Can't get Ghosted clonein Dell 2400, "STOP 0x0000007B"

I used Norton 2003 Ghost to do a sector-level clone, identical disks
in and out, WD1200JB (IDE), on one machine, then attempted to use the
clone in my Dell 2400. (Its disk, and its slave drive that contained
my backups, both crashed within a day of each other, the second
machine is my ultimate backup -- on two disks there. I will still
have a lot of recovery since I was in the throes of a move for some 6
weeks, no LAN, so the second machine's content is almost two months
old.) I used SysPrep in the manner recommended by Symantec prior to
cloning -- at least, I think I used it correctly -- but did leave
GoBack enabled, which is why I did the sector copy clone.

When the clone is installed in the Dell as its primary and only drive,
the BIOS recognizes it just fine, GoBack goes through its usual
countdown, the Win2k load bar claims Windows is loading, the Windows
splash screen shows up -- for about a second. Clearly, the disk is
being successfully accessed. But: I immediately get the blue screen
with a STOP 0x0000007B, other parameters, and the legend
"INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".

I've hunted around on the Web, found all sorts of advice on handling
the situation including technotes at Microsoft, none of which seemed
to be a solution to my problem -- at least, none that I was able to
follow for my situation. (BTW, I am a tech guy -- or thought I was.)
Best concensus is that the HAL is looking for chip set drivers for the
HDD controller -- I may not have the words exactly correct there --
but I can't figure out what to do about it. I have the drivers and
utilities CD that came with the Dell, but . . . what should I do with
it?

I have a four diskette Win2k boot set, asking it to repair the
installation after it loads doesn't help, and the other option is a
fresh load.

The DELL came with XP, which I won't use, I already had multiple
licenses for Win2k Professional which is my OS of choice.
Incidentally, getting Win2k into the Dell originally was far more
difficult than it seems it should have been.

I have initiated a reinstall of Win2k, and the first stage just
finished, it has no problem so far, just going into the "Installing
Devices" process that follows the initial reboot, so the clone is now
toast and the HDD is obviously now fully accessible. But I would much
rather recreate the clone and use that rather than hunting down all
the programs and systems I had installed and rebuilding from scratch,
especially since most of the source media are buried in my packed
stuff, some of it is lost, some of it was downloaded and the downloads
were lost, many of the programs had been customized with options, etc.

Any advice on how to get the clone into the Dell would be very much
appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Well, you are right about the HAL, but chances are that both machines use
the same HAL.
Please provide motherboard make for the old machine and model of your new
Dell 2400.
Secondly, there is a MassStorage issue with Sysprep. You have to perform
certain tasks in your OLD machine before you run a sysprep on it. Then you
do a ghost image on the old PC (doesn't have to be a sector level, actually
it should not be - it is a waste of time) to the second disk. That is best
performed in DOS (boot from ghost made floppy). Do not reboot. Remove cloned
disk, put it in Dell 2400. Start, it should run minisetup if HAL and
MassStorage configuration/drivers were set correctly. That's all.

"NeverLift" wrote in message
...
I used Norton 2003 Ghost to do a sector-level clone, identical disks
in and out, WD1200JB (IDE), on one machine, then attempted to use the
clone in my Dell 2400. (Its disk, and its slave drive that contained
my backups, both crashed within a day of each other, the second
machine is my ultimate backup -- on two disks there. I will still
have a lot of recovery since I was in the throes of a move for some 6
weeks, no LAN, so the second machine's content is almost two months
old.) I used SysPrep in the manner recommended by Symantec prior to
cloning -- at least, I think I used it correctly -- but did leave
GoBack enabled, which is why I did the sector copy clone.

When the clone is installed in the Dell as its primary and only drive,
the BIOS recognizes it just fine, GoBack goes through its usual
countdown, the Win2k load bar claims Windows is loading, the Windows
splash screen shows up -- for about a second. Clearly, the disk is
being successfully accessed. But: I immediately get the blue screen
with a STOP 0x0000007B, other parameters, and the legend
"INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".

I've hunted around on the Web, found all sorts of advice on handling
the situation including technotes at Microsoft, none of which seemed
to be a solution to my problem -- at least, none that I was able to
follow for my situation. (BTW, I am a tech guy -- or thought I was.)
Best concensus is that the HAL is looking for chip set drivers for the
HDD controller -- I may not have the words exactly correct there --
but I can't figure out what to do about it. I have the drivers and
utilities CD that came with the Dell, but . . . what should I do with
it?

I have a four diskette Win2k boot set, asking it to repair the
installation after it loads doesn't help, and the other option is a
fresh load.

The DELL came with XP, which I won't use, I already had multiple
licenses for Win2k Professional which is my OS of choice.
Incidentally, getting Win2k into the Dell originally was far more
difficult than it seems it should have been.

