BleepingComputer.com: Hard Drive Clone and Stop Error

Hello,
I've visted this forum several times in the past and have found it valuable in curing problems that I've had. So thanks to all of you who take the time to help people like me.

I have a Dell XPS M1210 laptop. The strange thing about this is that I requested Windows XP Home when I bought it, but when I got it, Windows Media Center was installed. I called to complain and was told that it was a known issue, and that they'd really loaded XP Home on it. It apparently was some kind of Dell mixup, and they showed me how to click around in the system and I found that XP really was loaded on it. But -- I should also say that when I run diag's on the machine in says the OS is XP Pro. Not sure if that's important but am trying to mention everything.

I recently performed a memory upgrade (from 512GB to 2GB) and I needed a larger hard drive from 50GB to some larger size. I bought it all from Dell, the memory in sets, and a WD 500 GB hard drive (it is on the Dell site as compatible with my system). I also bought the Apricorn EZ Gig II, I only want to clone the hard drive and move everything to the larger hard drive, no upgrades or anything. Ok, so I install the memory, it's reading it fine. I use the EZ Gig and clone the small hard drive to the big hard drive. I put the machine back together, and I get the Stop error:

0x0000007B (0xBA4CB524, 0xC0000034, 0x0000000, 0x0000000)

Not sure what's going on, I thought maybe the WD was too big for the mobo (even though it should have worked), so I reformatted the WD and returned it. Then I bought a Seagate 350 GB, ran thru the same process, but couldn't get the Seagate back into the hard drive caddy. I kept that one because I banged it up. So now, I've got the same Hitachi Travelstar hard drive that came with the XPS, but it's 120 GB. I cloned the data, and put the new drive in the laptop ang got the same stop error.

I am frustrated to say the least, and I would appreciate any assistance anyone can offer. I don't know if it's drivers, something with a SATA configuration, or something with FAT 32 and NTFS...Thanks for reading this long post...

Seems to me that this device you are using...Apricorn EZ Gig II...is the problem.

A true cloned hard drive can easily be substituted for the orignal...and will boot right up.

7B STOP errors:

0x0000007B: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Windows lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process. Typical causes: Installing incorrect device drivers when installing or upgrading storage adapter hardware, or a virus.

Either your clone doesn't have the correct boot.ini file or...the MBR is messed up...that would be my guess.

You sure you used the clone function, rather than the backup function?

That STOP error says that your hard drive contains no bootable partition which is being detected.

Louis

Rlbexp did they send you a Dell CDROM or DVDROM system repair disk with this laptop?

I'm just curious where where your copy of your operating sysytem is.

Some times they hide it zipped on a hidden partition of the origional hard drive, or its on a Dell recovery disk.
If so use that disk to see if it does a repair.

Any ways sometimes you can run the windows disk at bootup (if you have one) and choose fixmbr......or fixboot.


There are a lot of hidden commands that are not known to most people that can be used when booting to the operating systems disk, that repair boot problems.

A list of those commands include. attrib, batch, bootcfg, cd, chdir, chkdsk /p, cls, copy, del, delete, dir, disable, diskpart, enable, exit, expand, fixboot, fixmbr, format, help, listsvc, logon, map, md, mkdir, more, net, rd, ren, rename, rmdir, systemroot, type.
I offered these to you hoping maybe you can repair the problem, if you have a copy of windows.

Sorry for the long reply, but I hope it helps you.

Hi hamluis, thank you for responding!

The Apricorn EZ Gig seemed to be a good choice, according to the amazon.com and CNET.com posts I was reading, But it didn't occur to me that it may be the problem. But I installed the CD onto the laptop, I didn't change the BIOS and run the software as a bootable CD (which was the other way that was suggested). Once I installed Apricorn, I put the bare drive into enclosure, and I'm sure I chose the clone option (this is my 3rd pass at this) and ran it. All the directions indicated that I was following the directions correctly. It just won't boot up ater a successful clone....

hamluis, what is the MBR? the motherboard?

MrBruce1959, yes, I have the recovery disks from when I bought the machine, but I'm not understanding what you mean? How would running the windows disk help me? I only want to upgrade the hard drive, without losing all my programs and reinstalling windows...when I put the original hard drive back into the machine, it works fine. Before I ran the clone, I did a defrag, a chkdsk and full system scans for viruses, I think the machine itself is clean... Also, because of that media center and XP madness, I'm not sure which OS I'd even be using. But...I don't want to reinstall and lose everything....

Should I uninstall the Apricorn and try to run it as a bootable CD? Is there another cloning product you can suggest? One concern I do have is with taking it apart and putting it back together so many times...I'm afraid I may corrupt the data...I've backed it up to an external hard drive, but I'm still paranoid....

Any other ideas? Thank you both so much for your responses....

This post has been edited by rlbexp: 02 February 2010 - 06:47 AM

Well...if all the files are on your new partition...a repair install of XP ought to make it bootable/functional.

