HAL.DLL error after a clone

[cadillacmike68]

Hello,

I'm trying to clone my ThinkPad T30 main disk to several backup -/spare drives. I use Acronis disk director. I leave the original in the internal bay the new target goes in the Ultrabay. I know this causes a MBR issue, but i use a boot floppy W98 disk to re-write the MBR. I have also received a missing or corrupt HAL.DLL error before but have cleared this by merely copying the HAL.DLL file from the original to the new disk.

That does not seem to be working any more. I copied the HAL.DLL 4 or 5 times and still get the missing or corrupt HAL.DLL error.

The change? - this time i tried to boot the new disk in a different T30. The original T30 is a 2366-83U and the boot target is a 2366-LU0. I really didn't think these two machines were that dissimilar. Heck I went from a 2366-KU6 to the 83U when the KU6 fan went south and the disk booted the 83U right up.

Only other difference b/w the T30s is the LU0 has a cisco aironet WiFi and the 83U has an intel 2200BG. Again, i don't think this should matter.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. Only thing i don't want to do is try and boot my original disk in the ultrabay - i do not need that disk corrupted by a non-stoppable windows reboot. I'd rather fix the clone's MBR.

[RealBlackStuff]

Rather than cloning, you should take an image, which you can restore on any other HD!

[AMATX]

Same model of Thinkpad doesn't guarantee boot compatability. Seems I recall running into a boot issue with either A22p or A31p. The model run was long enough to encompass variations in the hardware that eventually meant that my earlier cloned system wouldn't work on a later variation.

As mentioned above, I'd suggest making & restoring an image(via Acronis True Image) and see how that goes. That's done the trick for me for the last couple of years.

[cadillacmike68]

Well, here's another item to consider. I cloned my original 100GB Hitachi onto two different WDC 320GBs and both boot fine in the same T30. I did this in early august when i had to re-clone both drives after a boot issue.

Now a couple days ago i cloned one of the WDC320s onto a WDC 100GB disk. That's the one that doesn't like it's HAL.DLL in the different T30.

However, I booted the different T30 - which i didn't even own in august, with my spare WDC 320GB and copied the HAL.DLL from it to the WDC 100 GB. So my cloning process works - if i can get past the HAL.DLL error, and cloning off this T30 works in the other T30 - otherwise that WDC 320GB would not have booted.

I'll try re-cloning it or a safe mode boot - copy file process one more time first I can even re-clone if from the new T30. since the WDC320 boots fine.

Acronis disk director doesn't do images, I do have Acronis Tru Image 2011 but taking an image off the 320 won't work if i want to make a 100 GB disk. That's why i use disk director, as long as your used space on your source drive is less than the target disk capacity, you can copy the image over. Maybe I'll have to use the HAL.DLL off my original Hitachi 100GB drive.

This is why I always say microsoftSUCKS and winBLOWS

[cadillacmike68]

I'll bet it's my boot.ini file. I didn't even bother to check that, but I'll copy that off my original boot disk and place it plus HAL.DLL on my XP boot floppy for ease of access.

Well, It wasn't boot.ini. At least I don't think it was. I'll clear the HDD completely with Win98 FDISK and re-write the MBR. then I'll try again.

Leave it to microsoft the ones who gave us the 12-bit FAT, and a numbering system where cylinders and heads start with 0 but sectors start with 1, and where disks start with 0 but partitions start with 1!!!

microsoftSucks and winBlows