password that winxp pro repair wants

[One_Haole]

Very long (2-week) story shortened. We have a small hard drive on my wife's
computer and I want to install a bigger one with the OS and everything
exactly as it is now. I don't want to completely reinstall windows so I
bought Norton Ghost to copy the hd to the bigger one. I tried several times
but the new one won't boot all the way. Norton email support said to boot
to the windows disk and repair the OS. I had already tried that but it
wanted a password (not the key). I never entered a pw when installing or
upgrading windows before so I tried leaving it blank. No luck. I used
every pw I've ever used for this small home network. No luck. Any ideas?
I guess buying Norton Ghost was a waste and that I'll have to completely
reinstall windows and all the other programs on that drive. But will I be
able to completely reinstall windows without that pw?

 

[needlove]

Hello, Did your wife's computer come with windows preinstalled? If so you
might check the manufacturer's website for information relating to this. I
used the software that came with my hard drive to transfer but both drives
were the same brand...Check BIOS settings, check drive interface
compatibility, check cable (some drives/computers very picky about this) to
see if it is hooked up right.

 

[UnaCoder]

Chances are there really is no password. I believe this issue stems
from there being a different version of NTFS on the drive than the
driver on the install CD is expecting. I remember I used to overcome
this problem by using a windows 2000 install CD insted, to perform the
repair procedure. All you need to do it get into the repair command
console and from the commands: fixboot and fixmbr

 

[One_Haole]

Thank you. I will use each of my windows install CD's until I get one that
will give me fixboot and fixmbr. However, for some reason I have another
problem. I hadn't turned it on in about a week. Now when I try to boot it
says "ntldr is missing, press control-alt-delete". It says this with any
windows install CD in there. I changed the bios to install from the HD
first and left the CD tray empty. It again says "ntldr missing". What can
I do now? Thanks in advance.

 

[One_Haole]

Oops, I had it booting to HDD 1 instead of HDD 0.

I booted to a win ME disk. Then entered Fdisk/MBR. It didn't seem to do
anything but when I restarted and booted to the HD it worked!!!