Yes, I forgot to mention that, that would be my advice as well. And if making an image doesn't work, at least try to copy the "dentist" data from it. If there are any bad sectors, maybe you can skip a few files, but maybe some (or most) of the unique data files can be saved.
sid_16 now you have explained the situation, try Atari800XL solution and see if you can mount the AOMEI backup on a different system to recover the data files or professional recovery company. Also I would remove the hard drive from the old xp machine and clone it on another machine to new hard drive by clone I do not mean a compressed image file with what ever software you chose but an exact disk copy. There may be more things failing on that old machine also causing problems.
Hi, Sorry for the late reply! He has tried to recovered the data from a professional but its useless since the software (RVG) can't read or accept the data correctly. Thanks for your suggestion though! But that hard disk is pata and now a days its very rare and no professional here in my locality are interested to create an image of the failing hard drive with the lengthy process. They only know how to make money easily by formatting a hard drive and installing an windows. Tried that but all goes in vain. The machine is working well now with a new not exactly new but a replaced one with winxp pro sp2 but the recovered data is not accepted by the newly installed software (RVG). UPDATE: The old hard drive data not all but few has been recovered. The old data when copied to the newly installed hard drive and windows, are not accepted correctly, I don't know why? I'm able to install the Aomei backupper image into the new hard drive successfully but the WinXP won't boot. When power is on to the machine, the screen shows IBM logo for few seconds then the screen becomes blank a cursor blinks at the top left corner for many times and nothing happens. The windows won't boot properly. Any solution? P.S I'd downloaded a new WIN XP PRO SP3 from MDL , can you tell me how to repair the system with the help of the CD? Code: Windows XP/en_windows_xp_professional_with_service_pack_3_x86_cd_x14-80428.iso 589.14 MB 617,756,672 MD5 f424a52153e6e5ed4c0d44235cf545d5 SHA1 1c735b38931bf57fb14ebd9a9ba253ceb443d459 The newly installed WinXP PRO SP2 has no matching driver(s) for that machine therefore, the screen resolution can't be corrected. The old hard drive had an invisible recovery partition and I think it has a factory reset option there. But how I recover that partition? If it could be recovered and installed then something could have been done.
Old and new HDDs have very different structures, so even if an image gets restored to a new HDD it won't boot, and XP is one of the OS that doesn't want to boot even if there is a slightest change. Try to boot into safe mode and remove all the drivers, then boot again normally. It works some times but not always. As for connectors there are HDD external casings ( also some simple external connectors) available in the market which lets you connect HDDs as USB drives. As you are not going to use it for long the cheap ones will be sufficient.
I as well as the doctor was unaware of it until the shop owner told that it has a hidden drive with a factory reset option but it was late, the hard drive was replaced with a new WinXP SP2 installed. Since its a very old machine, it has no driver CD, all the machines sticker from the front side including its S/N number seems invisible and worn out but after applying some chemical to a sticker 'that remained at back of the machine', I'm able to copy the XP Windows key but it got rejected by the XP SP2 during installation, when it prompted to activate. The technician who, installed the windows install some generic Pentium4 drivers but it seems that its not sufficient for a smooth running. I've a question, if I re-restore the system using the aomei backupper image and start a repair using my"newly downloaded XP Pro SP3" CD, will the machine boot normally? The old image will give a direct link to the IBM support or at least their software can detect the machine and may help to download any needed driver(s).
Not sure if what I'm trying to achieve is actually possible... I'd like to create a 'true' clone of my system drive which will retain all the unique identifiers of the source disk. Many of the programs/plugins I have installed tie the DRM licensing to the disk and so far every single cloning program I tried would result in having to reactivate a ton of softs which is a massively time consuming pain.. Any ideas how that can be avoided?
Hello @netRAT - Try using Macrium Reflect and use the advanced option to create a "forensic copy" of the disk instead of using the default "intelligent sector copy". Doing so will copy every sector of each partition on the source disk to the target disk (i.e. whether those sectors are flagged by the system as being "in use" or "unused"). Just be aware of two things: 1.) The target disk must be the same size as the source disk (or larger). 2.) It will take significantly longer to do so. If you're still having problems after doing this, you may have to use Gparted (the live CD version) to check the UUID of each partition on the target disk to see if it matches the UUID of the same partition on the source disk. If they don't, you can use Gparted to change the UUID so it matches.
Thanks John. Just tried as you suggested... Source - 250GB Samsung Evo 850 SATA SSD Target - 500GB Crucial BX200 SATA SSD Forensic sector by sector clone using Macrium Reflect, confirmed partition UUIDs matched using gparted. Yet still I'm experiencing the same issue... Many of my programs/plugins prompt to reactivate. My drive was cloned with NICs disabled in device manager to avoid anything calling home upon loading up the cloned drive. There's still something missing that is not getting replicated onto the clone. Any other ideas?
Just thought I would let you guys know I have very good results with Clonezilla. I don't know if this is correct, but I use it because it runs from a disc, therefore the actual system I am cloning is not in use. I think that gives me a true image - not 100% sure of that, but it's good for me. It's also free. But do use the tutorials. Hope this helps someone.
I have a basic question on this subject: After finishing a clean install of Win7 incl all other software on the SSD in the desktop computer, will it make a difference wether I use an SSD or an HDD to make an identical copy?
Greetings, This is my first post on the forums so hopefully forgiveness is in order if this has been brought up before. I searched this thread and found no mention of the following open source imaging backup program.... Redo Rescue: Backup and Recovery [download link deleted] [apparently, I need to post a few more times before including links, so you'll have to search for the program] I've got a Dell Vostrol 230 with Dual Boot Windows 7 Home and Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa I used this program after hearing about it on the Linux Mint forum. It's non-OS specific and can image both file systems. I took an image for backup after I had everything configured, backed up to external hard drive. I haven't yet tried a restore procedure, but Mint forum members say it works very well. Features: New version 3.0 UEFI Secure Boot support enabled ISO image can be written to CD or USB Live system based on 64-bit Debian Works with real and virtual machines Restore old backups created with v1.0 Updated tools and utilities included Overwrite or preserve partition tables Now with VNC server for remote help Support for more disks and devices Shows free space on destination drive Detailed logs now easily accessible Improved error handling and reporting Cheers