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| Clear a disk signature with Fdisk after cloning |
| When you need to replace a hard disk because it has reached capacity, cloning software packages, |
| such as Symantec Ghost, are handy tools for duplicating the existing disk onto the new one. Ghost, |
| for example, offers a bootable disk that you can use to boot the system and clone the existing drive |
| to the new one. After the cloning is finished, remove the old disk, configure the new one as a |
| master, and reboot. Assuming you made the partition active on the new disk, either in Windows or |
| from a console with Fdisk, Windows 2000 should boot from the new disk. |
| Here's where you'll likely run into a problem: If the logon dialog box keeps appearing even after |
| you've entered your logon credentials, the problem could be that Windows 2000 is assigning a |
| different drive letter to the disk. Windows assigns drive letters based on the GUID of the disk, |
| which Windows also assigns. When you clone a disk, the cloned copy has a different GUID from the |
| original, and Windows therefore assigns a different drive letter. |
| There are a handful of ways to overcome this problem, but Fdisk is one of the easiest to use to |
| recreate the Master Boot Record and erase the disk signature associated with the GUID. Create a |
| DOS or Windows 98 startup disk containing the Fdisk.exe utility. Boot the system using the disk; |
| then at the command prompt, execute this command: |
| Remove the disk and reboot the system. You should now be able to log on normally. This process |
| works even if your new disk uses NTFS rather than FAT. |
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