IFW HDD --> SDD cloning problems. E.g. 'Cannot write to firs
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:15 am
Dear experts,
Apologies for the long, turgid message that follows. Some years ago
I tried several disk cloning products and found IFW was the only one
that could manage to clone cross-partition, inter-disk folder
symlinks/redirects on WS 2008. I've been happily using IFW for
disk cloning ever since without any problems.
But now in a different context I *am* encountering some perplexing
issues. New, fatal, alerts are appearing in IFW:
A) "Cannot write to first track". This when attempting to copy the
first, sys, partition.
B) "Unable to add entry". This occurs at the end of the last (D:)
partition-to-partition copy. Both progress bars are green right
to the end, then this alert appears and the green progress bars turn
yellow, followed by a triumphant "FAILED! FAILED! ..." message.
ENVIRONMENT:
Image For Windows version 3.13 x64 (purchased within the last three weeks)
Lenovo ThinkStation with Windows 7 Professional x64
XX) Source disk: Old Seagate 3.5" 1TB HDD.
YY) Destination disk: New Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" 1TB SSD.
The immediate question is how to solve 'A' and 'B' above?
-------------
Here is further background, which may or may not be relevant.
The source disk, 'XX' above, is beginning to fail with bad sectors.
1) I cloned the entire 'XX' disk (using 'Copy') to the new SSD, 'YY' above.
This clone seemed to be successful: the IFW byte-to-byte verification
report said there were zero errors. But the copied-to SSD would not
boot. [Next after booting from a Windows 7 Professional x64 install
DVD, it said 'This is not the right install disk' (or similar) and
stopped. (Other amateur attempts to make disk 'YY' bootable failed.)]
2) So I attempted to repeat step '1', this time using another new
Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" 1TB SSD as the target disk (ZZ). The idea
was to have two OS and data copies, before proceeding down the
possibly damaging road of how the heck to make the disk bootable.
This failed immediately with the alert 'A' above. Why not possible
to write to first track of a new SSD?
3) Next step was to repeat '2' above, but partition by partion. There
are three partitions in total, SYS, C: and D:. Cloning SYS failed
with altert 'A' above. C: succeeded. D: failed with alert 'B'
above. I can't find any reference to "Unable to add entry" in the
IFW docs. Not by searching for 'entry' at anyrate.
FWIW steps 2 and 3 above were attempted so as to have a second disk
clone available in case attempts to fix the boot problem wrt disk
'YY', using EasyBcd, or other mind-numbing techniques, et al, went
awry and destroyed its potential bootability. (For various reasons,
doing a re-install, wiping the OS, is something I'm desperate to
avoid.) BTW the Samsung 850 Pro SSDs were both completely out of the
box new. BTW(2) my skill level is abt 3/10, e.g. I don't know the diff
between GPT and MBR...
If anyone has any advice or help wrt the foregoing, I'll be truly
grateful.
Thanks for reading this far.
/Rick
Apologies for the long, turgid message that follows. Some years ago
I tried several disk cloning products and found IFW was the only one
that could manage to clone cross-partition, inter-disk folder
symlinks/redirects on WS 2008. I've been happily using IFW for
disk cloning ever since without any problems.
But now in a different context I *am* encountering some perplexing
issues. New, fatal, alerts are appearing in IFW:
A) "Cannot write to first track". This when attempting to copy the
first, sys, partition.
B) "Unable to add entry". This occurs at the end of the last (D:)
partition-to-partition copy. Both progress bars are green right
to the end, then this alert appears and the green progress bars turn
yellow, followed by a triumphant "FAILED! FAILED! ..." message.
ENVIRONMENT:
Image For Windows version 3.13 x64 (purchased within the last three weeks)
Lenovo ThinkStation with Windows 7 Professional x64
XX) Source disk: Old Seagate 3.5" 1TB HDD.
YY) Destination disk: New Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" 1TB SSD.
The immediate question is how to solve 'A' and 'B' above?
-------------
Here is further background, which may or may not be relevant.
The source disk, 'XX' above, is beginning to fail with bad sectors.
1) I cloned the entire 'XX' disk (using 'Copy') to the new SSD, 'YY' above.
This clone seemed to be successful: the IFW byte-to-byte verification
report said there were zero errors. But the copied-to SSD would not
boot. [Next after booting from a Windows 7 Professional x64 install
DVD, it said 'This is not the right install disk' (or similar) and
stopped. (Other amateur attempts to make disk 'YY' bootable failed.)]
2) So I attempted to repeat step '1', this time using another new
Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" 1TB SSD as the target disk (ZZ). The idea
was to have two OS and data copies, before proceeding down the
possibly damaging road of how the heck to make the disk bootable.
This failed immediately with the alert 'A' above. Why not possible
to write to first track of a new SSD?
3) Next step was to repeat '2' above, but partition by partion. There
are three partitions in total, SYS, C: and D:. Cloning SYS failed
with altert 'A' above. C: succeeded. D: failed with alert 'B'
above. I can't find any reference to "Unable to add entry" in the
IFW docs. Not by searching for 'entry' at anyrate.
FWIW steps 2 and 3 above were attempted so as to have a second disk
clone available in case attempts to fix the boot problem wrt disk
'YY', using EasyBcd, or other mind-numbing techniques, et al, went
awry and destroyed its potential bootability. (For various reasons,
doing a re-install, wiping the OS, is something I'm desperate to
avoid.) BTW the Samsung 850 Pro SSDs were both completely out of the
box new. BTW(2) my skill level is abt 3/10, e.g. I don't know the diff
between GPT and MBR...
If anyone has any advice or help wrt the foregoing, I'll be truly
grateful.
Thanks for reading this far.
/Rick