I have initiated a reinstall of Win2k, and the first stage just
finished, it has no problem so far, just going into the "Installing
Devices" process that follows the initial reboot, so the clone is now
toast and the HDD is obviously now fully accessible. But I would much
rather recreate the clone and use that rather than hunting down all
the programs and systems I had installed and rebuilding from scratch,
especially since most of the source media are buried in my packed
stuff, some of it is lost, some of it was downloaded and the downloads
were lost, many of the programs had been customized with options, etc.

Any advice on how to get the clone into the Dell would be very much
appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Actually, I did all that. The only reason I used the sector-copy
Ghost process is because I didn't want to disable GoBack and cut my
ties with the past -- especially considering I was mucking about with
my one remaining good data source -- and that kind of cloning is the
only method Ghost would permit with GoBack enabled. Tried the
Symantec instructions to the contrary -- interrupting the GoBack
startup, selecting boot from floppy (the Ghost diskette I'd created
from Ghost). ( I did download just about all the Symantec data tech
notes on the subject, over 20 pages of stuff, read them all. Some
several times.)

The motherboard on the source machine is ASUS P2B-F.

One hint that may well pinpoint the problem but not the solution:
During the reinstall of Win2k on the Dell -- running in parallel with
trying to use the clone, save time if using the clone is never
achieved -- I could not get anything but 16 color, low res video.
Used the Dell Dimension Resource CD for lack of something better to
do, it offered to load a bunch of drivers including the video. Among
them were some chipset drivers. Loaded them all, everything was fine.
Except, of course, the new Win2k was just that . . . empty of all my
important stuff.

So, tried two more tacks:

1. Created the sector clone on the ASUS (was out for the evening, so
the 4 hours that takes didn't bother me) using the approved method,
then took out the original drive the clone came from -- for safety,
did not want to write to it -- and mounted the copy as master. Booted
just fine. Then tried to use the Dell Drivers CD to load all their
drivers, figuring they'd then be there for use in the Dell machine.
The CD front end menu software detected that this is not a Dell
machine and signed off.

(Not tried yet: Using the driver load .exes on that CD directly
rather than through the autostart menu. Its directory structure makes
those a bit messy to identify, not sure I can accomplish it without
input.)

2. Mounted the clone in the Dell machine, but then used the 4 diskette
Win2k startup boot to start the machine. Exited from the Win load
process (had previously tried repair, no joy), at the A: prompt, tried
to access C:. It said there wasn't a C: drive. Duh! When I had used
the same procedure to load Win2K from scratch, it had no trouble
writing the OS to the C: drive. ???

Curious, I mounted the Dell CD, tried to access it: That worked, did
a dir, everything was there. But: could run nothing. An entry of,
for example, "setup" (there is a setup.exe in the CD root directory)
was rejected as "No such command". Apparently one cannot run programs
under the system loaded by those diskettes, just a limited set of
"DOS" commands. Gah!

So, my conclusion is that the drivers on the CD need to be loaded for
Win2k to work. And they can't be loaded until Win2k is working!
Catch-22.

Still trying, still looking for help.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 20:30:41 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:

Well, you are right about the HAL, but chances are that both machines use
the same HAL.
Please provide motherboard make for the old machine and model of your new
Dell 2400.
Secondly, there is a MassStorage issue with Sysprep. You have to perform
certain tasks in your OLD machine before you run a sysprep on it. Then you
do a ghost image on the old PC (doesn't have to be a sector level, actually
it should not be - it is a waste of time) to the second disk. That is best
performed in DOS (boot from ghost made floppy). Do not reboot. Remove cloned
disk, put it in Dell 2400. Start, it should run minisetup if HAL and
MassStorage configuration/drivers were set correctly. That's all.

Please post your sysprep.inf file. It is hard to comment without seeing it.

You do not install drivers for a target system (Dell 2400) on the sysprep
machine (ASUS), you copy them to a hard drive, let say C:\DRIVERS directory.
That happens before you run sysprep.
There are a few things to watch for in sysprep.inf, and one simple
procedure, that needs to be performed before you start sysprep.

"NeverLift" wrote in message
news
Actually, I did all that. The only reason I used the sector-copy
Ghost process is because I didn't want to disable GoBack and cut my
ties with the past -- especially considering I was mucking about with
my one remaining good data source -- and that kind of cloning is the
only method Ghost would permit with GoBack enabled. Tried the
Symantec instructions to the contrary -- interrupting the GoBack
startup, selecting boot from floppy (the Ghost diskette I'd created
from Ghost). ( I did download just about all the Symantec data tech
notes on the subject, over 20 pages of stuff, read them all. Some
several times.)

The motherboard on the source machine is ASUS P2B-F.

One hint that may well pinpoint the problem but not the solution:
During the reinstall of Win2k on the Dell -- running in parallel with
trying to use the clone, save time if using the clone is never
achieved -- I could not get anything but 16 color, low res video.
Used the Dell Dimension Resource CD for lack of something better to
do, it offered to load a bunch of drivers including the video. Among
them were some chipset drivers. Loaded them all, everything was fine.
Except, of course, the new Win2k was just that . . . empty of all my
important stuff.

