In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
On 29/07/2010 11:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

I've been trying to clone the HD on one PC and put that into another
to save reloading in everything since both machines are similar. I've
used a free utility called HDcopy which reckons it can do this.

I take it the other PC does not have the same motherboard etc? When you
boot XP on a different platform, it can react in a number of ways.
Sometimes you get lucky - it spots the hardware changes and loads the
right drivers etc in the process. Other times it will bluescreen or
lockup during boot.

It's the same make (Asus) of motherboard, but some three years older.

Another possible gotcha: Are the drives similar? How big is the first
partition? (some BIOSs have difficulty booting on a partition that
crosses the 1024 cylinder boundary).

The 'master' a 240GB SATA, the clone a 500GB PATA.

On installing the clone in the other PC it starts to load XP then locks

If you install the clone in the original PC (disconnecting the original
drive you just cloned) does it boot ok there? If it does, then at least
you have some confidence you got a good copy.

Yes, that works.

If you need a decent clone package, download the maxblast ISO image from
segate and make a CD from it. Its basically a version of Acronis true
image. In theory it will only function on a machine with a segate or
maxtor drive in it. However if you get the error popup saying no
suitable drive was found, type ALT+T, ALT+O (for "technical override")
and it will carry on regardless.

Right. Obviously the next step.

up. I've tried repair using the XP installation CD, but that demands
an administrative password. Which I've never actually bothered with,
so I assume is the default one. I do have my administrator one - but
that's not the same thing.

Have you tried just pressing return when prompted for the password?

Yup - just comes up with the same prompt. After three goes it quits.

I have all the original installation CDs for the progs I use - was just
trying to save some time.

--
*Husband and cat lost -- reward for cat

Dave Plowman London SW
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