take a coffee break after loading the CD!

BTW, I did not see the "Boot Corrector" on the RK14 rescue environment unless it is hidden under another tool.