Reformat a failed Cloned HDD?

OK, I have a new one "to Me". I used AOMEI to clone my OS drive to a new larger drive. During the cloning session I accidently stopped the procedure. This is the short version as some will know I had many issues with this whole ordeal.

Now what I am stuck with is a cloned HDD with the OS on it that will not boot. I used another machine to try to reformat it but the reformat only partly worked. It shows 3 drive letters only none of which will completely clear. The OS drive letter claims to have reformatted with no data. This however is not true as it still shows up as Win 7 with my Computer name etc. on it. How can I completely wipe this HHD "2TB" and start fresh with it.

Another thing that is strange is that it is identifying itself as a 500GB drive which the drive I cloned to it was. This has me really scratching my humble head.

Thanks for listening to my woes I sure hope someone has a magical pill for me :-D.

 

Have you tried going into CONTROL PANEL>COMPUTER MANAGEMENT>DISK MANAGEMENT to delete the partitions then reformat the drive?

I've found this sometimes works when a basic reformat doesn't.

Hope this helps.

 

HI gman "funny that's what I call my Grandson" I will give that a try as I did not think to do that. I went in and unclicked Quick Format and it has been running for about 1 1/2 hours now so I will see if that works. If it doesn't I will definitely try your suggestion. Thanks a ton for the suggestion.

 

Hi gman, I did as suggested and all was cleared but now the drive is not being recognized by my machine.

 

Hey Magoo, may I suggest that you use AOMEI Partition Assistance to format the drive? :-D Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Allow me to respond back to me on your behalf:

Hey rusty :flip

 

Hahahaha rusty! Just never you mind :cool. I fumbled around in Disk Management and figured out how to assign a Drive letter to it etc. and now it shows up in My Computer.

Now comes the time to try this Clone project from scratch. Fingers crossed and head in hands rolleyes.

 

OK, Mr. rusty I tried again with AOMEI Clone. I left it alone, it cloned in 2 hrs. All looked good to go. WRONG :crybaby. When installed the system boots but stops with the cursor blinking a few spaces from the top. I tried F10 - F5 - F10 to no avail.

When I removed it and installed the original drive it booted to the cursor blinking at the top. I tried The ole F5 again and Bear booted NP.

When I opened the new drive it shows up as OS (N: ) as a 500GB drive "a 2TB drive" and only 85GB of the 191GB "which now has dropped to 104GB" on the original 500GB drive. My Computer also shows a new O: Drive HP_RECOVERY. I am now very concerned about where close to 90GB of information has disappeared to.

This is getting me so fluster I am ready to bring this nice new drive to the range and put a 30-06 Armor Piecing round through it. I would have the $100.00 satisfaction from it about now :-D.

 

If it's a new drive and you think it's defective, you could always RMA it.

 

Hi gman, I don't think it's defective as I can see it has been cloned. I just can't seem to get it to run on start as cloned via AOMEI.

 

Magoo, I know I'm the last person on the planet that you want to give you program suggestions, but before you pull out that long gun try a low level format of the drive.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hdd_low_level_format_tool.html

It's probably going to take a full day to do the format because the author put a speed limit on the program to incentivize people to purchase the unhindered version (although the registration fee is a strangely low $3.30, about the cost of one of those 30-06 shells)

Still pullin' for ya buddy

 

Mr. Magoo...

I recently used EaseUs Partiton Master:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easeus_partition_master_home_edition.html

to format a dvr ("Digital Video Recorder"...movie/video player and recorder..) hard drive that I bought new on eBay. The seller told me it could be used in a PC, but the drive was at first invisible in My Computer in Windows XP. I Googled around, and I found out that it in fact could be formatted to be used in a PC and that EaseUs was the program to use. I installed EaseUs and deleted the dvr partitions that were there and then right clicked on the drive and changed it from logical to primary. Then I formatted it NTFS, and it showed up fine in My Computer.

I think you may have somehow already changed the disk to a primary disk, so that it can be seen, but perhaps EaseUs would give you a real look at what's on the disk when it comes to the partitions. It saw all the partitions for the dvr drive.

One little tricky thing about EaseUs. When you choose to make a change to a drive like formatting or changing from logical to primary, you must click the "Apply" button on the top area button menu for the change to actually begin and then take place...

Hope this helps

 

Hi rusty and AtlBo,

rusty you are a pip . You have stuck with me though this whole nightmare I value your advice.

