Restored ATI Entire Disk Image not working as bootup from external USB HDD
Tale of woa! 2 PCs (No.1 Running XP Home No.2 running XP Media version). Media version HDD started clicking & occasional trouble booting up. Bought ATI 2009 made entire disk image (C and D partitions) backed up to external USB HDD. Internal HDD of media version failed completely. Looked inside and too awkward to get out failed HDD so bought a new USB HDD. Restored image to the new USB HDD , during reboot despite changing boot order toSetUp to boot from external USB drive after trying for ages to search for IDE drives it did start to boot windows then within few seconds of getting splash screen it crashed.
Thought oh well must have a corrupted disk image Tough .
Then computer No.1 (Home edition) developed software problem jumped in with two feet buggered it up , no back up , cant find original windows disk and it got stuck in a continued loop trying to reinstall windows. Ah ha I thought ! I will reformat the drive and restore the disk image to the internal drive of the Home edition PC just to check if image is corrupt. Lo and behold restored image and it boots successfully up to my desktop BUT there is a problem . Yes you know whats coming , now fall foul of Activation , this is the wrong machine (too many differences ) to run the Media version of windows on and cant get reactivation code.
Right now I know this disk image works OK so perhaps I did something wrong last time - bought another external USB drive (!!!) restored the disk image to this , set up boot order to go USB HDD first - same problem gets the first splash screen (the one with small loading bar. Vouple of seconds and then crash , the last time I think it came up with MBR error 2 (??) . However in every case when restoring have ticked the restore MBR etc.
Any ideas why works on wrong machine internal HDD but wont work on right machine booting fromUSB drive ?
Note I am at moment away from home and the PCs so limited on what testing/info I can give
Any advice thanks
Bad news but thanks for clearing it up!
Re replacing internal HDD , then I dont think am right person to do so (as seen from original post) but at least 3 of the retaining screws of holding frame for HDD have only about <2 cm of space above screw - so difficult even with socket set and with my accident prone persona not particulary keen on removing fan and other bits of m/bd .
now I know has to be internal HDD , possibly could leave existing one where it is try and find another location to mount new one and just unplug old one and reconnect with new!
Of course thats if it is actually the HDD itself that failed and is not linked to cables or motherboard (I do recall running chkdsk just before it failed completely and NO errors or bad sectors found.
Anyway thanks again
In a lot in computer cases, the hard drive cage can be removed to allow easy removal/installation of the drives. Others may have access holes to allow use of a long screwdriver.
Now might be a good time to install a quick removal caddie. I use this and it has worked without issue. Available from Staples and others.