I did all you suggested. It still wouldn't boot, but with a difference: I didn't get the black screen with the "Enable boot device . . ." message, but with a blank screen.

I put it in another machine in a bay set for a data storage (non-OS) disk, and can see all the files and folders you'd expect on a newly-installed system (well, I haven't checked that ALL the system folders are there, but there's a lot of them).

It also is listed as active in disk management.

Help, please

Did you go into BIOS and select this disk as the first disk, and then chose it to be the boot disk? (Sounds like you did, since you didn't get the same error prompt asking for you to insert a boot disk.) Again - please not that not all motherboard ports are provided with the BIOS boot capabilities; you must connect to either an add-on card that has its own boot bios, or to the port(s) on the motherboard from which one can boot. If you are using the same cable for both your currently functioning boot disk, obviously that should work with the restored disk too - assuming that you haven't changed its port connection (but still you're likely to have to set the BIOS to recognize the new disk).
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I own Paragon, but please forgive my ignorance: When creating an image in it or the other software you tried, did you do so from within Windows? or when booting from a boot CD/DVD? I've had several commercial products that claimed to be able to create images from within live Windows, but often failed. Even the Win7 built-in image creator couldn't put down a working OS for me recently without a lot of help from me working with it in Ubuntu.

The most reliable image-creation software that I've tried is DriveImageXML, which opens from inside a boot CD/DVD disk created with BartPE. Both are free, and never have failed me. In fact, I'm typing this on an image of Win7-64 booted from a hard disk that I had to turn to after my SSD failed a week or so ago.

If you have time to set it up, you might want to look into these freeware apps. Just remember that, if you try to boot from a disk with a restored OS and that disk has not previously been a boot disk, you'll need to connected it to a Windows system and mark the drive as Active.

I didn’t go into the BIOSt. Rather, I unplugged the working OS disk and plugged the supposedly restored disk into the same ports. When this one failed, I re-plugged the original into the same mobo ports, and it’s working. But if you think it’s necessary to set the BIOS, guess I’l have to try it again and go into BIOS when the mobo splash comes up.

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You said:
"I own Paragon, but please forgive my ignorance: When creating an image in it or the other software you tried, did you do so from within Windows? or when booting from a boot CD/DVD? I've had several commercial products that claimed to be able to create images from within live Windows, but often failed. Even the Win7 built-in image creator couldn't put down a working OS for me recently without a lot of help from me working with it in Ubuntu."

I have a machine more or less dedicated to imaging. I booted that with Windows as usual, put the disk to be restored to in a slot, opened the Paragon app and restored the image I’d created earlier. (the image is stored on an external USB drive. Would that be a problem?)


You said:
"The most reliable image-creation software that I've tried is DriveImageXML, which opens from inside a boot CD/DVD disk created with BartPE. Both are free, and never have failed me. In fact, I'm typing this on an image of Win7-64 booted from a hard disk that I had to turn to after my SSD failed a week or so ago."

I’ve used DriveImage 2002, not XML, and it too was installed on the imaging machine’s OS drive. I had the very same problem however and that’s why I tried Paragon. Excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage of doing it from a boot CD?

I will remember to make it activwe, though, as I've mentioned it didin't work yet. I need another secret password.

Can you tell me technically what making it active does?

Thanks again

A post I read in another forum suggested that it's necessary to instruct the imaging software that you want to make the cloned disk bootable, and that this switch is not enabled by default, at least in the software being discussed in that forum.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the foregoing, but I can report my experience in one such adventure:

I used Seagate's Disk Wizard to replace a 30gig system drive with a new 80gig drive. Using that tool, it had to be done in two steps, but it worked and the new drive booted right up.

Step one entailed running Disk Wizard to copy the system drive to the new one, which was in an external hard drive enclosure, connected via USB. This resulted in a new system disk with one active partition the same size as the original drive, and the rest of the space unallocated.

Step two was using partitioning software to allocate the remaining disk space as desired. In my case, since the computer's owner was a very unsophisticated user, I chose to resize the system partition to utilize the all of the unallocated space. Alternately, one could devote that to logical drives.

Edit: There was no compression involved in this process, but I viewed that as an unnecessary step that takes more time and adds an additional level of complexity that could increase the potential for something to go wrong along the way.

