Long one: I installed Windows Server 2003 on a hard drive and, using g4u I cloned the disk onto a second hard drive. Before removing the cloned drive, I booted into Windows and logged in as Admin to ensure that everything cloned properly. All files were intact and healthy as far as I could tell. I then removed the cloned drive and placed it back into its own box (I have a license for 10 copies of srvr 2k3 and don't feel like babysitting an install process on all of them) After booting to the login page, I entered admin pswd and it immediately logged me back out and pretended like nothing happened. After doing several times, I booted into recovery console and was easily able to log in to /Windows as admin. Next, I placed the original in the cloned box as the slave and rebooted from the Master drive (the cloned copy) and everything booted up fine with one exception error that I didn't manage to document (service or device failure...)I and everyone else at the office is baffled. It's not an SID issue, so if anyone has a solution, I'd be happy to hear!

Did you sysprep before cloning? If so, that's what you should have done. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. www.redcross.org

should read "if not", not if so... Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. www.redcross.org

If you have a copy of ERD commander boot to it and check this reg key and file. hklm\software\microsoft\windowsnt\curentversion\winlogon userinet=c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe, and check to make sure userinit.exe is in the system32 folder.

depending on the hardware in the servers you may want to set up a raid 1 and copy the drives that way. Just keep mirroring drives and moving them to the next server.

The fact that you were logged off immediately likely indicates a possible Activation/Licensing conflict. At the moment I do not have specific advice but you might want to try using the Licensing Applet in Control Panel from the disk that let you logon. I hope this is somewhat useful?

Hey had the same problem when Ghosting from an IDE drive to a SATA RAID setup. When you logon it just kicks you back out to the logon screen. The problem turned out to be due to drive letter assignment. The Ghosted drive thinking it was one thing when it was actually another. It was simply fixed by using FDISK /MBR which rewrites the Master Boot Record. If it is the same problem this is a simple qucik way to fix it. (srry if this is posted twice)