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Seagate Diskwizard will NOT clone my hard drive!

Anonymous
2015-07-14T20:32:06+00:00

Hi,

I need help fast. I bought a new Seagate 500 GB SATA hard drive. I want to clone my old hard drive (Because it is failing) to the new drive. So I bought an external hard drive docking station and put the drive in it and started DiskWizard. I went through all of the prompts for cloning the drive, then it asks me to restart. So I do. When in reboots I get a blank screen saying "Starting Seagate tools..." So I wait. Then a box shows up showing me the progress of cloning. The loading bar doesn't even move before the computer suddenly reboots. When it reboots, it just boots to the desktop. No error messages, Nothing! And it didn't clone my drive!

Why isn't this working! HELP!!!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T15:34:43+00:00

    "choose the boot device the image is on" - No.

    You boot from the DiskWizard boot disk that you have made using the Bootable Rescue Media Builder.  You let it boot up and only then connect the drive that contains the image.

    [you might get away with connecting the image drive earlier but booting can get confused when it detects multiple USB-connected drives and can report that there is no boot manager whereas what it has actually done is look at the wrong drive first before the DiskWizard boot disk and then given up]

    You can store the image on any drive you want except the one you are going to restore it to.  I would not expect booting to get confused by an additional internal (SATA) Hard drive so you should be OK with that - it's additional USB-connected drives that it finds too difficult to cope with.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T03:42:57+00:00

    It's the fact that that particular Seagate help page seemed to contradict the other sources that made me keep a link to it - they would be better off just removing cloning from the normal UI if they don't recommend using it.

    The boot disk is something that you make using Diskwizard - see its help section at Creating Bootable Media [or just go straight to it in your Start menu at Programs, Seagate, Seagate DiscWizard, Tools and Utilities, Bootable Media Builder].  It can be made on USB or CD/DVD. 

    You can make system images on a flash drive [if you have one that is big enough], on an external hard drive or on DVDs.

    Make the image then fit the new hard disk in your computer.  Then boot from the Seagate boot disk:-

    1. disconnect everything else from the computer,
    2. restart the computer
    3. when the PC maker's logo appears, press the appropriate keys for your computer to open the boot menu [on my Dells it is the F12 key but it varies between manufacturers]
    4. select boot from USB or CD/DVD [whichever you have used for the boot disk]
    5. let it complete booting and you'll see the Seagate menu
    6. connect the drive/disk you have put the image on
    7. follow through the instructions on the Seagate menu to get to the restore from backup [image] section

    If it's any encouragement, I used the restore from image procedure when I changed hard drives.  It restored my system successfully.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T01:41:59+00:00

    Seagate recommend only cloning using the DiscWizard Boot disk not the normal UI - see

    Cloning a Desktop HD How to Perform a Clone in Windows with DiscWizard v16

    If you cannot get it to work then you can

    1. create a disk image of the current system disk on an external drive using DiskWizard,
    2. fit the new hard disk in the computer,
    3. boot from the DiscWizard Boot disk and
    4. restore the image directly onto the new disk.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T15:21:10+00:00

    Ok, so let me get this straight, I use Bootable Rescue Media Builder to do this.

    Then start my PC, choose the boot device the image is on, and it will restore everything?

     Can i use an internal (SATA) Hard drive to store the image on?

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T02:20:50+00:00

    All the tutorials show you how to clone from inside Windows. Where do I get this "boot disk"?

    When you mentioned creating a disk image first you say use a external drive, then you mention a disc.  So do I use a CD or a flash drive? Then restore it from the CD? Though knowing my luck, that will probably fail also.

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