Cannot boot from a cloned hard disk drive

[Pierre Sangouard]

Hi,

I have the following problem: I am running Windows XP SP2 on my laptop and
my hard disk is starting to die.

Since it still kind of works, I bought a new one (Same size, not exactly the
same model) and did a physical copy
on another system I have (I don't want to reinstall all my applications)
using a small application that I wrote a couple
of years ago and that I used successfully several times with Windows 2000
for the exact same purpose (Replacing
dying hard drives without resintalling everything).

Now the problem is that when I boot with the new hard drive, I cannot login
: login starts and then automatically logs off.

I assume that it has something to do with product activation. Is there any
Microsoft approved way of doing what I am
trying to do?

TIA,
Pierre

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I have the following problem: I am running Windows XP SP2 on my laptop and
my hard disk is starting to die.

Since it still kind of works, I bought a new one (Same size, not exactly the
same model) and did a physical copy
on another system I have (I don't want to reinstall all my applications)
using a small application that I wrote a couple
of years ago and that I used successfully several times with Windows 2000
for the exact same purpose (Replacing
dying hard drives without resintalling everything).

Now the problem is that when I boot with the new hard drive, I cannot login
: login starts and then automatically logs off.

I assume that it has something to do with product activation. Is there any
Microsoft approved way of doing what I am
trying to do?

TIA,
Pierre

You're actually in the wrong group (WinXP) but then your problem would
be the same for Win2000 and for WinXP: Windows believes that its
system drive is something other than C:.

The easiest way to fix the problem is to edit the registry of
the problem machine via a networked PC. Do this:
1. Navigate to this key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
2. Make a note of the data for "SystemRoot".
3. Navigate to this key: HKLM/SYSTEM/MountedDevices/
4. Locate the value "\Dos\Devices\X:" (where X is the data you noted in Step
2).
5. Rename this value to "\Dos\Devices\C:"

You should now be able to reboot and log on.

Post again if you cannot access the problem via a networked PC.
There are other solutions but they are less easy to implement.
:
delete all keys which look like "\DosDevice\<DRIVE_LETTER>:"

 

[Pierre Sangouard]

You're actually in the wrong group (WinXP)

I don't think so. As I said, I am running Windows XP SP2. I just mentioned
Windows 2000
to underscore that the hard disk cloning method used to work with Windows
2000.

As for the system drive thing, I actually can boot up to Windows XP logon
which means that
system drive is actually found by Windows.

What I cannot do is logon which I think is an indication of product
activation
kicking it and forbidding me to logon. I guess it's an anti piracy feature
but
what I am trying to do is perfectly legit so I am looking for a Microsoft
approved way of doing it.

Thanks,
Pierre

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't think so. As I said, I am running Windows XP SP2. I just mentioned
Windows 2000
to underscore that the hard disk cloning method used to work with Windows
2000.

As for the system drive thing, I actually can boot up to Windows XP logon
which means that
system drive is actually found by Windows.

What I cannot do is logon which I think is an indication of product
activation
kicking it and forbidding me to logon. I guess it's an anti piracy feature
but
what I am trying to do is perfectly legit so I am looking for a Microsoft
approved way of doing it.

Thanks,
Pierre

You are entitled to believe that your problem is caused by some
product validation issue even though it flies in the face of countless
other posts with the same issue.

In all these other cases the logon looping problem is caused by
the registry pointing to the wrong location for userinit.exe
(HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/Winlogon/Userinit).
This in turn is caused by Windows running off the wrong drive
letter. Even if you do not believe it, Windows can actually start
under these conditions but it will never run properly.

You can easily confirm what I say by running these commands
from a networked Win2000/XP PC:

psexec \\YourProblemPC
set systemroot

I expect SystemRoot to point at drive D: or drive E: instead of
drive C:.

You can download a free copy of psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.

 

[Pierre Sangouard]

You are entitled to believe that your problem is caused by some
product validation issue even though it flies in the face of countless
other posts with the same issue.

In all these other cases the logon looping problem is caused by
the registry pointing to the wrong location for userinit.exe
(HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current
Version/Winlogon/Userinit). This in turn is caused by Windows running
off the wrong drive
letter. Even if you do not believe it, Windows can actually start
under these conditions but it will never run properly.

You can easily confirm what I say by running these commands
from a networked Win2000/XP PC:

psexec \\YourProblemPC
set systemroot

I expect SystemRoot to point at drive D: or drive E: instead of
drive C:.

You can download a free copy of psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.

Well you were right, it had nothing to do with product activation.
I did copy the hard disk again but did not run chkdsk on the newly created
partitions before moving it to my laptop. And this time it worked !

Thank you for your help,
Pierre