I am unclear as why I would need to reformat the drive again. I reformatted it from the start. Then ran the AOMEI clone process on it. I can open it and see my information including the partition it made for the HP recovery. Which would be my current OS C: and D: drives. The problem is when I swap the drives out Bear does not boot with the new cloned drive.

The last time I had the problem of a failing drive and I cloned it I put the new cloned drive in and booted and was good to go. I just don't know what I am missing.

I had Easeus PM Pro and used it to enlarge my D: drive on my HD when it kept telling me it was running low on memory. That is one of the programs I lost at the beginning of this whole mess. (on another thread) I have downloaded the program suggested and took a Screen Shot of what it shows me maybe it will help you help me figure this out.

And yes rusty, I would much rather spend the 3 bucks on the program rather than was a shell :major.

http://[URL=http://s206.photobucket.com/user/kahsr/media/d1799f04-542a-4eb2-abfd-965ed74eef22_zps657426fd.gif.html][IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb170/kahsr/d1799f04-542a-4eb2-abfd-965ed74eef22_zps657426fd.gif[/URL][/IMG]

 

Just an FYI for anyone that didn't see where all this came from "The Beginning". If interested in what started my headache you can see it here:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=282101

 

Mr. Magoo...

Wow...there is a lot going on there. Best I can tell you have 4 physical hard drive devices attached to your PC. Is this correct?

Don't want to get ahead of myself, but the unallocated space partition labeled as logical could be part of your problem. I am just guessing that drive 9 (2 TB?) is the drive you were using to create your clone, because it shows up as the 85 GB OS partition (I believe the number you mentioned for the size of the failed clone) on partition N:OS of the drive. So drive 9 looks to me like your failed clone. Appears to me here that you created a partition on drive 9 for the clone that is the exact size of the clone, but the rest of the drive is shown as logical...not sure why. This is what I had to change to get the dvr drive to show up in Windows XP->change logical to primary.

If you right click on the unallocated space partition on disk 9 and select I think properties, you should be able to change that partition to Primary, but if you actually want to boot to your failed OS clone, I think maybe you will further need to increase the size of N:OS partition somewhat. Not sure this is true, so maybe a partition expert can help you there.

If you want to start over with drive 9 (assuming that is the drive you want to format and start over), change the unallocated space partition on the drive to Primary from Logical and then right click on the drive and select format and then click the Apply button up top. That will remove everything on the drive, and you will be able to start over...

Just saw this:

This is the most important step to getting where you want to be...

 

Hi Magoo,

Everything certainly looks right. But your post gives only the file/disk sizes approximately.
Have you compared sizes of files on the original disk to those on the clone, and are they identical to the exact byte ? This would give you another handle on whether the cloning operation was successful.

Also, I wonder that your 2TB disk wasn't damaged when you interrupted the cloning process. I don't think it should make difference, but have you looked for bad sectors (using HD Sentinel, HD Tune or something like that ? I've never used either, mind)

When you did as gman suggested re reformatting the disk, the post where you said you'd give it a try and the one where you reported the results seem close in time - I've been wondering how long to properly format a disk in Windows (as opposed to quick format), and now I now that that it can be done in as little as 17 minutes for 2TB.

As you have done this before ("The last time I had the problem of a failing drive and I cloned it I put the new cloned drive in and booted and was good to go. I just don't know what I am missing."), you have more experience than I do: the fact that you are cloning to a larger disk than the original doesn't create a problem ?

Can someone tell me what F10 and F5 do in this context ?

Dumb_Question
22.December.2013

 

Mr.Magoo...

Just to clarify a little bit. The area shown as logical on Drive 9 is I believe the area that is not showing up in Windows 7 and why it is showing up as a 500 GB drive. I stand corrected about needed to increase the size of the N:OS partition as I see now it is a 500 GB partition, the same size as your original C: drive OS partition->i.e. the clone...

If you change the unallocated space on drive 9 from logical to primary, you should be able to format (long) the entirety of drive 9...

 

Hi AtlBo,

I am so messed up on this whole thing that I just can't seem to wrap my head around it any longer. I have 2 internal HDD (one disconnect right now) and two 500GB externals for BUs. I also now have the 2TB HDD via USB (Disk 9) hooked up.

I think something went terribly wrong with the clone job right from the get go. It should not have made the primary only 500GB then unallocated 1.36 TB.

