Login fail on WinXP cloned to new HDD :-(

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

OK, I have done like this so far:

- Copied all the XP files from one FAT32 disk to a new FAT32 disk
- Rewrote the WINNT bootsector (the one that loads NTLDR) on new disk
- When booting from the new disk WinXP boots like normal, until...

When I get to the login prompt I enter my username and password, it
then says "Loading your settings" (or something), and then "Logging
off", and doesn't get anywhere from there :-/

Same if I use "administrator" (but it does check the user and
password, if anyone is wrong it will give a message on that).

If I boot in safe mode the same happend, except after "Logging off" it
will now return to the login prompt, but can't get anywhere from there

I have access to both the new (cloned) WinXP files and the old WinXP
installation (now in an external cabinet, but not changed as I must
have this for backup if I can't get the new one to work right

So what could cause this? Any files that could be damaged, any files
I should delete on the new installation, or change in some way, or?

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

Even stranger... When I connect my old WinXP disk in the external USB
case and rebooted the PC it logged in after a while BUT it now loaded
some files from the external disk AND the external disk show as C:
(not the internal one that XP is supposed to boot from). WHAT?

Why is it still looking for the WinXP OS files on the external disk?
Is there som drive mapping that makes it look for a certain harddisk
(I thought it was enough that the new disk has the same lette (C

I mean since it refused to boot with only the internal disk, and
booted when the external was connected AND connected that as C:?

How on earth will I clear out this (I can't change the drive letters
for any disk after XP has booted - not for the boot device anyway).

I'm inside XP ok, but even ifit booted from the new disk (internal)
it's now running with the files on the external (old one) it seems

Strange (and I'm now afraid it will mess up both my installations)!

 

[Massimo]

- Copied all the XP files from one FAT32 disk to a new FAT32 disk

You should never do that to move an XP installation (BTW, why is it
installed on FAT32?!?); you should use tools like Ghost, which deal properly
with system files. For some files (f.e. the pagefile), it just isn't enough
that the file is there with the same name: it should have the same physical
position on disk.


Massimo

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

Found the docs on how to change/reset the drive ID assignments:

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

3 ways to do it. The Win98 "FIDSK /MBR" was easiest!

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

You should never do that to move an XP installation (BTW, why is it
installed on FAT32?!?); you should use tools like Ghost, which deal properly

Just because I have a dual boot system with Win98se. Then FAT32 is
nice (otherwise I could not have copied the XP files either

To make XP reset the drive letters I just had to change the serialnr
of the disk (rewrite the MBR), as I understood from that article that
problem could happend with disk cloning software as well...

The best is to delete the disk assignment letters from XP registry
before cloning it (but I didn't now that). Well up and running now!

 

[Lars-Erik Østerud]

For workstations we use 32GB FAT32 system-partitions (to allow for a lot

more programs, etc than a server would normally have) and disk-corruption

Defragmentation is much faster and better with FAT32 too (I run it
from Win98se, that gived the best result - isn't that worth a laugh)

-and with Vista, removing the disk signature-bytes with FDISK /MBR will
render it unbootable, or so they say. Did anyone mention the term

OK, so much for that way to fix wrong drive letter assignments after a
clone. Why does it do that? Copy protection?

Quite stupid. If one stupid person has a DOS floppy with FDISK on then
he can trash the whole Vista installation. That is a safe OS, huh =:-O

And think of viruses and malware. Just change the MBR DiskID and they
have wrecked your whole Vista installation (if it won't help writing
back a copy of the MBR then, I have saved the MBR and root sectors
just to be sure if anything happends to my MBR now