Resized/moved partition, now XP only partially boots

Marc,

Was the XP install on the second drive always on a Logical partition?

My guess is that you did both partition moves without booting into GAMES between changes. This caused Windows to reassign drive letters to both the Logical partitions and the Windows partition may not be getting the correct letter.

Do you know what letters were normally assigned to both the Logical partitions (WORK & GAMES) when booted to GAMES? C: would most likely still be assigned to the RAPTOR_BOOT partition.

You are correct - I did not boot into GAMES at any point during using Acronis. It was only afterwards I tried it.

As viewed from the main (C) drive boot none of the letters have changed.
When I used to be able to run the GAMES drive it had the letter (E). So windows was in E:\WINDOWS.
This ran fine.

Is there a utility to change the logical to a primary?

Marc

Changing GAMES to a Primary partition won't solve the problem. The drive letter assignment needs to be checked and fixed (if necessary) on the GAMES partition.

Find out the MountedDevices value for E: when booted to the raptor (E: is the GAMES partition):

1. Run Regedit.
2. Browse to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
3. This will list your drive letter assignments (shown as \DosDevices\C:, for example).
4. Look at the data assigned to E:. You may want to write it down or take a screenshot for easy reference.

Load the GAMES System Registry hive and check the E: assignment:

1. Click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key to select it.
2. Click on the File menu and select Load Hive...
3. Select the GAMES (E:) partition.
4. Browse to the E:\Windows\System32\config folder.
5. Select the system file and click the Open button.
6. A box will come up asking for the Key Name.
7. Type in GamesXP_System and click the Ok button.
8. You should now see the GamesXP_System entry added to your local registry under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.
9. Browse to the MountedDevices under the GamesXP_System entry. (It should be GamesXP_System\MountedDevices.) 
10. You should see the list of drive letter assignments as seen by the GAMES XP system. Scan through the list and find E:. Check if the data assigned to it is the same as what you noted for E: on the raptor. If the data is different, check which drive letter has the same value (it may be D:, for example). What you need to do is swap those drive letters back to what is correct. You can do this by renaming the drive letter keys. For example, to swap D: and E: you would rename \DosDevices\E: to \DosDevices\D: and \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\E:. The main thing is to get the letters assigned back to the original partition assignments.
11. When finished, unload the Hive by clicking on GamesXP_System to highlight it, selecting the File menu, and then selecting Unload Hive... Finally, click Yes and then close the registry editor.

Reboot the computer and try booting into the GAMES XP system.

Many thanks - that was correct.
The D and E registry key values had swapped over. I renamed them both and now I can get into Games again.

Much Kudos

Regards
Marc

Marc,

You're welcome. I'm glad it worked for you.