I mentioned before that when I started all of this my OS HDD (500GB) had 191GB on it. That is why I went to the larger drive. After doing the clone job my original HDD dropped down to 85GB. This is troubling in and of itself. Where did the remainder of those GBs go?

Then on top of all this, the failed clone job.

I have downloaded the program suggested by rusty and paid the 3 bucks for the lifetime updated full version. I did this 2.5 hours ago and still have not received the license # to speed up the reformat.

I just feel at this time a reformat and doing a fresh cloning are what I need to do. My question would be should I format the new drive before cloning? I didn't think this would be necessary when cloning a drive. The last time I did a clone job everything when as smooth as warm butter on toast. Would you conclude that this is the direction I should take at this time?

Thanks,

 

-> AltBo FYI

I have been able to use both Hard Disks from surveillance systems (typically Seagate drives ending with the letters "SV") and from pvr's (typically Seagate drives ending with the letters "CS") on my PC. They do not usually show up in Explorer initially. They are present in Disk Management. (I connected them to a USB port because I found that easier; I don't know if it makes any difference though. In disk Management I have first created a single partition (had to try a few things here as the disks I had had two partitions...etc) and then did a quick format.

SeaTools found a small number of bad sectors each time (suspected problem with this which I won't go into). It asks for a disk letter and a volume label, and number of sectors, sector size (the usual stuff). I seem to remember that there was a problem doing a proper format, but I might be mis-remembering. CHKDSK found absolutely no problems.

Dumb_Question
22.December.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

 

Dumb_Question...EaseUs makes really quick work of the long formatting. Not sure if it's better than W7, but it's much better than XP

Mr.Magoo...

You say your original installation on your C: was 191 GB, but you lost a bunch of programs, etc. during the cloning? Is this why the C: OS partition is now down to 109 GB? I am familiar (a little) with what happened originally (your previous thread), but it might help if you could verify the above for me.

I would say that your clone on disk 9 N:OS is possibly a partial clone of the 109 GB rather than as it was suppose to be of the 191 GB you originally had. Or, strange as it may seem, maybe the cloner just moved 85 GB of your 191 GB to the clone partition. Can't imagine what would have deleted your programs during a cloning process. I really can't say how you could have run a clone of a 191 GB drive and ended up with a 109 GB on the main and 85 GB in the clone:confused. Also, I have no idea why the cloning process would have made the remainder of your 2 TB drive "logical". It should still be set to primary.

I guess the only reason to put off formatting the 2 TB drive (drive 9) would be if you would like to find a way to see what's in the 85 GB. Are you able to see what's contained there? Don't know if you could possibly have some files there you would like to try to rescue...

If you are able to see what is there, could you maybe give some details like is Windows there?...are your files there?...are any programs there in Program Files? etc...

 

AtlBo, I was able to look at the (N) drive and it seems to have all of the programs on (C) drive. What is odd is the (N) drive is 85GB and the (C) drive is now at 113GB. Added the recommended programs thus the upped GB on (C).

So I still have no idea where the missing GB went nor while the two drives have different amounts of GBs on them.

I don't see where the clone removed any programs during the clone operation. I put them up side by side and they were identical (the (C) and (N) so I really am befuzalled now.

http://[URL=http://s206.photobucket.com/user/kahsr/media/SidebySidea_zps6fa5df9c.gif.html][IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb170/kahsr/SidebySidea_zps6fa5df9c.gif[/URL][/IMG]

I did do a bit of house cleaning in C: while there so there is a slight difference. I checked the folders/files and every thing matched. Thus my real confusion about the difference in GBs.

 

I am now using EaseUs to clear the drive and will go from there.

Any ideas of a GOOD Cloning program?

Sorry rusty AOMEI in not for me :neener.

 

Dumb_Question, pressing F10 while booting brings you to your systems settings area "scary place to be". At the bottom you will see F5 to set default start. Press F5 then enter "for Yes" the F10 to Save and reboot and enter again.

This has saved me many time including today to get things up and running again. Just something learned along the long journey of Computer Twilight Zone.

 

Mr.Magoo...

I have a suggestion. Are you familiar with the program TreeSizeFree? If you download and install it you can run a scan once on your C: and then on the main menu click File->New Instance. When the new Window pops up, run select the 85 GB drive (N:OS). Line the two Windows up side by side, and you will really be able to look things over and see where the directories are different in size. Then you can open the directories and explore further to find out what isn't on the 85 GB (N:OS) drive.

