I am trying to update my hard drive. I have cloned my existing hard drive to my new ONE via an external drive caddy, but when I replace the old with the new in the computer, it will not boot up, merely indicating that 'Operating System not found'. The new disk is recognised by my computer and has been formatted, initialized etc and appears to contain the same amount of data as the old disk,. Any ideas? The new hard drive is set to master, and as I copied to entire old disk onto the new one, I assume that XP was also transferred. Do I need to reinstall XP? I do not have the original disk (there was not one) although I do have the computer manufacturer's (Fujitsu) Product Recovery CD ROM but I'm not convinced this is suitable. I have also checked the new hard disk and it passed even the long self drive test, so it's not that. I assume that the cloning did not INCLUDE the operating system but this SEEMS strange - any suggestions? ThanksIs this a desktop or laptop computer? What software did you use for the cloning?It's a desktop. Current internal drive 40GB, new external one 160GB (Seagate). Cloned using DriveImage XML. All the data seems to have transferred as there is 39GB on the old disk (and 1GB free, hence the need for a new disk!) and 39GB on new disk (with 109GB free - true capacity 148GB). No problems with the cloning (apparently). Tried using both disks internally with new one as master and old as slave - still won't boot up. Replaced old one on its own, no problem. New disk recognised by computer in external drive caddy. I want to replace the old one entirely with the new one as I want to keep the old one as a back up. Using XP Professional. Thanks for your interest. MalcolmRe-jumper the 40G as master and remove the other drives.
See if the machine will still boot to the 40...
If so:
Hook up the new drive as a slave.
Use the Seagate tools to clone the old drive to the new one.
When finished POWER down.
Unhook the old drive and re-set the jumper on the new drive to master and power up...it should boot properly.

Disclaimer: I just noticed after re-reading this it appears you are trying to make an external drive bootable...this cannot be done without a sledgehammer and about 3 days free time so if this is what you want to accomplish disregfard the above advice. This is by design as Gates wanted Windows this way.
It can be done...however.

P.S.S. I have had DriveImage fail on me 3 times in a row now and no longer suggest it as a GOOD free image solution...Thanks Patio - and no, I am not trying to reboot the external drive - I only used the drive caddy for cloning the existing disk - I then transferred the now 'cloned' disk into the computer having taken out the old one and it wouldn't work. The 40g still works OK on its own, with the jumper set on Cable Select so I guess it will still work as master.

I'll try the master/slave route and look at Seagate cloning and then use the new one as master, as you have suggested. Re DriveImage, it SEEMED to work OK - Windows certainly showed that the content of the existing drive has been copied to the new one and having looked at the files in the new drive, they seem to reflect exactly the files in the old drive! That's why I was surprised that the operating system apparently could not be found.

Anyway, I'll try again (and again, and again etc etc) and I'll let you know. Thank you for your help. Malcolm Hey Patio - THANKS! All now up and running.

Initially had a few problems as computer would not recognise new hard disk if installed internally - tried putting jumpers to Master/Slave, Master/CS, CS/CS but still no good. Then put new disk in external drive caddy and disk recognised - maybe a problem with cable.

Then downloaded Maxtor MaxBlast from Seagate website, cloned existing disk, whipped out old disk, installed new disk internally and, man alive, it all works!

Problem seemed to be duff DriveImage download, so this appears to be a big no no in future.

Thanks a Lot for your help, and good luck! MalcolmExcellent News Malcolm...your perserverence paid off...

Take a look at Acronis True Image for your backup needs...current best deal is @ newegg.
They have a free trial at the Acronis support page.

Stop by anytime !