WinXP boots 'halfway' after hard drive upgrade

[DemonBuilder]

I've just upgraded my Maxtor Fireball 30Gb ATA/133 hard drive to a
Maxtor DiamondMax 80Gb ATA/133. I used Maxblast 4 software to migrate
my 30Gb stuff to the new drive, and all apparently went OK. My bios has
no problems recognising the drive, and Win XP boots as far as showing
my desktop background, but without any icons and with no status
line/start button.

The system isn't frozen. My mouse pointer moves. I can hit ctrl-alt-del
and get the task manager up, which tells me there are processes
running. The system appears to be idle without being hung up.

Booting into safe mode results in the start button/status line
appearing momentarily, then leaving a black screen with a 'safe mode'
message across the top line, a movable mouse pointer, and nothing else.

I'd be really grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction.

 

[Bob]

I've just upgraded my Maxtor Fireball 30Gb ATA/133 hard drive to a
Maxtor DiamondMax 80Gb ATA/133. I used Maxblast 4 software to migrate
my 30Gb stuff to the new drive, and all apparently went OK. My bios has
no problems recognising the drive, and Win XP boots as far as showing
my desktop background, but without any icons and with no status
line/start button.

The system isn't frozen. My mouse pointer moves. I can hit ctrl-alt-del
and get the task manager up, which tells me there are processes
running. The system appears to be idle without being hung up.

Booting into safe mode results in the start button/status line
appearing momentarily, then leaving a black screen with a 'safe mode'
message across the top line, a movable mouse pointer, and nothing else.

I'd be really grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Why not do an In-Place Upgrade on the new drive.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

I am sure there are other ways but that would seem the easiest. Be
sure to backup the disk first with one of the disk cloners like Drive
Image or True Image so you can recover if the IPU screws things up.

 

[Rod Speed]

I've just upgraded my Maxtor Fireball 30Gb ATA/133 hard drive
to a Maxtor DiamondMax 80Gb ATA/133. I used Maxblast 4
software to migrate my 30Gb stuff to the new drive,

I've never like Maxblast for that, its produces
a dud result quite a bit of the time.

Ghost 2003 is very cheap as part of SystemWorks
Pro 2003 on ebay and does a decent job in that situation.

True Image works even better but costs rather more, but
you can use it for backup once the system is migrated.

and all apparently went OK. My bios has no problems
recognising the drive, and Win XP boots as far as
showing my desktop background, but without any
icons and with no status line/start button.

The system isn't frozen. My mouse pointer moves. I can hit ctrl-alt-del
and get the task manager up, which tells me there are processes
running. The system appears to be idle without being hung up.

 

[Bob]

Ghost 2003 is very cheap as part of SystemWorks
Pro 2003 on ebay and does a decent job in that situation.

True Image works even better but costs rather more, but
you can use it for backup once the system is migrated.

You pay for home-use s/w?

Incredible. You must be the only one here that does.

 

[Rod Speed]

You pay for home-use s/w?

I didnt say whether I do or not.

 

[Bob]

I didnt say whether I do or not.

Neither did I.

 

[DemonBuilder]

Thanks for your suggestions - I've just done the job with Casper XP and
all appears to be OK now. The upgrade in place didn't work,
unfortunately, and I've read all sorts of stuff about Ghost and
Acronis. I guess the truth is that everyone has their favourite that
they are familiar with, and it depends also on level of expertise.
Anyway, Casper did the job for me.