TreeSizeFree is really an exceptional tool for comparing directories and drives I have found...and for finding very large files on a drive...

I really do think it would be interesting to see if it's possible to get to the bottom of what happened during the original cloning procedure. I guess after comparing and identifying what isn't on the N:OS partition, perhaps you can look into the settings on your cloner and see if there is something there that may have gone awry. By the way, you have probably stated it someplace earlier, but would you mind posting which cloning program you used?

EDIT: Just saw your most recent posts. If you have already started removing things, no harm. Just thought you might like to see what's different about N:OS...

 

I agree, TreeSize is a very nice and useful app. Although for comparing directories I like WinMerge better. You can download it (freeware) from MG site:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/winmerge.html

Magoo, I'm glad you didn't get out the gun :-D

 

Came really close rusty :mad. The drive is now totally unreadable. Bear will not recognize it via USB 3.0 nor directly plugged into Bear. I put it all back together in the box and off to Staples it goes. Time for a fresh start of aggravations.

What was supposed to be a very simple task has turned into days of aggravation and frustration. Time to start over and pray things go "right" this time.

To those that celebrate Merry Christmas!

The Magoomizter...

 

Magoo, despite the debacle that my suggestion led to, I still think that you should look into disk imaging backup, even if it's not with AOMEI product.

Other good disk imaging backup programs include:

Macrium Reflect (freeware) http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/macrium_reflect_free_edition.html
Paragon Drive Backup (freeware) http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/paragon_drive_backup.html
O&O DiskImage Express (freeware) http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/oo_diskimage_express.html
Acronis TrueImage (commercial) http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/acronis_true_image_home_2013.html
NovaStor NovaBackup (commercial) http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/novabackup.html

 

Caught this thread slightly late. Just to chip in, I use Parted Magic for cloning and backups.

https://partedmagic.com/

Low Level Format:

The ISO includes a Low Level Format software called "Disk Erase" this thing removes everything and brings the hard drive in a "fresh from factory" state. When doing a low level format it's important that it's never interrupted otherwise you risk bricking the drive and you'd end up trashing it.

Cloning:

Inside Parted Magic there's a program cloning software called G4L (Ghost 4 Linux), I've used this when I transferred my OS and files to a bigger drive and worked like a charm. The only time this software didn't work for me was when trying to clone a dying hard drive which I think it's perfectly understandable.


Magoo just to be safe, It would be a good idea if you only plug in the hard drive that needs the format. When I completely erased my old 320gb drive it took me an hour and a half so on a modern 2TB drive get ready for at least 3-4 hours or more.

PS: Parted Magic costs 5 dollars to download but it's well worth the small price, I take this ISO with me wherever I go. I personally prefer this over any standalone Windows cloning / formatting software.

 

JonnyBB878, Thanks for the tip. I'll add it to my list.

 

Just a note on my experience of cloning programs - I have used the

EaseUs cloning program (Disk Copy)

to make a back up of my HD without a problem, I don't know if others would recommend it though. It seems to work, and created bootable USB disk which hasn't seen the day since. It took more than a small number hours (like it took overnight) to clone a 320GB disk over a USB 2

Dumb_Question
26.December.2013

 

Hey Dumb_Question, thanks for the tip and I'm glad the program works for you. You may have an earlier version of Disk Copy because, if I remember correctly, newer freeware versions of the program implement a limit on the number of GBs a user can copy (something on the order of 2 GBs). I could be wrong about that. I know for sure that they set a GB limit in their disk partitioning program. They also have a free dedicated backup program called Easeus ToDo Backup.

 

I used v2.3.1, made the bootable CD in July 2012, so you probably can't find it any more. I don't remember any size limits on that version, as I said I cloned 320GB

I have heard of EaseUs ToDo but don't know what it does. It doesn't clone as well as make back ups ? It was around when down loaded Disk Copy but looked more complicated than Disk Copy so I went for the simple option.

Dumb_Question
26.December.2013

Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

 

Hi rusty U rascal U. I am using AOMEI as my disk imaging back up program. Some fine fella recommended it to me .

I have gotten my new "replaced" 2TB drive and I am now at the point of trying to decide the best program to clone my current 500GB drive to it. We all know I am not going to use AOMEI for that rolleyes.

