Cloned bad drive, new drive doesn't boot?

[madmaxmedia]

Hi all,

Yesterday morning my PowerBook suddenly emitted a weird chime sound, and the hard drive started clacking, and the computer froze not long after that. It wouldn't reboot and I thought I was screwed (hadn't backed up in awhile...)

I found that if I tilted the computer 30 degrees on its side, the hard drive would function and I could boot and operate the computer normally. So I quickly copied my important files, and then cloned the entire hard drive to a spare 2.5" drive.

I'm going to get the bad drive replaced under warranty (from Newegg), but tried sticking in the backup drive for now. Problem is when I boot up, the computer gets to the gray Apple screen, and freezes.

Has anyone cloned their startup HD with Disk Utility and able to boot off the copy? I have the OS disk at home, and will boot from it later and try to repair permissions, etc. But I'm just wondering what my chances are that I can get this drive to boot.

Any tips/feedback/similar stories would be much appreciated!

 

[mklos]

Yeah, I've done that! I did it with my iBook. Mac OS X booted, but OS 9 didn't. What I would try is, boot from the Mac OS X CD/DVD and then install OS X overtop of itself (Archive and Install). This will re-write the Mac OS X system folder and should make it boot and you WILL NOT lose your documents, apps, etc..

 

[jeremy.king]

Try holding down option after turning it on, see if it detects the clone as bootable. Also, if you are using an enclosure, make sure its firewire, as USB is not bootable.

Edit: also curious how you cloned the drive? I hope using Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Yeah, I've done that! I did it with my iBook. Mac OS X booted, but OS 9 didn't. What I would try is, boot from the Mac OS X CD/DVD and then install OS X overtop of itself (Archive and Install). This will re-write the Mac OS X system folder and should make it boot and you WILL NOT lose your documents, apps, etc..

Thanks for the scoop. I was hoping to just need to do some maintenance to make the drive bootable, but maybe not (next time I will user SuperDuper!)

When you archive and install, are all apps and user stuff preserved?

Thanks!
Steve

 

[madmaxmedia]

Try holding down option after turning it on, see if it detects the clone as bootable. Also, if you are using an enclosure, make sure its firewire, as USB is not bootable.

Edit: also curious how you cloned the drive? I hope using Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Thanks for the tip, the drive shows up as bootable.

I actually used Disk Utility, since even the CCC page says Disk Utility can make bootable clones. I have done it before, not sure why this time it didn't work.

I would have thought it through more carefully, except my main goal was just to backup my data until I got a replacement drive. Then I thought I may as well stick the other drive (slower and lower capacity) in there and use it until I got the replacement.

Funny, when I use option-boot, then select the HD and boot, I get a difference response. The grey Apple comes on, then turns into the 'no can do' symbol.

 

[mklos]

I would see if you can back up the image first. You never know what will go wrong. An archive and install will not erase anything at all, not even the system folder. All that does is installs a new system folder.