Transfering XP upgrade to a larger partition

[John]

Hi,

I would like to transfer Windows XP professional upgraded
operating system from a partition on a dual boot PC (has
Windows 98 on C: drive)to a new hard disk with only one
partition.

There are two partitions on the original hard disk:
Partion 1 is the c: drive and has Windows 98 (the original
op system that came with the PC) and the partition is set
as the system disk: Formated Fat32

Partition2 has windows XP professional as an upgrade to
windows 98 and this partition is set as the boot partiton:
Formated NTFS.

I have Norton Ghost and tried to clone the XP partition to
a new hard drive with only one primary partition. however
when I booted up the computer using the clone I get this
error message: "NTLDR is missing press any key to
restart"

I also tried editing the boot.ini file to remove referece
to the old windows 98 operating system however the same
error appears.

I only want to use Windows XP now and don't require Win
98. The problem is that there is insufficient space on the
XP partition for all the programs I'm running now and I
need to move it to a larger partition.

Has anyone got any idea how to do this?

Thank you

John

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

John,

is NTLDR actually there, in the root of the partition?

You could post the contents of your BOOT.INI file here if you
like.

For general information on moving entire installations, please
have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxMove.htm.

Hans-Georg

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Hi Hans-George, thanks for the information. On your
recommendation I copied the ntldr, ntdetect and boot.ini
files to the root of the new drive and the computer
started to boot up. got as far as the Microsoft Windows XP
screen but not as far as the logon screen and just froze
at that point.

John,

so far, so good. I think the first problem is now explained. The
boot files are always in the primary partition, which was your
Windows 98 partition (C. Since you copied only the second
partition, they were missing.

Now that you copied them, the system can begin to boot,
indicating that these boot files including BOOT.INI are now
correct and in the right place.

My next suspicion would be that the partition bore the drive
letter D: in your original installation, but got a different
drive letter now. That will cause lots of problems, so the only
way out is usually to make sure that it's still D: if it was D:
before.

But I'll wait until you confirm this line of thought. If I'm
guessing right, one way out would be to create a very small
additional partition, make it the primary and active partition
and copy the boot files there. Or there could be a tool.

There are ways to transform a system that ran on drive D: into
one that now runs on drive C:, but it's a rather involved
procedure. (I've done it.) I don't know any special tools for
this either, though they may exist.

Hans-Georg

 

[John]

Hi Hans-Georg,
eventually got this sorted! The info you gave me on the
drive letter was the key. In the end I used a back up hard
drive and created 2 partitions a small one 2 gig and large
one 38 Gig. Created a dual boot config by loading Win 98
on the first partition, then upgraded XP onto 2nd (only
took about 30 mins) then simply cloned the original XP
partion with all my configurations and programs etc onto
2nd partion of backup hard drive. Now everything works
fine and have tonnes of space for use with XP partition. I
also have the added advantage of having access to Win 98
for some of my older programs and the second partition is
now big enough to do what I want.

Thanks very much for you assistance, saved me a load of
hassel as I would have probably just done a fresh install
of everything!

All the best

John

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

eventually got this sorted! The info you gave me on the
drive letter was the key. In the end I used a back up hard
drive and created 2 partitions a small one 2 gig and large
one 38 Gig. Created a dual boot config by loading Win 98
on the first partition, then upgraded XP onto 2nd (only
took about 30 mins) then simply cloned the original XP
partion with all my configurations and programs etc onto
2nd partion of backup hard drive. Now everything works
fine and have tonnes of space for use with XP partition. I
also have the added advantage of having access to Win 98
for some of my older programs and the second partition is
now big enough to do what I want.

Thanks very much for you assistance, saved me a load of
hassel as I would have probably just done a fresh install
of everything!

John,

good to hear that it worked in the end.

Hans-Georg