So, tried two more tacks:

1. Created the sector clone on the ASUS (was out for the evening, so
the 4 hours that takes didn't bother me) using the approved method,
then took out the original drive the clone came from -- for safety,
did not want to write to it -- and mounted the copy as master. Booted
just fine. Then tried to use the Dell Drivers CD to load all their
drivers, figuring they'd then be there for use in the Dell machine.
The CD front end menu software detected that this is not a Dell
machine and signed off.

(Not tried yet: Using the driver load .exes on that CD directly
rather than through the autostart menu. Its directory structure makes
those a bit messy to identify, not sure I can accomplish it without
input.)

2. Mounted the clone in the Dell machine, but then used the 4 diskette
Win2k startup boot to start the machine. Exited from the Win load
process (had previously tried repair, no joy), at the A: prompt, tried
to access C:. It said there wasn't a C: drive. Duh! When I had used
the same procedure to load Win2K from scratch, it had no trouble
writing the OS to the C: drive. ???

Curious, I mounted the Dell CD, tried to access it: That worked, did
a dir, everything was there. But: could run nothing. An entry of,
for example, "setup" (there is a setup.exe in the CD root directory)
was rejected as "No such command". Apparently one cannot run programs
under the system loaded by those diskettes, just a limited set of
"DOS" commands. Gah!

So, my conclusion is that the drivers on the CD need to be loaded for
Win2k to work. And they can't be loaded until Win2k is working!
Catch-22.

Still trying, still looking for help.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 20:30:41 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:

Well, you are right about the HAL, but chances are that both machines use
the same HAL.
Please provide motherboard make for the old machine and model of your new
Dell 2400.
Secondly, there is a MassStorage issue with Sysprep. You have to perform
certain tasks in your OLD machine before you run a sysprep on it. Then
you
do a ghost image on the old PC (doesn't have to be a sector level,
actually
it should not be - it is a waste of time) to the second disk. That is
best
performed in DOS (boot from ghost made floppy). Do not reboot. Remove
cloned
disk, put it in Dell 2400. Start, it should run minisetup if HAL and
MassStorage configuration/drivers were set correctly. That's all.

I've given up. To try to ensure that whatever I did wouldn't
irrevocably damage the main drive of the source machine, after
Ghosting it at the sector level to an identical disk, I removed the
original, mounted the copy, then started working from it with GoBack
in operation, hoping that whatever screwups I caused could be undone.
And, indeed, after I'd used sysprep and made the next copy for the
Dell machine (I should be buying those disks wholesale, I now have
four of them), dismounted it, rebooted and interrupted at the GoBack
announcement screen, asking it to revert: It declared there were no
safe points to revert to! Went back to my shelved original at that
point.

I've put disks in and out so many times, I'm on the edge of stripping
the threads from the mounting screws. I gave up closing and reopening
the case a week ago, at least until they come with zippers.

So, I've rebuilt the system disk of the Dell on the Dell from scratch,
loaded all the software I could find, downloaded and installed the
30mb+ of "patches" for the Win2k and Office 2k Pro from Microsoft,
reinstalled stuff from downloads . . . reformatted the
aborted-attempt disk to get rid of its system, no longer have any
sysprep or its inf. Now to reinstall Verio, MS Project, Oracle,
another half dozen items . . .

The directory structure on the Dell CD is not clear as to where the
drivers are to be found or which I am to use. The setup process is
html based before it gets around to using .exe and .cab or whatever,
and there are sets for multiple Dell models and it is not clear from
the naming convention which are for the 2400 -- or for that matter
which are drivers and which are programs used in evaluating the
machine, for example. Rather, I'd have to start working my way
through the html source to see how the model number selection process
chooses what to present, then what action the Install button on each
presented driver set html page actually does. Which I could do, I
write a fair amount of client-side javascript, but I'd already spent
three days on this idiocy. BTW, all the drivers are labelled by the
html as being for XP -- ask for 2000, it says there aren't any -- but
when you ask for all for the 2400 and select to install those that are
checkmarked (since it already inspected the machine to make sure it's
a Dell, it looks like ii's also checking the hardware -- with what
code I don't know -- to offer the correct install sets), the install
html page that pops for each lists 2000 as one of the OS versions the
driver applies to.

Jeez, the polite form of JFC.

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 12:12:32 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:

Please post your sysprep.inf file. It is hard to comment without seeing it.

You do not install drivers for a target system (Dell 2400) on the sysprep
machine (ASUS), you copy them to a hard drive, let say C:\DRIVERS directory.
That happens before you run sysprep.
There are a few things to watch for in sysprep.inf, and one simple
procedure, that needs to be performed before you start sysprep.