Forget this application for the moment.

Change the boot order for your system so that it boots from CD/DVD first.

Then attempt a repair install on the new O/S, if such is possible with your XP CD. I have no idea whether that is possible with your CD and your system.

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Perform a Repair Installation - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/h...ips/doug92.mspx

The above links are written for users who have Genuine Microsoft XP CDs...they are not written for users who purchase systems from Dell, Compaq, etc. and who have recovery/restore CDs.

Louis

rlbexp, on Feb 2 2010, 06:45 AM, said:

MBR stands for Master Boot Record

It is located at sector 0 of your hard drive. This sector contains instructions for your system's BIOS on how to hand the boot over to the hard disk and load your operating system, which continues the boot process instructions to your Windows' "Grapthical User Interface" also called GUI (the pretty pictures you now see on your screen such as the windows XP welcome splash screen.

Windows XP also has a hidden file called boot.ini it is located on the root directory of drive C:\ it is an initiation text file that has the text like below>

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="Microsoft windows xp home edition" /nonexecute=optin /fastdetect

Now you know

This post has been edited by MrBruce1959: 02 February 2010 - 08:28 PM

I personally use Acronis for both cloning drives and imaging and it works great. I used to use Ghost but when I needed it to there was no support for SATA so I switched. There is zero reason why a cloned drive should not work right out of the gate. I would guess the fault either lies with the software you are using or one of the choices you have to make during the cloning process. Double check it and try again or use different software

Well...if all the files are on your new partition...a repair install of XP ought to make it bootable/functional.

Uh oh hamlouis, I think you're starting to lose me. If I'm getting the stop error when I install the newly cloned drive, how would I know if the files are on the new partition?

Forget this application for the moment.

Change the boot order for your system so that it boots from CD/DVD first.

Then attempt a repair install on the new O/S, if such is possible with your XP CD.
I can try this, but I don't have any errors in any log files or screen messages where doing a repair install would be needed. Should I try this before I run the clone software again? I have a genuine XP CD also, but I'm trying to avoid this or (anything that resembles an OS reinstall) because I'm afraid of losing everything. I've tried to restore data from backups before and have had little success.

Thanks MrBruce1959 for the clarification.

There is zero reason why a cloned drive should not work right out of the gate.
Baltboy: I know!!! Waaaah! why won't this work??!

Thanks to all for your responses though!

This post has been edited by rlbexp: 03 February 2010 - 08:15 AM

The most likely problem from what I'm reading is that the Apricorn EZ Gig II is the problem as Hamluis stated. It's quite probable that the software that came with your Apricorn EZ Gig II does not understand the hidden Dell Partition on the front of the hard drive.

The Hidden Dell partition has all of Dell's Testing utilities on it and can be quite tough to copy using some software. I do know that Acronis will do this and will make a good clone of a Dell.

Hope this helps,

rlbexp, on Feb 3 2010, 08:13 AM, said:

Doing a repair from the Windows XP installation disk, does not re-install your operation system, unless you choose that option.
I listed some commands in a earlier post.
FIXBOOT corrects (fixes) your boot menu.
FIXMBR fixes and corrects your Master Boot Record.

I have to admit that the repair feature on the Windows XP disk can be a bit confusing at first if you've never used it before.

techextreme, on Feb 3 2010, 08:35 AM, said:

Techextreme you may have a good point here....one way to find this out would to be to contact Dell and ask if they hide such programs on another partition.
But I still question, whether that would stop the clone drive from at least booting up.

I think it appears that the master boot record is not picking up the instructions from the BIOS to load the O/S.
It couldn't hurt....I've used fixmbr and fixboot before when I had issues with a dual boot system (Windows 2000/Windows XP Home Edition SP3) on a DELL PowerEdge SC420 server.
Those commands fixed my boot problem.

Wow, you all are great!

I haven't used the FIXBOOT and FIXNBR commands before. Is there another area of the forums that provides step by step instructions?

And of course, I didn't know about the hidden partition in Dell systems either as Techextreme mentions. I am more inclined to use Acronis software, becuse I am more comfortable with this than I am with using the commands. Call me crazy, but it just doesn't seem like this fairly simple thing should be so complicated...

So I will look around today for Acronis and will stand by for any instructions (at my own risk of course) on how to use the above commands.

Thanks so much for all of your help....even though I haven't fix it yet, I feel a little better already...

If you have Windows CD...(if you don't have Windows CD, scroll down)

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the "R" key to enter the recovery console:



3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number "1").
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:



4. Now at the prompt, type in fixmbr. Your damaged MBR will now be replaced with a new master boot record.

5. Now at the prompt, type in fixboot. Your boot sector will now be replaced with a new one your computer should now be able to boot properly. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit "Y", then Enter to confirm your decision.

6. It's time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.



If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free isorecorder: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
Right click on RC.iso and click Copy Image to CD
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.