Destination Disk Greyed Out
I have purchased a new 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio Black 750GB notebook drive (WD7500BPKT) to replace and existing 300GB drive in my laptop. I have connected the new WD drive to my machine using a Cables to Go USB to SATA adapter for purposes of transferring the data. The new WD drive is being recognized by the OS (Windows 7 Pro 64bit) -- it is listed in the Disk Management, can be partitioned, formatting and used...no problems.
I initially tried using the Western Digital edition of True Image and when that failed I bought the full version of True Image Home 2011 (build 6868). Both editions have the same problems listed below. The laptop is an HP HDX 18.
My first attempt was a simple clone of one drive directly to the other. The old drive has a 100MB system reserved boot partition and then the remainder is a single data partition. I am able to select the source drive. At this point, both disks can be selected. I pick the old drive as the source and then continue to the Destination disk screen. That screen shows the new WD Scorpio but the disk is greyed out. I cannot select it as the destination. I tried this both when the new drive was unpartitioned and also formatted as NTFS.
I then thought to skip cloning and go for the backup/recover route. I successfully created a sector-by-sector backup file (tib) from the old drive to a separate 1TB USB external drive that I had laying around. I then tried to recover that image file to the new Western Digital disk. The same problem. When I got to the destination drive screen, the new drive was greyed out. It should be noted that this problem occurs regardless of if I am using the in-OS version of TI or via the bootable media version.
Any thoughts? This has been very frustrating!
Bryan
Thats odd. That is the exact disk I used from a seagate to the scorpio and it worked fine. Then I went scorpio to a Crucial M4 256Gb and that worked fine as well.
I did notice however that the destination drive would be greyed out UNTIL I actually closed any explore drive "X" windows in the background. After they were closed I re ran acronis clone disk and the scorpio was selectable.
I just did the sector-by-sector because I figured it might like that better. The old disk is like 98% full, so it's not like I wasted much space.
So Pat, are you suggesting I not have the new disk hooked to the USB to SATA adapter, but rather install the new disk inside the laptop and have the old disk attached the adapter?
Nigel, I have run Acronis by itself in the OS and also from the boot media (where it's the only thing running period) and have the same issue...so having something running in the background could not be the problem.
Bryan
Yes, especially for a laptop, it is better to do this "reverse" clone procedure.
Pat,
I tried the "reverse" procedure...not a clone but recovering the tib image that I created. That worked! I was able to select the new drive once it was installed inside of the laptop. The recovery seemed to go fine, it says it imaged the data partition, system reserved and MBR.
However, after I reboot, the new drive will NOT boot. It just sits at a black screen with a blinking white cursor.
I then connected the old drive to the USB to SATA adapter and was able to boot from it. Of course Windows complained because the drive letters got all wacked, but I was able to get into Windows 7 and launch Disk Management. It shows the new disk with the data partition and system reserved partition (which is listed as Active).
Any thoughts as to why it might not boot?
Bryan
Did you recover the disk signature as well: important to avoid various software activation issues.
Disconnect any other drive from the computer.
Reboot
When your computer boots, hit F8 and F12, you should see the Win7 recovery environment kick in. Alternatively, boot on the win7 installation DVD.
When you are in the recovery environment, choose startup repair. It might take a couple of passes. If startup repair says that I cannot fix the problem, let us know. We will have to fix it manually.
I assume recovering the disk signature is important in an XP environment as well? Do you use essentially the same steps?
Yes.
G'day
Have found information very pertinent to my situation and I have managed to recover files to a 750Gb disc on a laptop, which unfortunately does not boot. Have used 'Windows 7 repair' of disc which recognizes the disc system as windows, a number of times to no avail. Would appreciate any help.
Doug
I have managed to recover files to a 750Gb disc on a laptop, which unfortunately does not boot.
A file-based recovery won't replicate your old system to create a new bootable drive.
If you just mis-spoke, and actually did a disk recovery, when you made the backup was it a full disk backup selecting the entire disk and not just some partitions? There are often hidden partitions, especially on laptops, and without those hidden partitions the system is likely to be unbootable.
Sorry that I may not have explained well. I followed the following procedure as per the original thread.
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HTS541080G9SA00 to wd7500bpkt
Put the new WD drive at its place, replacing the drive you backup. Boot on the recovery CD and do the recovery from the CD.
Since you restore to a bigger disk, restore your partitions one by one, resizing only the c:\system partition, finally the MBR+track0 and the disk signature.
Reboot
When your computer boots on the win7 installation DVD select the recovery environment, choose startup repair. It might take a couple of passes. If startup repair says that I cannot fix the problem, let us know. We will have to fix it manually.
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The only comment is that the original disk to 750Gb took 12 hrs plus, whereas the MBR +track0 with signature was intantaneous. Thanks for assistance.
Doug
Win 10 Pro x64 SSD - ATI Latest build