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Question

Problems after cloning my hard drive

by Apr 18, 2015 4:02AM PDT

Hope you can help me!

My hard drive was failing so I cloned it and replaced it today with a new WD black 1TB and now I'm having these problems:

1. My Windows Update won't work and gives me a fail message and informs me to restart or the website is offline
2. Hyperlinks no longer work on my Explorer program but still work on Mozilla and Safari
3. When I download pictures they all appear as untitled and PNG files only
4. My frequently visited site history when I open a new tab in explorer no longer works

I have seen on the internet that this is a common problem after you clone a hard drive. How can I fix this problem?

Thankyou in advance

Discussion is locked

10 Posts
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Answer
That's strange.
by Former Forum moderator Apr 18, 2015 4:18AM PDT

A clone should be an exact copy. Of course, from a failing drive, this can contain errors.

- Can you tell exactly what you did? For example, what program did you use, and did you clone directly to that new 1 TB drive?
- Can you give a few links to wat you read about this "common problem" and what solutions have been proposed?

Kees

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Response
by Studio_17 Apr 18, 2015 12:01PM PDT

Hi Kees_B

I belived that a clone should be an exact copy of the drive as well!

I cloned the hard drive using Acronis True Image 2015 software.

My original drive was a Seagate Barracuda 1TB and the new drive is a WD Black 1TB.

One of the posts that I read in regards to this problem stated that the windows program might not be getting acknowledged as genuine original software, but then this was dismissed because the product key was still active.

The next post which is very plausible is that the new hard drives being sold are '4k-type' sector drives and are advanced format compared to the original drive that was in the machine. I have attached the link here:
http://www.beezmo.com/geezblog/?p=74

I'm hoping that this problem is not that complex to sort out .

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Re: new drive
by Kees_B Former Forum moderator Apr 18, 2015 7:08PM PDT

It surely works correct if you reinstall Windows and all applications on the new disk and then copy your data only.

Kees

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Clone
by Bob__B Apr 19, 2015 2:00AM PDT

Are you running this clone as a windows program or did you use the rescue disc?

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Thanks
by addseo1118 Apr 19, 2015 6:36PM PDT

Thanks for sharing an useful information and solution. The link which you have posted was good. Good advice.

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Answer
You cloned a failing hard drive
by Apr 19, 2015 3:37PM PDT
what was failing about it? That might be why the clone of it is also having problems.

What was your operating system?

There's no reason the drive manufacturers should make drives 2TB or less be Advanced Format. It's not necessary for those, but they are doing it on the new drives anyway.

Advanced Format was created for compatibility to Windows computers, since Linux could already set and use larger sector sizes anyway, without need of any emulation program embedded in the firmware of the Advanced Format drives being produced today, up to 16 TB partition sizes.

If XP, it possibly isn't reading the 4kb "hybrid" setup properly.

standard 512b x 8 = 4kb, so the sector may appear in some Advance Format drives as standard 512b, but hold 8 times that amount of data. Unfortunately older OS may read that as being 1/8 of what the drive size is.

There are differing types of Advance Format. One shows 512b sectors to the OS, but firmware will record 4kb to the sectors which actually are 4kb, other "advanced format" just show the 4kb to the OS and if it can't deal with it, ooops. The latter can be reworked using something like Linux Gparted program back to standard 512b sectors.

Was it already formatted and set as a Logical Data Disk? Did you initialize it and/or set a "primary partition" before doing the clone? Windows doesn't install to logical volumes, want's a primary partition.

When using Advanced Format drives with legacy operating systems, it is important to realign the disk drive using software provided by the hard disk manufacturer. Disk realignment is necessary to avoid a performance degrading condition known as cluster straddling where a shifted partition causes filesystem clusters to span partial physical disk sectors. Since cluster-to-sector alignment is determined when creating hard drive partitions, the realignment software is used after partitioning the disk. This can help reduce the number of unaligned writes generated by the computing ecosystem. Further activities to make applications ready for the transition to Advanced Format technologies are being spearheaded by the Long Data Sector Committee and the hard disk drive manufacturers.

Basically you need to start the alignment after the first megabyte.

Seagate on partition alignment for XP systems.

XP workarounds at anandtech.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3865/related/1/session


You should try to align it properly first. If using XP and that allows it to work properly, great!


This person and his method has success with XP SP3

Lot of good information, links and hints here.

The Microsoft Explanation.
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2 good pages
by James Denison Apr 19, 2015 5:30PM PDT
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Answer
Clone related
by Western Digital staff Apr 19, 2015 6:25PM PDT

Hi there.

The problem is probably related to the cloning since you're previous drive started to fail. That's why I prefer and would recommend to do a fresh installation of the OS because the bad side of cloning is that if there is anything corrupted or infected on the old drive it will be the same on the destination drive.

So my advice is to reinstall the OS and see what'll happen.

Let me know how it went. Happy

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Answer
Thankyou
by Apr 25, 2015 1:21AM PDT

Thankyou for everyone that has given me advice and feedback.

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If you do use XP
by James Denison Apr 25, 2015 3:41AM PDT

and can't get it to run directly on an Advanced Format Drive, there is a workaround. Just ask.

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