changed boot disk

[Kim Aku]

Needed bigger hard disk, and also wanted to put original
disk in other machine. Installed new disk as primary
slave, and using Partition Magic copied boot partition
(C to free space on new drive and made copied partition
active. Removed original disk and tried to boot from
copied partition now installed as master. XP Pro boots OK
to Welcome, but then hangs just before log-in, even in
safe mode.

I don't want to 'repair' from CD because I've had bad
experiences in past and don't want to have to install SP1
etc again - I hoped copying partition would ensure that XP
found a sufficiently familiar environment to boot, even if
I then had to re-register it for new hardware...

Any ideas ?

 

[Jerry]

You will have to boot from the CD and do a repair, even if you've had
problems in the past. Nothing else will work.

 

[I'm Dan]

Needed bigger hard disk, and also wanted to put
original disk in other machine. Installed new disk
as primary slave, and using Partition Magic copied
boot partition (C to free space on new drive and
made copied partition active. Removed original
disk and tried to boot from copied partition now
installed as master. XP Pro boots OK to
Welcome, but then hangs just before log-in, even
in safe mode.

Sounds like you booted into old XP after installing new disk as slave (did
you run PM from within Windows or from "rescue" floppies?). At any rate,
the problem is with the partition signatures recorded in the registry. Your
new XP still expects "C:" to be on the old disk, which it can't find.

Try this simple trick to get XP to regenerate the partition signatures.
Remove old disk and install new disk as master. Set bios to boot from
floppy before hard disk. Boot from a *Win98* boot floppy (download one from
www.bootdisk.com if you need to). At the "A:>" prompt, enter the command
"fdisk /mbr". Remove floppy. Reboot from hard disk. See if new XP now
comes up properly.

Explanation: the Win98 "fdisk /mbr" command is functionally equivalent to
XP's "fixmbr" command except that Win98 doesn't know about XP's "DiskID" in
the MBR and zeroes it out - albeit, unintentionally. The DiskID is part of
a partition signature, so in your case we take advantage of Win98's
"mistake" to force XP to generate a new DiskID and consequently new
partition signatures.

 

[Kim Aku]

Dan - Unfortnuately I was so pissed off and impatient to
get the damn thing working that minutes before your
ingenious suggestion was posted, I'd burned my boats and
started a fresh install of XP on the offending partition.
By the time I was able to find your reply I'd already gone
too far to turn back with the new installation.

However, your diagnosis of my problem looks spot on, and
whatever happens I won't forget your trick with fdisk - I
can see it being very useful in the future.

While I also much appreciate Jerry giving me his time for
a more gloomy conventional solution, I get a very good
vibe from your your idea - I bet it would have worked.

I have another related question, but I'll try emailing you
direct with it - please excuse cheek and I will quite
understand if you don't have time to answer it.