JonnyB, I did look at Parted Magic but it looked like a whole lot more than I need just to clone a drive. Looking at the screen shots is enough to give a humble computer player a wicked headache :banghead.

Thanks all for your input to my simple project turned "not so simple".

 

I have used this software Only for image backups, but this should be a good choice.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition

Macrium Reflect HELP

Expand How To then Backup and select Clone a disk

 

Thanks mcnj, rusty also recommend Macrium as well as Leo Notenboom so I am now in the process of downloading it. Seems to be a very large program via the download/install time.

I will give this one a try tomorrow when I tackle this project again.

Thanks to everyone for the replies and great suggestions.

 

All disk imaging programs are large in size because they have to include the files that belong to the operating system that get burnt to the user's boot disk (either WinPE or Linux) along with the program files. You're not just downloading a backup program, you are also downloading a "mini" operating system. Good luck !

 

Howdy, OK, I used Macrium Reflect to clone my new drive. It did the same thing as AMOEI did when creating the clone. It cloned my C: drive, my D: drive and then another unallocated partition with the remainder of the 1+TB.

Now my question is how do I combine the large unallocated partition to with the OS partition of the drive. Using EaseUs Partition Master (and MiniTool Partition Wizard I am unable to merge the two.

Help me please before true insanity hits :tas.

 

Magoo, I believe that EaseUS Partition Maser Free Edition does not merge partitions. You have to purchase the PRO edition to do that. I do know of a freeware partition manager that is definitely capable of merging partitions (I did that just yesterday) but.............. it's called AOMEI Partition Assistant.

http://www.backup-utility.com/free-partition.html

 

Thanks rusty, I will give that a try. I have encountered the same thing with the clone via Macrium Reflect as I did with the AOMEI clone. When I remove the original drive and replace it with the cloned drive Bear does not recognize it and will not complete booting. It just stops with the blinking cursor on the top left of the screen.

What on earth am I doing wrong?! This whole thing is really starting to trip my trigger and that isn't a pretty site at all. Any ideas sure would be appreciated. It is almost time to walk away from Bear before it becomes a rug. rusty you know how I get :major.

 

I've spent a fair number of hours messing around with an old hard drive and tried recreating your problem (I flipped the power switch off while it was being cloned to using AOMEI Backupper) but haven't been able to recreate your drive status. I just get a partial clone that can be read and accessed, along with one large "unallocated" partition. I can merged the two to make the drive just one large partition (basic disk) without effecting the cloned data. I don't know what happened to Bear.

I was researching this unallocated business and came across a forum where they were discussing a drive that showed up as unallocated and could not be read (it contained user data). I would have simply provided the link to the relevant page but I can't find it again, I only have this clipboard entry:

"The key to your problem is what you highlighted in yellow in your Pic1.jpg. It says your 250 GB HDD (Disk 0) is "Not Initialized", and has no partition on it. You must first Initialize the disk, and then create at least one partition on it; kind of like a one-room house. We never format a physical disk, or assign a letter to the entire disk. But we can create a partition that includes the whole disk, assign it a letter, and format it. I think that is what you want to do with your 250 GB HDD: create a single 250 GB partition for the entire disk.
In Disk Management, click Help | Disk Management | Manage Disks | Initialize New Disks. It says:
<start help file quote>
To initialize new disks
In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk.
In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize. You can select whether to use the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.
Note
The disk is initialized as a basic disk.
Additional considerations
New disks appear as Not Initialized. Before you can use a disk, you must first initialize it. If you start Disk Management after adding a disk, the Initialize Disk Wizard appears so you can initialize the disk.
<end help file quote>
Select the MBR partition style. After Initialization, right-click in the Unallocated space and choose New simple volume... Follow the wizard and accept the default size, which is the full amount available on the disk. Assign any "drive" letter you want, except for the ones already in use, of course. If you want to use D: or E:, you'll have to change the one that already uses that letter. There is no requirement that you assign letters in sequence, of course, so you might want to use X: or some other letter for this partition, and give it a label so that you will recognize this partition even if the letter changes. (You can also assign letters to your CD/DVD drives, so that they won't shift as you add or remove partitions.)"

If this is true, then the first thing you need to do is "initialize" the unallocated space. I tried it on the unallocated space on my test drive but didn't have an "Initialize" menu item, so I couldn't test it. Give it a shot.

