Problems cloning Windows XP

**wgh** · 07-28-2006, 02:49 AM

I created an image using Knoppix of a Dell Windows XP machine. I used Sysprep to take out the SID, etc...

When I copy the image over to another Dell machine with the same setup and boot, all I see is a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. Why is this? What did I do wrong?

Also, how do I know what to copy? I have /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, and /dev/sdb1.

**OErjan** · 07-28-2006, 04:47 PM

how did you clone it?
What did you use? dd, ddrescue, partimage?
are the two disks exactly the same? by that i mean, same size, same sector/cylinder/head count... if not there might be some trouble.
it MIGHT be ok if you have a full copy of XP and use the fixmbr and fixboot comands

**wgh** · 07-28-2006, 07:17 PM

I used dd... but I may not have copied the entire physical drive, instead I think I copied the 2nd partition. Would that matter because the 2nd partition is the partition with all the Windows files. I think the first partition has some Dell tools.

**OErjan** · 07-28-2006, 09:37 PM

yes it will matter as the first part of the drive contains the bootmanager and such, if i was you i would copy it all

**wgh** · 07-28-2006, 09:41 PM

Now I can't write to my second drive to copy the image over the network using Konqueror... I'm trying to create a file on a Windows computer using dd and gzip but it's not working... What is the syntax for this?

I'm inputting:

dd if=/dev/sda | gzip > 10.0.0.50/images/image.gz

But it's saying no such file or directory. I can browse to this in Konqueror.

**wgh** · 07-28-2006, 10:53 PM

Why did my post get moved?

**OErjan** · 07-29-2006, 11:40 AM

not 100% correct. readmore here, and use the searchfunction for info.
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13913

**Jacky** · 07-29-2006, 12:00 PM

I am referring to your first post in this thread about the cloned XP hanging with a blinking cursor.

I believe you have stumbled on a little-known problem with cloning of XP. The symptoms look familiar and it has happened to me before. This is discussed sometimes in forums on Norton Ghost and so on. The problem is not the imaging or cloning software (most seem to run into this problem except it seems for Acronis TrueImage). The problem is a feature of the XP registry itself. The solution involves editing the XP registry on the source disk before cloning.

I don't think I can explain the problem and the solution better than the 2nd-last post at bottom on this link here:
http://www.devhardware.com/forums/so...ems-82618.html