Clone and then swap win2k drive

[Will]

Here is my setup. I have a dual boot system with NT 4.0 and Win2k SP3.
Drive C: is the boot drive and also has NT. Drive D: is currently a 10GB
single partition drive and has Win2k. I want to replace that 10GB with a
20GB drive. Here is what I have tried. I slaved the new 20GB drive off the
10GB and then booted into NT. I partitioned the 20GB as a single partition
and formatted it. These are all NTFS filesystems by the way. Then I copied
the entire 10GB drive to the 20GB drive. Next I removed the 10GB drive and
put the 20GB drive in it's place as master/single. Here is what happens.
Win2k boots up to the login in screen. I enter my password and the login
dialog box goes away. It then just sits with the blue Win2k background and
cursor. I can hear the drive(s) seeking away and after about 4 minutes the
login dialog box appears on the screen again. Now if I enter my password
again, it just keeps redisplaying the login dialog immediately after
entering my password and return. No errors reported. I have also tried
booting to the Win2k CD and doing a repair on the 20GB drive, but get the
same results. Any ideas? Thanks -- Will

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Here is my setup. I have a dual boot system with NT 4.0 and Win2k SP3.
Drive C: is the boot drive and also has NT. Drive D: is currently a 10GB
single partition drive and has Win2k. I want to replace that 10GB with a
20GB drive. Here is what I have tried. I slaved the new 20GB drive off the
10GB and then booted into NT. I partitioned the 20GB as a single partition
and formatted it. These are all NTFS filesystems by the way. Then I copied
the entire 10GB drive to the 20GB drive. Next I removed the 10GB drive and
put the 20GB drive in it's place as master/single. Here is what happens.
Win2k boots up to the login in screen. I enter my password and the login
dialog box goes away. It then just sits with the blue Win2k background and
cursor. I can hear the drive(s) seeking away and after about 4 minutes the
login dialog box appears on the screen again. Now if I enter my password
again, it just keeps redisplaying the login dialog immediately after
entering my password and return. No errors reported. I have also tried
booting to the Win2k CD and doing a repair on the 20GB drive, but get the
same results. Any ideas? Thanks -- Will

This typically happens when hard disks are changed. Before you
change disks, delete any inappropriate or non-existing devices
as per Step 2 below.
1. From dos, copy userinit.exe to all the other hard drives
This should allow you to log in.
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/MountedDevices/:
delete all keys which look like "\DosDevice\<DRIVE_LETTER>:"
3. Point KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/
Winlogon/Userinit to the correct location of userinit.exe
See also http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=249321

 

[Will]

Thanks Pegasus. That sounds like the solution to my problem, but.....I'm
not so smart in my old age. I am trying to do as you and the Microsoft
article suggest and don't have a clue as to how I can regedit a system I
can't login into so I can point it to the location of userinit.exe that I
have now copied to all my hardrives. Please advise. Thanks -- Will

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm not so sure if I can accept your disclaimer about old
age and all that, nudging 60 myself. Anyway, remote
registry edits are usually performed via a network connection
(which may not be available in your case). However, I feel
there is a need to go back one step: In your first post you
said that you "copied" your Win2000 10 GByte drive to
the new disk. How exactly did you do this? And is Win2000
still running on the old disk?

 

[Will]

Well, we're in the same boat as far as age goes, but I just don't function
like I used to. I've read some stuff that says the decline might be due to
heart bypass surgery I had a couple years ago. As far as the copy, I had
all three drives connected like this. C: has all the boot files and NT and
is the master on the primary channel of a Promise ATA 100 controller. D:
was the 10gb drive as the master on the secondary channel. The 20gb drive
was a slave on that secondary channel. Then I booted to NT and just went to
drive d:, the originl 10gb win2k, and selected all in windows explorer and
dragged them over to the newly formatted 20gb drive which was something like
g: or h:. Thanks -- Will


To your second question, yes if I connect the original 10gb drive back up as
master on the secondary channel, it boots to win2k just fine

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm afraid your method of copying files will not work.
There are two methods of copying an existing
Win2000 installation:

a) Use an imaging product such as DriveImage from
PowerQuest (my preference), or Ghost (Symantec).
You will end up with an exact carbon copy of the
source partition.

b) Start a Command Prompt, then type this command:
xcopy /s /e /h /y /c d:\*.* g:\
This will most likely give you an unbootable Win2000
installation. To fix this, you must boot from your
Win2000 CD, select "Repair" when prompted, then
select "Repair Boot Environment" when prompted.

 

[Will]

OK, thanks. I did try copying by booting to a WD Data Lifeguard floppy and
ended up with the same result. But, it forced me to only make a 8gb part
because it found NT. I have Norton Ghost and will try that and the xcopy.
Thanks for all the help! -- Will

 

[Will]

Thanks for all the help Pegasus. What I finally ended up doing was to put
together a PC out of junk parts and put Win2k on it. Then I made sure it
could network with my problem machine. At that point I was able to perform
the instructions in the MS document,
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=249321 , that you pointed me to. I was
able to remotely edit the registry and fix userinit.exe and the drive
mappings. Thanks again! -- Will

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for all the help Pegasus. What I finally ended up doing was to put
together a PC out of junk parts and put Win2k on it. Then I made sure it
could network with my problem machine. At that point I was able to perform
the instructions in the MS document,
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=249321 , that you pointed me to. I was
able to remotely edit the registry and fix userinit.exe and the drive
mappings. Thanks again! -- Will