Moving HD w/ XP Home to new system

[PhilB]

I'm moving my existing disk(s), with XP Home installed,
into a completely new system (minus the disks). I
installed the two HDD into the new enclosure with exactly
the same master/slave configuration as the original
system. I set the BIOS to boot from CD first, and
confirmed that the disks were recognized by the BIOS as
the same configuration as the original system. I booted
from the XP CD, selected a 'repair' installation to
detect the new hardware configuration, and XP setup
installed a bunch of files, then rebooted ... but the
reboot just hangs indefinitely with a 'blank' flashing
cursor screen.

Any ideas, preferably easier than a 'clean'
installation? All my user account 'documents' are on the
secondary drive, so worst case, a clean install will mean
re-installing applications and reconfiguring user
accounts to point back to the documents folders on the
secondary ... still a pain I'm hoping to avoid.

 

[John]

hey i have the same issue if u get a response can u
please copy it to me (e-mail address removed)? ill do the same
for u if i get answered.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I'm moving my existing disk(s), with XP Home installed,
into a completely new system (minus the disks). I
installed the two HDD into the new enclosure with exactly
the same master/slave configuration as the original
system. I set the BIOS to boot from CD first, and
confirmed that the disks were recognized by the BIOS as
the same configuration as the original system. I booted
from the XP CD, selected a 'repair' installation to
detect the new hardware configuration, and XP setup
installed a bunch of files, then rebooted ... but the
reboot just hangs indefinitely with a 'blank' flashing
cursor screen.

Any ideas, preferably easier than a 'clean'
installation? All my user account 'documents' are on the
secondary drive, so worst case, a clean install will mean
re-installing applications and reconfiguring user
accounts to point back to the documents folders on the
secondary ... still a pain I'm hoping to avoid.

Phil,

how old is the "new" hardware? Perhaps it needs a newer BIOS
version?

Otherwise one suspicion would be that the hardware is defective.
Move the disks back to the original system and test whether you
can do another repair installation there.

If yes, put another disk in the new computer and try a fresh
installation, only to test it. If no, ask again here, but that's
going to be a bit more difficult.

Hans-Georg

 

[PhilB]

Update: Tried installing a 'fresh' second install on the
same partition, it still won't boot, doesn't even make it
to the screen to select which OS to boot. Got an old
dusty HD off the closet shelf with Win/98 on it, made it
the master, and it boots successfully and auto-recognized
all the new hardware, restarted, and all was well. Gee,
isnt' XP great! At least this shows all the new system
H/W isn't the problem.

I don't want to re-format my primary drive without being
able to back it up first, so since this is looking like
a "start from scratch" exercise, I'm thinking I'll just
start with a new serial ATA drive as the new primary, and
just designate my old primary drive as a secondary.
Application re-install hell, but at least I haven't lost
any data.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Update: Tried installing a 'fresh' second install on the
same partition, it still won't boot, doesn't even make it
to the screen to select which OS to boot. Got an old
dusty HD off the closet shelf with Win/98 on it, made it
the master, and it boots successfully and auto-recognized
all the new hardware, restarted, and all was well. Gee,
isnt' XP great! At least this shows all the new system
H/W isn't the problem.

Phil,

the hardware can still be the problem. Windows XP exercises the
hardware more than Windows 98. It has higher demands.

Hans-Georg

 

[PhilB]

Tried installing on a brand new S-ATA drive, and it still
wouldn't boot after the install completed. I called MSI
tech support, they gave me a new 'beta' BIOS, which
didn't solve the problem, but it at least posted a error
message "Can't find NTLDR" instead of the blank screen.
Called MSI back, they said I had a defective disk
controller on the motherboard. Tore the system apart,
sent the board back to Zipzoomfly, awaiting the
replacement. I put my drives back in my old system, and
everything came back fine after a 'repair' install.

I'm keeping my old drives in my old system for now, and
I'll bring the new system up on the new drive when I get
the replacement motherboard, then migrate my old drives
when the new system is all working.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Tried installing on a brand new S-ATA drive, and it still
wouldn't boot after the install completed. I called MSI
tech support, they gave me a new 'beta' BIOS, which
didn't solve the problem, but it at least posted a error
message "Can't find NTLDR" instead of the blank screen.
Called MSI back, they said I had a defective disk
controller on the motherboard. Tore the system apart,
sent the board back to Zipzoomfly, awaiting the
replacement. I put my drives back in my old system, and
everything came back fine after a 'repair' install.

I'm keeping my old drives in my old system for now, and
I'll bring the new system up on the new drive when I get
the replacement motherboard, then migrate my old drives
when the new system is all working.

Phil,

you could move your entire installation to the new disk in the
new system, if you wanted. Please have a look at
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxMove.htm for details.

Hans-Georg

 

[Guest]

The final conclusion:

1st problem, defective motherboard. Replaced.

Try it again ... But first a test: Installed a 'fresh'
Win/XP with a clean reformat on a 'new' drive as a test,
and it worked perfectly. Thus emboldened, tried
a 'repair' install on the 'old' drive being migrated into
the system, and it would not boot into the second phase
of the Win/XP setup, at all. Back to square one ... so I
thought maybe there's something with the format of the
old drive that is preventing the boot sector and NTLDR
from being recognized by the BIOS of new motherboard? Of
course, if I reformat, I loose the ability to do a repair
install and recover my XP 'world' and be left with
the 'virgin' install I just did as a test on the new
drive.

SOooo ... I used the Acronis MigrateEasy product (created
on bootable floppyx3) to migrate the old disk image onto
the new drive with a fresh reformat occuring via
MigrateEasy as part of the mirroring process. Then
performed a 'repair' Win/XP install on the new drive ...
and success, I'm in business with my legacy Win/XP
environment on the new system. I'll now reformat the old
drive and make it my data/secondary/scratch drive.

The only other ironic piece was once I got to the point
of being able to login to my old user account, Win/XP
wouldn't let me without first re-registering Win/XP ...
but my new ethernet connection was down because I needed
to login in order to install the new network drivers ...
the Win/XP install didn't recognize the new on-board 1Gb
LAN controller. Catch-22. So I had to do the "over the
phone" registration manually first, then login, then
install the missing drivers.

It's only been a week of my life and more gray hair ...

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Thanks a lot for reporting! There seems to be a problem that
causes the repair installation to fail. You're not the only one,
as far as I can tell. Don't know what causes this, but would
like to know how to repair it without moving everything to a
different disk. I guess the software you used to do that somehow
repaired the defect. Could be around the boot sectors.

Hans-Georg