WinXP boot partition copied to different hard drive, freezes part way into XP
Hi,
I have used my 'Disk Director 11 Home' CD to copy a bootable WinXP (Home Edition, SP3) partition from a 160GB Seagate SATA drive to an 80GB WD SATA drive, which appeared to copy successfully. However, when I remove the 160GB drive and try to boot from the 80GB drive in the same computer (a Dell Dimension 8400), it loads as far as XP's 'Welcome screen' (i.e. beyond the black WinXP screen you see as XP loads, but before it reaches the desktop), and then goes no further - no matter how long I leave it. The mouse is there, and moves, but I can do nothing - even Ctrl-Alt-Delete doesn't produce the Windows Task Manager screen. The same occurs if I try to boot into Safe Mode.
Having trawled these forums, I've found lots of references to restoring backed-up partitions to dissimilar hardware (although using True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack). I'm assuming that this is the problem, although the only part that has changed here is the hard drive itself (different internal architecture between the drives?). Am I missing something here? Is there some way to successfully boot all the way into XP on the 80GB drive? Am I expecting too much of Disk Director?
In case it's of any use, I've kept my previous copy of Disk Director Suite 10. Don't even get me started on why you can't SECURELY delete a partition in version 11...!
Anyway, thanks in advance for any help on the above.
Steve.
London, England.
Check that the drive letter assignment for the XP partition is correct for XP. It needs to be set to the letter that's correct for what XP shows when it's booted (the same as the original). It's normally C:.
Start DD, click on the link in the top-right area for the Disk layout and then select the Windows XP partition. The drive letter assignments displayed in DD will then be what XP has. If it's wrong, change the assignment and then try booting it.
Hi Mark and MudCrab,
Many thanks for your replies - I really do appreciate it.
Mark, I didn't know about such an issue, with regards booting into XP with both hard drives attached, but I don't believe that I did this. Forgive me, but I tried MudCrab's suggestion first, simply because it was quicker!
MudCrab, you can probably guess what's coming here. I checked back in DD 11 and, yes, the assigned drive letter for the bootable partition was F:, not C:! I may well have noticed this before, but didn't pay any attention to it, as I assumed that XP would assign drive letters during the boot process. Well, once I'd changed this to C: (and another small partition (that is used to reinstall XP via Ctrl+F11 at startup) from E: to nothing), I can now get into XP with no problems at all. Thanks, you've saved me many hours of work!!! By the way, why does the letter assignment by DD make a difference here?
Just out of interest, if I had tried to put one of these drives into a completely different desktop system which had then refused to boot into XP due to the above-mentioned dissimilar hardware issue, would I have been able to resolve this using either of my DD11 or 10 (i.e. without purchasing copies of both TI Home and the separate Plus Pack)?
Thanks,
Steve.
Steve,
DD doesn't care about the drive letter assignments, Windows does. DD 11 added the ability to edit the Windows drive letter assignments for the select Windows OS. This is one of the best new features of DD, in my opinion, and allows the user to easily fix problems like yours where the letter is incorrect, but otherwise Windows is intact.
Changing, correcting, or otherwise manipulating the drive letter assignments does not take the place of Universal Restore or similar procedures to make a drive from one system boot and load correctly on another.
MudCrab,
Thanks again for the solution, and for the clear follow-up answers. I agree, I now like this new DD 11 feature very much as well. ;-)
Steve.
Paul:
I wasn't aware that DD 11 had added this feature either. To be able to do this from the boot CD, it must access the Windows Registry at HKLM\System\MountedDevices and change the drive letter assignment in the registry, correct?
Mark,
Yes. It accesses the registry and gets/sets the assignments per the OS selected. Very nice, especially for multi-boot setups and repairs.