Great tutorial and information in this topic. I really haven't cloned anything before and while searching for software solutions from the "big name companies" I stumbled on this and I was greatly surprised to read how easy the process might be.

I am looking to migrate a laptop (Latitude E5500) hard drive (Seagate 160GB) with a ton of software on it to a new larger drive but then add another fresh install of XP onto it for a dual or possible triple Windows XP boot system in the near future (for software version issues). However, to just get the clone worked out first I stuck the new drive (WD 320GB) in an external USB enclosure, booted up the system with the Parted Magic CD and cloned the drive with no issues at all overnight. I then took out the original hard drive and stuck in the new one and the system booted right up and seemed to function fine.

However, now after looking into a few things I have a few issues. Since the original drive was only 160GB, the new drive partition is 160GB and upon looking in Computer Management there is no drive other than my optical drive shown in Disk Management. Also, when trying to run the standard Windows Disk Defragmenter I just get an error stating it can't start - but the drive is seen by Disk Defragmenter. Also, when trying to run chkdsk I get an error stating it can't complete the task and it won't even attempt it. I was going to try getting into the Recovery Console to run FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but I can't get the Recovery Console to successfully load either by CD or by installing it on the hard drive and accessing it through the Startup Options. Also, PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0 fails to run with an error of "Partition's drive letter cannot be identified".

All programs seem to run fine and I can access the hard drives C: partition fine through Windows Explorer but it seems that I can't do any management tasks involving the hard drive. Does anyone have any input on how I can troubleshoot or solve these issues? Thank you in advance.