Cloning An Xp Drive

[Oh_Kay]

Ok.. Thanks to all who posted, but here is the situation...

This issue is caused by Windows and can not be 'fixed' in any way that is even remotely close to satisfactory, but it's all we got.. Thanks to Microsoft, it transpires you need to reinstall Windows when you upgrade or replace certain hardware in your system...

This is first rate down time in my book, that my system and as a result my business, can well do without..

Even the most disruptive viruses and hackers have not caused me this much down time in 4 years, trust Microsoft to do it by design and whats worse is, having to pay them for the privilage!!!!!

Don't do me any more favours Microsoft, please ??

Ok, rant over...

I have added and changed disk drives on this system since I bought it.. Windows never complained... I changed the CPU & Motherboard from an AthlonXP to an Athon64, it never complained... Each time it would boot up quite happily afterwards and ask for a driver, install it, job done.

I recently added a 160Gb SATA drive to my setup.. I used a disk clone utility (Norton Ghost) to reproduce my existing Boot drive (80Gb SATA) on to a new 160Gb SATA so I could boot from that, I want to install a different OS that I don't use very often on my 80Gb drive...

Now windows wants me to reinstall XP because it can't check the licence for my computer ? I have an original disk here, but there is no 'fix'.. No 'patch'.. No way... The only option is to do what Microsoft spin doctors laughingly call an "In-Place Upgrade" which as you can see from this link is actually a reinstall...

They claim it's non-destructive.. and to a certain extent, it is... but after this 'Upgrade' you then need to add all the Windows updates again as if you had never done them, as it will destroy all of those... as well as destroying all the drivers for all your hardware and probably dozens of other things I didn't get to find out about..

I tried this path and what it left me was something that was so unstable I had to do a clean install and start from scratch... As I said earlier, even hackers ain't put my system out of use for that length of time... it will take days to get it back to what it was before I added that HD...

The moral of this tale... Upgrader Beware !!!

Windows XP does not like you adding or changing hardware in your system, personally I think they should put that on the front of the box IN BIG LETTERS, if it's such a good thing for the customer as they claim... At least then consumers could make an informed decision about what they are buying before they commit their livelyhood to it...

I understand their concerns and their reasons for building this in to Windows by design, but there has to be a better way... I mean... REALLY... there does...

In Conclusion...

If you are reading this thread because you did a web search for "A problem is preventing windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. ERROR 0x80090006" then the Microsoft answer you are looking for is here... For more info, also see here.

From my experience, this process may leave your system unstable and you will end up doing a clean install, so I'm tempted to suggest you don't waste any time with it... but it will preserve some data and if you have no other way to access it, you may have no choice...

Good luck.

With thanks to GreenMachine for finding me these URL's I put here !!

(And just for being GreenMachine)

Kay

[cram68]

My system currently has 2 40gb hard drives that I use to dual-boot. Drive C:\ is Windows 98 and drive D:\ is Windows XP Pro. I bought a 160GB drive, made 4 40GB partitions, and copied the first drive to partition C:\ and the 2nd drive to partition D:\. After changing the boot.ini file, I can boot to Windows 98, but get this error when booting to XP: "A Problem is Preventing Windows from Accurately Checking the License for this Computer - 0x80090006". Is there a way to avoid this problem, possibly by using Norton Ghost or PartitionMagic 8? I did not use those programs originally to copy the files. Or am I just going to have to use the Microsoft way of fixing this problem and reinstall XP? Any help would be appreciated.

[GreenMachine]

@cram68: Just take a look at Kay's conclusion. I'd say resign yourself to either an "inplace-upgrade", as linked to above, or, preferably, a nice clean unattended install.

Well ... another one MIA ... looks like we lost Kay. Hope she finds RaveRod in her travels ...

