The problem:
A few days ago I had a customer running a Primary Windows 2000 Domain server, installed on a Dynamic Disk, that consisted of two partitions (System C:\ & Data D\:).
The disk had errors and it should be replaced before final failure.
I looked at the internet for a program for dynamic disk cloning.
At first I made an attempt with Acronis Enterprise Server v9.1 boot CD, but I didn’t have luck.
When I ran the Acronis application, the first problem was that the application cloned the partitions and not the entire dynamic disk, and the second problem was that the disk was not bootable and presented an error about corrupt files or something like this.
I continued trying other products, from other companies, but as with the Acronis Enterprise Server application, none of them cloned dynamic disks or if they proceeded with the entire process of cloning, (like HDClone from http://www.miray.de), the final result was boot problems with corrupt files.
After many hours of testing, reading and failed tries, I finally found one procedure that worked for me.
Solution:
1. Firstly, I booted with Acronis Enterprise Server v9.1 boot CD and made a backup of the Dynamic disk into a file and saved it, in another disk. (e.g. I used my external data disk and I named the backup file "DynamicDisk.tib").
2. When the backup procedure finished, I used another windows XP machine, with Acronis True Image Home 2010 installed on it.
I chose to recover files from backup file "DynamicDisk.tib" in a new empty disk and then I chose to recover only the first partition (System C:) of the backup file.
Finally I had one basic partition on the disk with all system and windows files.
Then I tried to boot from the new disk in the Windows Server machine, but with no luck again
3. Then I took out the disk and put it on the XP machine again.
From inside the windows XP environment I opened the "boot.ini" file (of the new disk) to check its settings.
There I discovered that there was a wrong value of "2" on boot partition number.
Changing the partition number with the correct value ("1" in most cases), and after trying to boot again, the boot result was successful!
{e.g.
Before correction of “boot.in” file:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server" /fastdetect
After correction of “boot.in” file:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server" /fastdetect
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------}
4. The last step is to create and format the remaining area on the new disk and copy all the files from the second partition of the defected disk with a simple file copy command, but I guess that you can also recover the second partition with Acronis Home, through the windows XP environment.
Good luck
