Drive Cloning Problem: Sector Size Issue?

macman

I'm trying to clone an old laptop SATA hard drive (Windows 7) to a new drive, as the old one is showing signs of failure. This is a procedure I've done many times before using Acronis True Image, Macrium Reflect or Seagate Disk Wizard (which runs a version of True Image). The new drive is temporarily hooked up to the laptop by USB and it's formatted, and I can see it in Disk Management and write to it.
However, none of the above software will clone the drive. In Disk Wizard, I can't select the target drive ('F'), even though the software can see it. In True Image 2010, I can select it, but it fails a few seconds into the cloning process without any helpful error message. In Reflect, when I try to select the target drive, I get an error message ' incompatible sector size for this operation'.
The old drive is 2008 vintage, so will have 512 byte sectors, and the new one will have the current 4kb sectors, Is this the reason it won't clone, and if so how can I get round it without doing a clean W7 install please? Or have I done something dumb in Disk Management/formatting?
PS: I've also tried a couple of freeware cloning utilities (XXClone and AOMEI Backupper), but still no joy.

S0litaire

How big is the target hard drive?
Some OS's and programs have a problem seeing "MBR" drives larger than 1.7Tb

How was it partitioned? using MBR or GPT?

macman

The old drive is 160GB and the new is 320GB.
Partitioned using MBR.
I've tried all the partitioning options in True Image: Auto, Manual/ProportionalSame.
The only program that gives a meaningful error message is the reference to sector size in Reflect. Unfortunately I don't have a older SATA drive to test it on.

debitcardmayhem

Just an Idea (it may be the heat of course) could you use a Linux disk to DD from the old to the New (skipping 1 block i.e the MBR) then use Windows 7 recovery disk to repair the PC ? I think it should work but hey as I said it's hot and my brain is fuddled today (or maybe just bootrec /fixmbr etc)
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/17521-how-fix-mbr-through-command-prompt.html

S0litaire

Only thing i can think of is totaly wiping the new drive (remove all partitions) so it's unformatted and see if the image software can copy over the drive image that way.

I'm assuming all the cloning software is the latest version.

what he said:

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Just an Idea (it may be the heat of course) could you use a Linux disk to DD from the old to the New (skipping 1 block i.e the MBR) then use Windows 7 recovery disk to repair the PC ? I think it should work but hey as I said it's hot and my brain is fuddled today (or maybe just bootrec /fixmbr)

Using dd (or dcfldd for it's status output while running) would be the easiest way to go. But I use dd all the time so the commands a second nature to me.
you just need to then run bootrec /fixmbr in recovery "cmd" window

closed

does a disk image backup and restore work, as opposed to a clone

what are the signs of drive failure

debitcardmayhem

Oh BTW gparted live usb is useful and it will have the dd stuff too http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

macman

Not sure I'd want to mess with the MBR even on a cooler day (it's a friend's laptop, not mine).
Drive has been failing to boot up consistently, running Startup Repair sometimes before it will boot. Also failed drive SMART test. Though today I've rebooted it 7 or 8 times and no issues...typical.
No one has mentioned the sector size issue, so is that a red herring?
I'll try a backup and restore later and report back. But I can definitely write to and read from the new drive OK.

onzey

Have you tried googling: clone drive sector size

I'm no expert but scanning a few results "alignment" is mentioned a few times. Plenty to read and something might help.

macman

I've tried making a disk image onto the new drive using both Reflect and Backupper. No problems with either.
But no cloning software will work.
I've read some of the stuff on 'alignment' but I'm frankly none the wiser.

debitcardmayhem

Try dd as suggested above and then use bootrec ... (and before doing the bootrec disconnect the old drive first for your safety's sake). I am not guaranteeing it will work but hey it will take about 30 minutes....