 

Dang rusty, you are great to spend so much time on my problem! I thank you very much. Right now I am doing the HDD Low Level Format (I paid the $3.30 for the Home License) it has been formatting since yesterday at 2:30PM and it is right now at 96%. (One of your many suggestions)

I have never had to initialize a drive before and never even heard of it. Have you? At this point anything is worth a try :cry. I will let you know how it works out for my situation. I did find the URL you found the information on. If anyone's interest was tweaked by this as mine was you can see it here:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s/86e7fe1e-6880-4b60-89bf-aa4d48201736?page=1

Thanks for sticking with me and spending so much of your time on "my" problem.

 

To be honest and not to belittle your misfortune, but I found it a fun educational escapade. I have to remember to PM you a couple of links to articles about low level formatting vs higher levels of formatting.

Thanks, I need that link for another thread I'm working on.

In this case, thanking me for spending time on your problem is like thanking a hooker for the syphilis.

 

You are a piece of work rusty :-D.

Well, after the Low Level Format was done (18 hours if I remember correctly). I used AOMEI to do a clone. I still have the Partition problem. It also would not Boot.

So I used my System Disc and ran Repair Start Repair. I just let it run until it finally gave me a response (about 6 hours).

W/O going through all of the successful tests I will get to the nitty gritty.

System Disk=Device\Harddisk O
Windows Directory=
AutoChk Run=0
Number of root causes=1
__________________________

All other checks ran successfully with EC=0x0
__________________________

Root cause found:
----------------------------

MBR is corrupt.

Repair action: Disk metadata repair
Result: Failed. Error code=0x490

So this is where I stand now. Any ideas on a MBR repair process w/o my searching all over the net?

 

I thought I already responded to your last post but can't remember for sure, so please excuse me if this is redundant. I think you should download a program called MiniTools Partition Wizard because it can initialize unallocated space, create partitions on a newly formatted drive, and write MBRs.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/minitool_partition_wizard_home_edition.html

If you already have one of the other partitioning apps on your system (EaseUS, AOMEI, etc) you should check the documentation to see if they are capable of all three of these functions.

I don''t expect that your disk should have a MBR on it since you just got finished reformatting it. Now you just have to add the allocated partition(s) and a MBR, and you should be good to go. Let me know which one you decide to go with so I can put it on my system and help you through process.

 

Hi DavidGP, I assume that the creation of the new NTFS partition includes the creation of a MBR, or does that still need to be added afterwards?

 

The MBR holds the partition table, so yes.

 

From Wikipedia:

MBR contains:

• A partition table describing the partitions of a storage device. In this context the boot sector may also be called a partition sector.
• Bootstrap code: Instructions to identify the configured bootable partition, then load and execute its volume boot record (VBR) as a chain loader.
• Optional 32-bit disk timestamp
• Optional 32-bit disk signature.

Dang, that's a helluva lot to pack into 512 bytes.... and it executes code! This message is likely larger than that.

 

Assembly code (which I assume is used) is very, very small when compiled.

 

OH MY WORD! You two are killing me, what should have been so easy is starting to become a nightmare :cry. I will give all this a try and let you know how things turn out in my nightmare :-D.

 

OK, here is where we are way Eastern Upstate NY, 4:30AM it's very warm at 9 degrees as last night was -21 degrees. Oh sorry I digress, I need a "little humor about now. Anyway, I have used EaseUs Partition Master Pro 9.3.0 to create my clone. It has an internal MBR initializer which I used to create the clone. The clone did do the same as before which was clone the current OC at 459GB as the OS (which turned to C and also the D: HP recovery drive. It did however create another partition F: with the remainder of drive on it. It also created a N: System from April of 2011 that I have NO idea where it came from nor where it belongs.

I was able to get the cloned drive to run this time via F10 - F5 [Yes] F10 [Yes] mode which wouldn't work before.

So where I am now is how on earth do I merge O and F and what do I do with N? EaseUs Partition Master Pro 9.3.0 just will not seem to let me merge O and F partitions which pretty much makes the whole exercise moot. It also will not let me merge N to C even if I wanted to

Here is a SS of what I am looking at right now:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb170/kahsr/CloneFormatIssue_zpsa5148a20.gif

Any ideas as to how to put this to bed "yes, pun intended" would be greatly appreciated.