[padawan]

Hi,

I have tried twice to make a backup copy of my 120GB HD to a new 160GB HD connected to an USB port.

Cloning seems to go smoothly, but when I try to boot from the cloned HD (physically replacing the HD inside my laptop), nothing happens: after BIOS messages Vista will not start running

Some details
I was using HD->HD copy mode, HDClone 3.7 Standard
on HP Compaq 6510b laptop running Vista Business
(i) I allowed HDClone to ajust automatically for the larger HD
(ii) After cloning, I accepted the autmatic (default) adjustments HDClone suggested for the cloned HD

NOTE:
To make HDClone to recognise the internal HD, I had to adjust BIOS setting "Native SATA mode" to disabled. When trying to boot from the clone, I had this setting in it's original value "Enabled".

Question:
What settings at steps (i) and (ii) above will maximise my possibilities to get a bootable clone of my Vista hard drive? Or any other suggestions I should consider in order to make this work?

[Alex]

How far in the booting process does the operation succeed? Is the Vista boot screen visible at all, or does it show in plain text something like 'No Operating System Found', or does it stop at all.

The automatic adjustment should work always, so point i) should never affect the 'bootabilty' of your system. On the other hand, with ii) the automatic adjustment, HDClone tries to guess the CHS addresses of the partition, which can go wrong, and you are probably better off with no adjustments at all. What HDClone does at this moment is to try to guess the correct disc geometry for the external USB drive when it's built in your computer. But since over the USB layer not all information is available, and much also depends on what is set up in your BIOS, this can go wrong.

Please contact our support at https://www.miray.de/support for a more personal solution.

[padawan]

Alex,

many thanks for your quick reply. I'll have one go with no adjustments in the end of the cloning process and see what happens. Hoping for the best :)