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Can I use BING to test boot a new drive before I install it?

Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 5:36 am
by Muad'Dib
I'm in the process of cloning my laptop's internal hard drive to a new drive which will become the replacement drive. I've had various problems with using IFW, BING and even CopyWipe to create this new drive, but I'm dealing with those in another post/forum.

However, because of these problems, I'm very skittish about assuming that the new drive will boot up and run just fine when I finally open up my laptop and swap out the drives. This older laptop has become more of a desktop in function with multiple cables to many different devices, so disconnecting all the cables, taking it down from the shelf, swapping the hard drive, and then putting everything back together to test the new boot can end up taking at least an hour, maybe longer. And if the new drive doesn't boot, I'll have to put most of the stuff back to the way it was, and then go through the whole process all over again. This could easily end up taking the better part of a whole day, maybe several days.

So what I'm wondering is:
In order to simplify the testing process, can I set up a menu choice on my existing copy of BING (on my current internal hard drive) which will allow me to boot on the external hard drive (connected via a USB to IDE connector) so that I can be sure the new drive works fine (boots up and runs all my software from the new drive) before I remove the existing drive from my laptop?

If so, can you simply explain how, or point me to where in the doc it shows me what to do? I've already tried to do this a few times so far but without success (it keeps booting on the internal drive). At this point I don't know if the problem is with my BING settings or with the copy I've created on my new drive (or if it just can't be done).

NOTE: This is an older laptop that does not support boot from USB. I don't know if that even matters in this case, but I'm mentioning it just in case it does. Also, I'm running XP Pro.

Thanks!
M'D

Re: Can I use BING to test boot a new drive before I install it?

Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:29 am
by TeraByte Support
no (actually maybe but not worth trying), for one the OS has to support
booting from USB, second the BIOS has to be providing support for the USB
drive, third if you accidently booted the internal drive with the copy
attached, the copy would no longer be bootable unless you used the option to
assign a new disk signature when you restored. You just do an entire drive
backup/restore (or copy) then switch it out without messing with it.

"Muad'Dib" wrote in message news:774@public.bootitng...

I'm in the process of cloning my laptop's internal hard drive to a new drive
which will become the replacement drive. I've had various problems with
using IFW, BING and even CopyWipe to create this new drive, but I'm dealing
with those in another post/forum.

However, because of these problems, I'm very skittish about assuming that
the new drive will boot up and run just fine when I finally open up my
laptop and swap out the drives. This older laptop has become more of a
desktop in function with multiple cables to many different devices, so
disconnecting all the cables, taking it down from the shelf, swapping the
hard drive, and then putting everything back together to test the new boot
can end up taking at least an hour, maybe longer. And if the new drive
doesn't boot, I'll have to put most of the stuff back to the way it was, and
then go through the whole process all over again. This could easily end up
taking the better part of a whole day, maybe several days.

So what I'm wondering is:
In order to simplify the testing process, can I set up a menu choice on my
existing copy of BING (on my current internal hard drive) which will allow
me to boot on the external hard drive (connected via a USB to IDE connector)
so that I can be sure the new drive works fine (boots up and runs all my
software from the new drive) before I remove the existing drive from my
laptop?

If so, can you simply explain how, or point me to where in the doc it shows
me what to do? I've already tried to do this a few times so far but without
success (it keeps booting on the internal drive). At this point I don't know
if the problem is with my BING settings or with the copy I've created on my
new drive (or if it just can't be done).

NOTE: This is an older laptop that does not support boot from USB. I don't
know if that even matters in this case, but I'm mentioning it just in case
it does. Also, I'm running XP Pro.

Thanks!
M'D