Can't boot Windows 2000 Pro

[John]

Hi,

I used Ghost 2003 to clone a 13 GB drive onto a 40 GB drive (both Seagate), and
then removed the 13 GB from the IDE cable and made the 40 GB the new master.
Upon rebooting, I get this error and Windows 2000 won't load:

"Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration
problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk
hardware. Please check the Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

Any ideas on how to get it to boot? I've tried booting into the Recovery
Console and doing both "fixboot" and "fixmbr" but they didn't help -- I still
get the same message above.

To use the old drive again I have to remove the hard drive totally, reset the
CMOS by pulling out the battery temporarily, and then plugging the old 13 GB
back in and booting up. All is fine with that drive. How can I use the new
one though?

Thanks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Boot.ini may be incorrect. Try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to
successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector.
Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT
boot sector gets written to the floppy), and copy Windows 2000 versions of
ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot. Below is an example of
boot.ini. The default is to start the operating system located on the first
partition of the primary or first drive (drive0). Then drive0 partition 2
and so on.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"

Another possibility is to try loading the controller driver also from
floppy. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must
contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine,
not a DOS/Win9x, so the "NT" boot sector gets written to the floppy), then
copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot.

In order for this to work you'll want to change the arc path in boot.ini
from multi syntax to scsi syntax to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a
boot device driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Then
also copy the correct manufacturer scsi driver to the floppy but renamed to
ntbootdd.sys


Something like this below;

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi,
|
| I used Ghost 2003 to clone a 13 GB drive onto a 40 GB drive (both
Seagate), and
| then removed the 13 GB from the IDE cable and made the 40 GB the new
master.
| Upon rebooting, I get this error and Windows 2000 won't load:
|
| "Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware
configuration
| problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and
disk
| hardware. Please check the Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware
disk
| configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional
information."
|
| Any ideas on how to get it to boot? I've tried booting into the Recovery
| Console and doing both "fixboot" and "fixmbr" but they didn't help -- I
still
| get the same message above.
|
| To use the old drive again I have to remove the hard drive totally, reset
the
| CMOS by pulling out the battery temporarily, and then plugging the old 13
GB
| back in and booting up. All is fine with that drive. How can I use the
new
| one though?
|
| Thanks.
|
|

 

[mcp6453]

Hi,

I used Ghost 2003 to clone a 13 GB drive onto a 40 GB drive (both Seagate), and
then removed the 13 GB from the IDE cable and made the 40 GB the new master.
Upon rebooting, I get this error and Windows 2000 won't load:

"Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration
problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk
hardware. Please check the Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

Any ideas on how to get it to boot? I've tried booting into the Recovery
Console and doing both "fixboot" and "fixmbr" but they didn't help -- I still
get the same message above.

To use the old drive again I have to remove the hard drive totally, reset the
CMOS by pulling out the battery temporarily, and then plugging the old 13 GB
back in and booting up. All is fine with that drive. How can I use the new
one though?

Thanks.

Get BootItNG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com (free, fully
functional trial) and copy the partition again. Make sure that you set
the destination partition as active.

You might want to boot to the 13GB drive with the 40GB drive installed
as a slave to see if Windows can see it. On occasion, I have had Windows
offer to fix things on drives that I don't fully understand.

I dumped Ghost a LONG time ago because of problems like these.

 

[Andy]

It's unknown exactly what steps you're taking, but booting Windows
from the old or clone disk while the clone disk is still connected can
render the clone disk to become independently unbootable. In other
words, the clone may not boot if the old disk is no longer accessible.

 

[Guest]

You do not have a boot.ini issue since you cloned the disk and its in the
same position as the original.
You didn't boot the cloned disk while the original was in the system.

You followed recommended procedures and it should work.

You should not have to clear the bios [use the clear bios jumper not pulling
the battery] to get the original drive to work which indicates you could have
a hardware issue [or you didn't go into the bios and redetect the drive so
the parameters were correct in the bios]

I would set the 40gig as the only drive, fdisk it and format it as bootable
from a 98 boot floppy. Test that it boots. Once successful redo your clone
[cloning will overwrite the disk so no need to wipe the disk after the test]

As a last resort you can always do a repair installation on the cloned disk.
This will preserve the data and apps but refresh the OS. You will have to
redo your service packs since you are at install defaults.

 

[John]

You do not have a boot.ini issue since you cloned the disk and its in the
same position as the original.

That's what I thought. Boot.ini on the 13 GB would be the same on the 40 GB.

You didn't boot the cloned disk while the original was in the system.

Correct, as only one IDE cable is used -- for the HD and DVD-ROM. At no
time where both HDs connected together when booting -- only when cloning.

You followed recommended procedures and it should work.

Exactly what I thought.

You should not have to clear the bios [use the clear bios jumper not pulling
the battery] to get the original drive to work which indicates you could have
a hardware issue [or you didn't go into the bios and redetect the drive so
the parameters were correct in the bios]

I doubt it'd be a hardware issue as the old drive boots fine. Both HDs are
also fine as I've used them daily for about 3 years now without issue.

I would set the 40gig as the only drive, fdisk it and format it as bootable
from a 98 boot floppy. Test that it boots. Once successful redo your clone
[cloning will overwrite the disk so no need to wipe the disk after the test]

As a last resort you can always do a repair installation on the cloned disk.
This will preserve the data and apps but refresh the OS. You will have to
redo your service packs since you are at install defaults.

Thanks, I'll try these, as well as the other suggestions here. I just hoped
it'd be something simple like a fixmbr rather than an OS re-install.

 

[John]

As a last resort you can always do a repair installation on the cloned disk.
This will preserve the data and apps but refresh the OS. You will have to
redo your service packs since you are at install defaults.

Actually, I do recall now that I tried this but the Windows 2000 CD didn't
recognize the HD, and therefore I couldn't do it. I'll try the other ideas.

 

[Guest]

il giorno Mon, 28 Aug 2006 06:00:08 +1000 "John" <[email protected]>
disse:

Hi

"Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration
problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk
hardware. Please check the Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

I suppose it's not your case, but just to be sure: I assume the cloned
disk had only one partition and its letter was C:/?

I got a similar behaviour once, when I attempted to put a cloned
bootable partition D:/ as first bootable partition on the target hard
disk: this created a mess with drive letters and W2000 could not boot.
It attempted to boot from optical drive and there was no way even by
correcting boot.ini accordingly - I had to follow the steps as
described in MS Knowledge base 223188

__

Marco Pesce - real e-mail is marcopesce(tin.it