In BIOS, we're showing

First Boot Device: Floppy

Second Boot Device: HDD-1 (New drive0

Third Boot Device: HDD-0 (Old drive)

So it's bypassing the floppy drive (which is empty) AND the new HDD before hitting the old one.

I don't think it's recognizing the new HDD because it doesn't show up as "Secondary Master" in the settings.

But when I go to "My Computer," it shows the new HDD there with no problems. Disk Management even proclaims it "healthy."

I may have to do something in BIOS but not sure what to do next.

Could be a number of things bro. I would have to ask. Do you happen to have a thumb drive attatched? Are theses HDD SATA or IDE?

It's obvious the clone didn't go correctly or you would have been able to boot without problem with the new drive. Your jumper settings must be correct if the new drive shows in windows.

You need to take the old drive out of the equation. Would be my advise. Troubleshoot that drive.

After cloning the drive, you should remove the old drive. The new one should be jumpered as 'master' or 'cable select'. If it's jumpered 'cable select', make sure the end of the ide cable is attached and not the one in the middle. If you've already tried this and it wouldn't boot, there must have been a problem when you cloned it and it needs to be done over; my advise would be with another program

You are correct that this is definitely a BIOS generated error, but (depending on the BIOS) the error can be given when a drive does not have a properly recognizable/bootable OS on it. So this might not be an error in the configuration of the BIOS, it might be a ghosting issue as you said earlier.

I was wondering if that was still true these days. But thats only for IDE, right? Is this definitely an IDE drive?

I have found in the past on Western Digital drives. Sometimes a drive won't boot unless you remove all jumpers. Not sure why exactly.

That sounds like what is happening (or not happening, actually!) -- It seems clear that the new drive does not have a bootable OS, or -- alternatively -- that BIOS cannot see it, for whatever reason.

I guess the sensible thing to do is try another cloning program.

Sata drives don't need jumpers set, only IDE. I'm assuming Lex's drives are IDE or he wouldn't have been talking about jumpers in the first place

I have no idea - it seems like there are several things we ought to rule out, and I guess we can do it in any order. At the very least we'd be able to rule out a cloning error and see what we have left.

I'm confused about something, though....it seems like a proper system cloning would automatically include those files you mention as being left out... I wonder which of the recommended cloning programs make sure to clone it as a bootable system.

Thank you for explaining!

I was operating under the assumption that a clone would necessarily duplicate all the files from the original HDD, but I think I read something about certain boot files which would not automatically be copied (this was a couple weeks ago, though, so my memory could be a little faulty).

Any good cloning program would have copied those boot files you speak of (the MBR, etc). Get Acronis True Image or Casper. I'm not a fan of Norton Ghost

Thanks, everybody. I'm going to try another clone program and see if that rectifies the problem. All of your input and advice is highly appreciated!

You could also try to find out if there is a better way to use
the program you already have. It is possible that there is something
interfering with the cloning process - a certain antivirus or
other utility program for example or the way in which the program
is called or some other interference.

Keep trying. You will be able to find a way to do it and it is
worth it to have reliable images for backup purposes.

Just wanted to let everybody know that the operation was a success -- just had to use a different cloning program!

Thanks again!

Glad my advise got you going. I'll go easy on you this time so I'm only making it $89.95 and tax. I'll email where to send the check

Acronis rocks! I used to beta test for them

A raid card is considerably less and mirrors the primary OS and copies them on your secondary drive. Hardware based RAID is more preferred than software based "backup" files as with every file backup, there is a chance of those backup files being corrupted

..food for thought