Windows Search and Windows Updates don’t work after replacing laptop drives with a newer bigger cloned Hard Drive or after replacing one of the RAID disks:

Scenario:

You have a Windows computer and space is running out. You replace it with a newer and bigger cloned/imaged hard drive (cloned with Symantec Ghost for instance). After you start Windows, you discover Windows Search service won’t start and Windows Updates won’t run (Also when you replace one of the disks in a raid array you might run into the same issue). In the Windows Application log you get the following error messages:

The Windows Search service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147217025

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          8/29/2012 5:29:17 PM
Event ID:      7024
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      user.domain.com
Description:
The Windows Search service terminated with 
service-specific error %%-2147217025.
Event Xml:
Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ 
win/2004/08/events/event">
System>
Provider Name="Service Control Manager" 
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" 
EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
EventID Qualifiers="49152">7024
Version>0
Level>2
Task>0
Opcode>0
Keywords>0x8080000000000000
EventRecordID>1298063
Correlation />
Execution ProcessID="608" ThreadID="4348" />
Channel>System
Computer>user.domain.com
Security />
/System>
EventData>
Data Name="param1">Windows Search
Data Name="param2">%%-2147217025
/EventData>
/Event>

Resolutions:

Download and Install Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST). Check the laptop vendor website for latest RST (Lenovo, HP, Dell…). The latest driver should support the Bytes Per Sector disk format on the new disk. If you can’t find it, the following link can help:

Download Intel RST Here

For some laptops/PCs, the latest version of RST might not work with older versions of Windows, so in these case install an older version of RST. Fixed!

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