[cram68]

I found a solution to my problem. I kept my new 160gb hard drive completely unpartitioned. I used Partitionmagic 8 and did a copy partition on my c:\ drive, then on my d:\ drive. It copied the partitions exactly (including size). I then changed the boot.ini, and both OS's started perfectly. I then used Partitionmagic to create 2 additional 40gb partitions that I will use for backup purposes. I highly recommend Partitonmagic 8.

[GreenMachine]

Good work, cram68. Further examination suggests that Kay's troubles may be due to previous hardware upgrades. When changing more than one "primary" hardware component (HDD, CPU, MB, and who knows what else ... ), the third change results in the afore mentioned error. So, if you're counting, this is strike one.

[joewyo]

Wolfman - thanks for the post. Had same problem, used paragon drive backup 6.0 to migrate from a mirrored pair of 20 gig drives to a pair of 120 gig drives. By clearing the MBR, Boot It NG had me going in no time. Thanks, again.

[avlm]

Hello

Reading earlier posts I tried Bootit NG, and it worked!

BUT I have other problems now!!

The computer will not connect to the network no matter what I do

reinstalled nic drivers

tried another adapter

tried usb adapter

Second problem

Cant get Norton works to work

uninstalled and reinstalled

[IcemanND]

avlm - check the TCP/ip filtering settings. Proerties of TCP/IP -> Advanced -> Options -> Properties. Set all to permit all, if this is not it try winsoxfix.exe it reset all the registry keys, reloads some of the TCP/IP files, and in general fixes most hosed tcp/ip stack problems

[efilflah]

***** you Cram* ****shakes fist***....

I'm having issues with cloning my drive using Copy partition in Partition magic 8.

I have a c: IDE which I want to clone onto my new 120gb SATA. the problem is when It gets to the rebooting part it returns the error

Batch(1611) Bad system filename, file 9(48)

which is lameage. And the amount of information on solutions for this is very limited ..(usually ending in .."use chkdsk then retry")

But chkdsk is useless it doesnt report any errors.

Anyone got any suggestions?

could it be because the SATA is already partitioned? ...should I delete the sata partition and try again???

[kenkueh]

try to use ghost boot disk and clone by using "disk to disk".

[efilflah]

Hey I solved the problem, it was the fact it was already partitioned.

I deleted the Sata partition and copied the partition and it began to work.

BUT!!

Another problem has arisen

49 percent into the partition copy I got an error:

(122) A Bad sector was found in the current or new partition

Since the sata is brand spanking new, and I think my original drive might be dying (hence the need to back up) I can pretty much assume its the c: drive with the bad sector.

The thing is I'm a complete noob when it comes to these things, so can anyone recommend a course of action?

is there a way to possibly bypass the bad sector then deal with the consequences later?

thanks peeps

[kenkueh]

For ghost, if ur hdd got bad sectors, it still can do cloning. Or u might need to try use ghost. Haven't try partition magic b4, so don't know how to makes things work.

[maxXPsoft]

Just for knowledge

Recently bought a 120mb Seagate for the price of 79.00 after rebates.

Included is a utility they tell you to install first then shutdown hook up new as a slave , boot, start program. I created 2 partitons, one for unattend stuff.

It allowed me to completely copy my existing C: to the new drive. Then tell's you to shutdown and swap cables over to new master. Thing booted without a hitch and I mean none. That tiny 8mb partition didn't even exist that is created when you normally create partitions with XP setup.

Seagate's DiscWizard for Windows

Thought that was painless as it comes and didn't think it would work but it did.

[efilflah]

I've already bought the drive though and its a maxtor not a seagate. The maxtor utility doesnt run ...for some odd reason so its partition magic Im left with. I need to find a way for it to copy the drive even if the bad sectors exist. If anyone here can help me out on say getting rid of the sectors or just keeping the copy going I'd really appreciate it.

[kenkueh]

You may just let copying proceed, only some files that located at that sectors will be unavailable or corrupted. The chances that a windows file located at that sectors will be 50-50. u may try.