"I booted that with Windows as usual, put the disk to be restored . . "

It's perfectly OK to RESTORE an image from within Windows; the problem is CREATING the image from within Windows. Perhaps a decade ago, PowerQuest's Drive Image (and maybe others) came up with a scheme to copy Windows' own active files while in use so that an image could be created without having to get out of Windows. Usually it worked, but not always (and, yes, PQDI was one of those programs that required a tick in its "bootable?" box - it wasn't default). That's when I started playing with others (the old Ghost, before it bought PQDI, etc.).

There is no magic in using DriveImageXML. It, too, can create image files from within Windows, and when the moon's phase is proper, those images may work; but not reliably. I never use it that way.

The advantage of creating an image from a boot CD or DVD is that none of the Windows files would be in use at the time they are copied to the image. Therefore, all could be copied in their native, dormant state, just as they are seen during bootup - contrary to the case when they are in service AFTER booting is complete. In my experience, including my most unfortunate recent experience with Win7's own image creator, reliability is best when the image is created without Windows being active.

USB drives? Great - I always create my images to a USB drive. Then, if the power supply blows all my drives, my external USB drive with its own independent power supply will survive. I always keep all my backup drives on their own power supplies for that reason. Moreover, my USB drives are always seen by the boot CD, whereas I'd need to load drivers for the Boot CD to see the non-boot motherboard-connected drives.

Marking the drive as "Active" simply tells the BIOS to look for boot files loaded onto the first tracks of that particular drive.

When you go into BIOS, remember that you'll probably have to change TWO settings: You'll probably need to go into the first ranking disk, open it up, and scroll down the list of disks until you get to the disk from which you want to boot, and select it to be the first disk.

After that, go into the BOOT options - here you can choose your CD/DVD drive as the first boot device, followed perhaps by Drive A or USB devices (if you have any that you might want to boot from), followed by the disk that you wish to boot from in the #3 position. I usually leave mine set up this way so that I can boot from a CD/DVD without having to go into bios each time. . . if there is no disk in the CD/DVD drive, it is simply ignored during bootup; same with USB devices.

Compression? I always compress and never have had a problem. CPUs are so fast today that little or no additional time is required to create the image (the bottleneck for speed probably is the USB speed, or perhaps the disk's own speed limitations).

I'd like to ask for clarification on a point. When you guys talk about creating an image from within Windows, are you talking about creating an image of the disk which is running the OS software that is actively running the computer?

It took a while for me to understand that that may be what you're referring to because this is not the situation I have here.

What I've been doing is booting a dedicated imaging computer from one disk--call it "disk A"--and on which, my imaging software is installed. Then, using a removable tray, I insert an OS disk from another computer--"disk B" into a second slot on the imaging computer.

Then I launch the imaging software from disk A, and tell it to image disk B and put the image either onto disk A or onto an external USB disk.

Sorry for all the verbage, but I think this is a different from trying to image disk A while it is actively running system software. If that's right, it doesn't matter where the imaging software resides, yes?

I looked, but can't find any control to make the disk bootable, either when creating the image or restoring it, in either Drive Image or Paragon Drive Backup

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to troubleshoot this.

I use the free utility XXCLONE to copy my harddrives. It allows you to copy FROM a drive to any other drive, regardless of size, as long as the data fits. It makes the new drive bootable and I can just drop it in place of the original system drive and use it. It runs in Windows, so no need to boot from a separate disk or drive.

And did I say it's free.

Dave T2

interesting; how many times have you created images and tested them? Any failures?

I just recently used it to upgrade my laptop from a 40 to 60 gig. No problems.

Well, I take that back, Sony Vegas does not like to change harddrives, so I have to reinstall it whenever I clone a drive and boot from it.

I have used it to back up drives, but I have not lost a drive in a while. so I can't say that I have done thorough testing. I have replaced (upgraded) at least 2 drives using this program.

Dave T2

Dave:

Can it be loaded onto the current, running OS drive and copy that very dirve to another drive, either in the same computer of on a network?

Sounds like it could be the answer.

I have it loaded on all of my computers on the system drive. I have copied to drives on USB and Firewire. I assume you could copy to a drive on the same computer, but I don't know about a network.

Dave T2

http://www.xxclone.com/

Tried XXClone and IT WORKED!!

Feels like a d++n miracle, with all the garbage I've recently gone through.

Thank you DaveT2.

I am getting too old for this.