Does W8 auto-write to a HD installed from another system?

[clueless1]

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of a problem here. I wanted to clone a 2tb sata disk from a karaoke machine, and when I inserted it into my NL54 HP server running windows 8 to perform the clone (to a new 2tb drive), the clone was successful. However, upon inserting the new disk in the karaoke machine, it just caused the karaoke machine to hang. Similarly inserting the original disk caused the same issue.

My question is, does anyone know if Windows 8 alters or writes to (in any way) a new hard disk installed for the first time? I don't know the exact details of how the disk was previously formatted, however when I did install it in my HP server it auto showed up as a drive and files/folders were accessible - hence I assume it was NTFS.

What I really wanted to do was to do a clone whilst keeping the original write protected, however I don't think there was any pins on the sata disk to protect against this, so my options were limited anyway. Can someone with expertise please advise?

Thanks

 

[XweAponX]

If the drive is formatted, it will write a recycle bin and a "System Volume Information" folder onto it, but it should not otherwise affect the drive.

If you are trying to install a fresh OS onto this drive, then delete your partition and use the Install Disk to format the partition as it installs.

 

[XweAponX]

Oh Yes, if you are replacing the HDD in the Karaoke Machine, you MUST clone all of the partitions on the drive, in ORDER of their appearance on the drive - You cannot just clone the partition that contains the OS, because the bootloader may not be on that partitions. You may see a couple of smaller partitions before and after the OS partition, you MUST clone those as well.

I use Paragon Partition Manager 9, which I rigged to work with iOS 8, er, Windows 8. It's best to make a "Recovery Disk" from within the Paragon Program, then you boot to that disk with the Source and Target HDD's installed to the PC. When you get the the cloning process, look for "Enable Raw Disk Copy" - It will copy the one disk exactly.

If you do it manually, you have to select each partition on the source drive, one by one in order, even the partitions that appear to be blank, this means the very last partition on the drive. The very first partition is usually the Boot Loader - It will be like this if the original HDD had a "Recovery Partition" built in - That must be copied as well, even if it is never used.

If you need to resize the OS partition, (if it is going into a larger drive) you can set up the resize after you do the original cloning, but you have to move any partitions that are after the OS partition, to the very end of the drive first.

 

[clueless1]

hi,

Many thanks for the reply!

Both the original disk and the new clone both dont work in the karaoke machine, so I assume that Windows 8 has modified the original disk/written to it prior to me cloning it. I cloned it using some third party software, the original disk had only 1 partition and was formatted because after installing it into my server it showed up as F drive with folder structure.

Which leads me to question, is there any way at all to undo that recycle bin and system volume information write to the original disk? I guess if you wanted to do an exact clone, I take it linux is the way to go!

 

[mikeytg]

I remember back when I was cloning my TiVo drive to a larger one - the software I was using cautioned against leaving the drive hooked up when windows was running because windows would replace the master boot record with its own on any disk it detected. Perhaps that is what happened to you.

There was a utility available to reinstall the TiVo MBR and fix this problem, maybe there is the same available for your machine. I'm sorry I don't have more info, but this was a long time ago and I don't have the tivo or the tivo resources any more.

 

[clueless1]

I remember back when I was cloning my TiVo drive to a larger one - the software I was using cautioned against leaving the drive hooked up when windows was running because windows would replace the master boot record with its own on any disk it detected. Perhaps that is what happened to you.

There was a utility available to reinstall the TiVo MBR and fix this problem, maybe there is the same available for your machine. I'm sorry I don't have more info, but this was a long time ago and I don't have the tivo or the tivo resources any more.

I suspect this is the most likely scenario in my case. Windows probably altered the MBR right after the source hard disk was detected, and now the Karaoke machine can't read from it. I tried reaching out to the manufacturers for support with this issue, although yet to get a response to my support request, the good news is that they have the replacement hard disk with system files for sale (probably because alot of people bork their hard disk or the drive just fails).

Thanks for the responses!

 

[XweAponX]

hi,

Many thanks for the reply!

Both the original disk and the new clone both dont work in the karaoke machine, so I assume that Windows 8 has modified the original disk/written to it prior to me cloning it. I cloned it using some third party software, the original disk had only 1 partition and was formatted because after installing it into my server it showed up as F drive with folder structure.

Which leads me to question, is there any way at all to undo that recycle bin and system volume information write to the original disk? I guess if you wanted to do an exact clone, I take it linux is the way to go!

Hm... Certain Partition Manager programs actually delete your original drive after a transfer.

You will probably have to put the drive in as it is, the cloned one, and install a fresh Windows 8 into it. Then go through the "Old" folders and pull out all of your personal effects. Some of your Programs can be copied over to Program files and then re-instralled and then it will have all of your data related to the program. It does not work will all programs, you just have to do it one by one, program by program and see how it works.

 

[clueless1]

Hm... Certain Partition Manager programs actually delete your original drive after a transfer.

You will probably have to put the drive in as it is, the cloned one, and install a fresh Windows 8 into it. Then go through the "Old" folders and pull out all of your personal effects. Some of your Programs can be copied over to Program files and then re-instralled and then it will have all of your data related to the program. It does not work will all programs, you just have to do it one by one, program by program and see how it works.

I used a cloning software called Macrium Reflect, not a partition manager. The drive itself is for a karaoke machine, which I've now found out to be a custom made linux box, after doing some research on the net (and files in the drive itself showing as .sh).

One thing I might have overlooked is the Windows automounting the drive - does the automount save the drive letter (like D to the disk itself, or is it cached in windows (i.e. C drive) itself? Also, is there any chance that the Recycle bin and system volume information folders prevent it from being a bootable Linux drive?

Thanks

 

[XweAponX]

Whenever I do a cloning function, I never do it from within an OS, I always use a recovery disk, back in the days of the old "Partition Magic" program I used to do it from within Windows, and what you state there always would happen, the cloned drive would be assigned a drive letter.

If you do it totally outside of the Windows OS, this never happens, so when the cloning is finished, you can just stick the cloned drive in the system and it will boot.

If you original drive won't boot any longer, it might have been in the wrong slot when you used that program, and got set as the D drive or something. You can fix this with any partition Manager program, from the recovery disk - Boot to the recover disk while the original drive is loaded, and when it loads, it should tell you it's last Drive assignment - You can then change it to C and then it MIGHT boot.

 

[clueless1]

Whenever I do a cloning function, I never do it from within an OS, I always use a recovery disk, back in the days of the old "Partition Magic" program I used to do it from within Windows, and what you state there always would happen, the cloned drive would be assigned a drive letter.

If you do it totally outside of the Windows OS, this never happens, so when the cloning is finished, you can just stick the cloned drive in the system and it will boot.

If you original drive won't boot any longer, it might have been in the wrong slot when you used that program, and got set as the D drive or something. You can fix this with any partition Manager program, from the recovery disk - Boot to the recover disk while the original drive is loaded, and when it loads, it should tell you it's last Drive assignment - You can then change it to C and then it MIGHT boot.

Did some research on the karaoke machine and discovered that its a custom built linux machine. Files on the drive itself are .sh format and also opening some of the text type files shows linux mounting commands.

I'm not too great with linux, but can the drive assignment you mention have any effect on whether it boots when inserted into the Linux/karaoke machine?