[snakestang]

I have a Dell 4700 with XP SP3 and a SATA drive that I am trying to reimage as a back up for this unit. It boots fine from the original drive. I used Drive Image XML to do a disk to disk copy of the drive after I created a partition on the drive. Both drives are 160g, old is a Maxtor, new is a WD. Unit knew the drive was there as I could see it in the BiOS, but all it would do is black screen with blinking cursor. I then ran FixMbr on it to make sure the master boot record was good, but no change.I also cleared the registry keys for mounted devices. No success. I then zeroed the drive and tried again utilizing the the same disk to disk and the raw data transfer option. I did all of the items mentioned above and it still won't boot. I then double checked the partition, which appeared OK, and made it the 'active' partition. After doing that, the computer gave a black screen error that it could not do anything with the drive as it was an unknown format.
Now I am totally confused. I have done the same thing before without any problems. I talked with another tech who said to try it as a back up and not as a copy.
So I created the back up and then restored it to the drive, no luck. I did all of the items mentioned above, create partition, reboot, restore, reboot, fix registry, FixMbr, reboot, still not recoginizing the OS. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you!

[KCarney]

Create an XP boot floppy and copy AEFDISK to it. Boot your machine with the floppy you just created and the new drive attached. Once you're at an A:\ prompt type AEFDISK /MBR

Remove the floppy and let us know how it went.

Get AEFDISK here, and yes the trial version will work
http://www.aefdisk.com/

[snakestang]

I created an XP Pro boot disk, with NTdetect, NTldr and a boot.ini file. The system will boot to the OS (XP Pro). I have done this several times, verifying that the mounted drives show correctly in the registry. The partition was created as the primary. All boot files are in C: as expected and the new drive can be browsed. However, when I remove the boot floppy, the system states that there are no bootable devices. Previously, I had used the Easus partition manager to "mark partition active" but then the computer would not even see the new hard drive. I do not want to go through this again, having to repartition and reload the image. Any additional thoughts would be appreciated!

[pcuser]

You mentioned running FixMBR but did you also try FixBoot?

[snakestang]

Also, the system never goes to the A: prompt, it just boots right up.

[rdsok]

You may want to actually try reading the DriveImage XML Help file since it covers this issue... basically you just need to make the new drive the active partition and ensure that it is the primary drive etc.

[KCarney]

I'm assuming he didn't even try AEFDISK, given the circumstance I'm convinced it will work because I have been down that road before. But if he'd rather do other things, oh well.

[snakestang]

I now have 2 drives that I have put the image on. Both drives have a single partition created on them and the partition is set to active, one before the restoe and one after. When attempting to boot from either drive, all I get is black screen with blinking cursor.
I tried running AEFDisk on one drive from a Win98 boot disk (as it will not run inside an XP command window). After that, the computer responded that "Windows could not start because of a configuration issue and could not read from the selected boot disk". However, it boots fine from my boot floppy. I checked the MBR in MBRWiz which still shows Drive 0, type/name of 07-NTFS and the partition is active with the start sector at 63. I then have run MBRFix again and still the drive is not readable to boot.
KCarney, I ran your AEFdisk with no success. I also ran fdisk from the 98 boot disk as sometimes it will get rid of a 4 bit string that can cause issues.
RDSOK, I have made it the primary and active partition on 2 different drives and both drives are behaving the same way. Both had primary partitions created. One drive was made active after I restored the data and one was made active after I created the partition. Both will boot from the boot disk. Now one black screens and the one I ran aefdisk on now errors that the disk has a configuration issue.
Do either of you have any other thoughts?
What about anyone else?
I hate to have something like this defeat me so I wish to follow this through until I can find a solution!
Thank you for any assistance and thoughts!

[pcuser]

Did you read post #4?

Quote

You mentioned running FixMBR but did you also try FixBoot?

[snakestang]

I have run fixboot from the recovery console on the drive that I have previously run aefdisk. It ran and said that it rebuilt the boot info but the drive still is not configured correctly message still comes up upon reboot.
The other drive states that fixboot can't find the system drive. I rechecked it with MBRWiz and verified that it shows the partition as active.
I am still at a loss!

[pcuser]

Quote

Previously, I had used the Easus partition manager to "mark partition active" but then the computer would not even see the new hard drive.

Something's not right here. The bios doesn't look at the partition table to determine what drives are connected and doesn't even look to see which partition is set to active until the very last stage during POST.

Have you considered making a new image to make sure it's not corrupted or incomplete?

[snakestang]

I have taken one drive and reset the partition, made it active and am restoring the image to it now. I will see what the results are in about 2 hours!

[snakestang]

I have taken one drive, broke the partition, rebooted, built a new primary partition with NTFS, rebooted, set partition as active, rebooted, verified partition info in MBRWiz, the restored the image. After restoration, a reboot, removed entries in the registry for extra drives (left c and d), ran FixMBR, rebooted. I got the message that Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. I then booted the system with my XP Pro boot disk, which it did fine. I checked the registry and verified A, C and D drives. I replaced the copies of NTldr and NTdetect from the floppy to the hard drive, still the same configuration message.
Any ideas as to what I am missing???

[pcuser]

Quote

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

Quote

This behavior can occur if any or some of the following conditions are true:

* The Default value in the [Boot Loader] section of the Boot.ini file is missing or invalid.
* Windows XP is not installed in the location specified in the Boot.ini file.
* The Ntoskrnl.exe file is missing or damaged.
* The partition path in the Boot.ini file is not set correctly.
* General hardware failure.

Read method #2 in that article about hot to use "bootcfg /rebuild" to rebuild your boot.ini file (after you backup the original one).

[mbarnes]

Hi

Many Dell PC's have a hidden diagnostic partition

so Boot partition C: is second partition not first

this affects boot.ini if hidden diagnostic partition is not replaced

sorry I can not get access to my real boot.ini to show example

but example of boot.ini from boot floppy to bypass corrupt NT / XP / 2K startup files follows

                                          
[boot loader]
timeout=-1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP, First harddisk, first partition" /sos         no diagnostic partition
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP, First harddisk, second partition" /sos       original with diagnostic partition
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="XP, First harddisk, third partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="XP, First harddisk, fourth partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP, Second harddisk, first partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP, Second harddisk, second partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="XP, Second harddisk, third partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="XP, Second harddisk, fourth partition" /sos
C:\="Previous Operating System on C:\" 

Note /sos displays diagnostic information

regards
Mike Barnes

This post has been edited by mbarnes: 30 December 2009 - 08:47 AM