Cloned system disk won't boot

This is the problem:

I am trying to make a back up of a system disk on a desktop PC. It's mix of old HP bits.

The procedure I am following is make a clone on a hard disk connected to a USB port, and then test it by verifying that it will boot from the USB disk (in the position attached the computer's USB port).

First I boot the computer from an Easeus diskcopy CD. After Easeus starts, I connect the target HD to the PC by a USB port. Then I run the Easeus cloning program from the CD. When that has finished I replace the Easeus CD with a PLoP boot manager CD, and then exit the Easeus program with a reboot option. {The computer BIOS does not support booting from USB device (the first thing it tries is 'removable disk' [what does this mean ?], next is the CD, can't remember what 3 and 4 are, but one must be the internal HD)}. The boot manager program starts after booting, and so I select the USB as the device to boot from. I'm expecting the computer to boot up, as my laptop did when I followed a similar procedure for making a backup of the HD in that.

I tried this with 2 hard disks, an ST3160022A and an ST3160812A, both 160GB PATA types, to clone to (as external disks). These disks show no errors when tested. The (source) system disk is an 80GB WD with XP and a little bit of data and HDTune, H2TESTW, Seatools for Windows, AVG, Speccy and Windows XP Home SP3 on it.

The cloning process appears to be successful in both cases, although I did get a get a warning about possible compatibility problems due to the disk geometries not being the same [CHS(one number, second number, third number)] on the ST3160022A. In fact that did not boot properly, hence my use of the second disk.

In both cases, the boot manager seemed to start ok properly, and I selected 'USB' to boot from (other choices in the PLoP boot manager program were Partition 1, Partition 2, Floppy, CDROM) It appeared to start, looking for the EHC1 drivers, but it got stuck at that point and never moved on. So the computer won't boot in that configuration from those disks.

Please could someone tell me where I am going wrong and how I can achieve my objective ?

Dumb_Question
17.August.2014

In this case:
Windows XP / SP3
Motherboard MS-6577 v2.1 with Celeron 2.5GHz / 1GB RAM (I think)

 

I tried the same thing running XP Pro. I cloned my "C" drive to a USB connected hard drive and attempted to boot from it (my computer supports booting from USB storage). No dice. Microsoft prohibited XP from becoming "portable".

I did, however, get Win 8.1 to boot from that same USB hard drive using AOMEI Partition Assistant's "Windows to Go" feature.

 

Windows XP is not native to SATA for starters. Additionally, it's no longer supported by Microsoft. You cannot clone a non AHCI installation to an AHCI/SATA drive environment. It will not function.

Even when using Vista, you cannot clone to an SSD without a reinstall due to driver issues.

When upgrading any type of hardware, the best bet is a clean install to resolve any hardware mapping issues.

 

So, although not bootable from the USB, if I were to replace the present system disk (PATA master/in master position) with the clone, ie simply swap disks, it should boot with identical facilities as previously ?

-> mdonah
I did not expect the clone to work with any machine, because (I don't know this for a fact for this particular machine/copy of XP) on pre-installed systems there is a part in the BIOS ROM which connects that copy of XP to those specific types of m/b - see the HP forum for more info, I'm afraid I don't have the exact reference to hand (but again, IDK whether this a fresh install of XP or what). As you note the procedure works fine in W8.1 and as I hinted it worked fine with my W7 laptop, which, like your 'puter, also has the inbuilt facility to boot from USB. I didn't know that MS had made XP "non-portable" and I am surprised that they had done that with XP and not with W7 and W8. Anyway, I wasn't attempting to "port" the OS (dig at MS) !!

-> the mechanic
thanks for pointing out those details. The source and target disks are in all cases PATA disks; the question of SATA does not enter on this occasion, though it might if the target (USB) disk was a SATA disk. I believe the computer in question supports AHCI (though I haven't checked) - is your point about this the presence of the 'loading EHC1 drivers' ? Is that the significance of the system getting stuck there ? Does the use of USB imply the use of SATA through its serial nature ? (My previous successful attempt at this procedure on a W7 system - SATA - was successful)

I acknowledge that a clean install is the best way to start afresh, but that is not my goal on this occasion

Thank you both for your answers. I need to do some tests with PLoP, XP desktops, and bootable USB systems, eg flash drives with Linux, USB CD/DVD drives, bootable floppies.

Dumb_Question
18.August.2014

In this case:
Windows XP / SP3
Motherboard MS-6577 v2.1 with Celeron 2.5GHz / 1GB RAM (I think)

 

I had also found info on supposedly being able to install XP to a USB connected drive with some "tweaks" to txtsetup.SIF and another file (I don't remember which) which supposedly made the installer see the USB drive as "fixed". It didn't work either. rolleyes

 

It doesn't surprise me that the W7 environment worked. You could swap XP PATA drives from machine to machine "back in the day" provided the hardware wasn't vastly dissimilar (i.e., Dell machine to Dell).

The big issue is hardware mapping and drivers. Mostly drivers...

 

So a or some MS updates have scotched that ?

As this is primarily for back up purposes, I was intending to use it on the same computer...in fact my 'test' with PLoP/USB was on the computer of which the clone(s) were made, I have only used the one computer for all work described in this thread.

What I did not try was swapping the PATA cable from the original disk to either of the two clones.

Dumb_Question
20.August.2014