Question:
I have been trying to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop by cloning the
existing drive onto a new, larger drive using Apricorn's EZ-Gig. After
repeated failures to clone, I followed the advice in another forum and
switched the hard drives before cloning (put the original in the
external enclosure and the new drive internally). After the cloning
operation was completed, I disconnected the external (old) hard drive
and attempted to boot the new drive. The good news: the clone was
(finally) recognized, but the bad news: the Windows start-up routine
got as far as the log-in screen and no further. What's more, the log-in
screen was not displaying correctly: the Windows logo was shifted to the
right, the vertical line far to the right, and the user(s) accounts did
not appear at all. The HDD would spin for a little, then nothing.
Answer:
I find it unlikely that the problem is just that of Microsoft somehow
fixing HDD size; if this were the case, then I am certain that
Apricorn's tech support would have been aware of the issue and advised
me accordingly.
If anyone else has any ideas of what might be going wrong...or better
yet, how to fix the problem...I'd be very appreciative. Acer's System
Restore disks seem designed to erase the HDD and restore it to the
original factory condition...if they work at all (my experience to date
has been that their disks don't work). They do not seem to allow a
repair without reformatting, which will never do at all.
I have finally been able to make my hard drive work. Acer tech support
was not very useful, and in general, I can honestly say that I cannot
recommend that anyone purchase an Acer computer (among other things,
Acer claims that "it only the supports its systems as shipped," meaning
they don't do anything for upgrades, even for things like BIOS; they
also directed me to go to the website of the BIOS provider for any
updates, but the website for Phoenix BIOS clearly states that, for
updates, you have to go to the computer manufacturer's site).
The Apricorn tech support guy suggested that I perform a clone "as is";
that is, that I clone an exact copy of the original partition,
essentially splitting my new hard drive into two partitions--one the
same size as my original hard drive, the other made up of the remaining
space.
I performed the clone using the Apricorn EZ-Gig II hardware/software
combo, with the hard drives in reverse position (new hard drive
installed internally, original hard drive installed in the external
Apricorn case). The cloning took about 9 hours (Apricorn was suprised
at this, as my Acer laptop supposedly has USB2 ports--but with Acer, as
I've come to learn, expect the least). When I went to boot from the new
hard drive, everything worked pretty much as hoped for, except for a
new 15-20 second delay after logging in between the time the desktop
background image appeared and the desktop icons and task bar appeared
(subsequent reboots still have this same delay). I was then able to
format the new partition from within Windows, and now use it to store
my ever-growing photo/media bank.
