transferring Win 2000 Pro to new drive - won't start

[KWW]

I formatted a new 111Gb (120,000,000) drive and thought I'd use the
installation tools to let them transfer the OS stuff from my 15 Gb drive to
the replacement drive. It all says that it works fine, but when I swap out
the new one to be the master, I get the following black screen error on
startup:

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

System:
ASUS A7V333 mobo (not using RAID at present)
256 Mb RAM
AMD Athlon XP+ 2100 CPU
W 2K Pro SP4 & all security patches
IE 6 and all patches
USB Scanner/Zip 100
2 CD R/Ws on Secondary IDE
WD 120 Gb Primary Master Boot disk (some day) NTFS
Maxtor 80 Gb Primary Slave disk
3Com Ethernet 10/100 PCI
G Force4 MX440 (NIVIDA) video (MSI MS-StoarForce)
Floppy drive
SOME WEIRD device attempting to be registered (but I don't allow it because
it makes no sense) "B ER H"


TIA!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You say "I used the installation tools to let them transfer the
OS stuff from my 15 Gb drive to the replacement drive."
- How exactly did you do this?
- What installation tools?
- How big is the system partition?
- If it is 111 GBytes, have you given any consideration to
splitting it: 10 GBytes for Win2000 & apps, the rest for data?

 

[Eric McG]

Check the installation procedure again. In my experience with WD drives, the new
drive was setup as Master and the old drive was setup as the Slave before the OS
transfer was done. The initial bootup was from the WD floppy utility.

It appears as if you're in this position now, so it may be worth a try to bootup
from the WD floppy and then transfer from the old drive again.

 

[KWW]

Yes, I used the WD floppy utility while the new drive was Slave and the old
drive was Master. I tried redoing it (again) and it says the copy is
complete - and then when I make the slave drive the master (and set jumper)
and then use a different drive as the slave (my original slave drive that
I'd taken off to perform this task) it comes up with that error message.

Is there a partition size limit for Boot disks?

If I have to go back and split up the 110 Gb drive into two partitions
(using WD's tools since I don't want to spring for partition magic or the
like) will I have to reformat the 110 Gb drive?

Thanks!
KWW

 

[KWW]

The system partition spans the entire 111 GBytes. Is there a limit to the
size? Since some stuff really likes to operate on the main drive, if I HAVE
to partition it I'd probably go with 55 and 56 or something. I then can put
back my 80 GB slave drive.
Thanks so far!
KWW

 

[Eric McG]

My point was to NOT to make the new drive the Slave....make it the Master, boot
from the floppy, then transfer.

 

[KWW]

Tried it. For some reason it STILL comes back with the same message. I am
trying it one more time, this time partitioning the drive into two parts.
The WD SW doesn't seem to give me a very good feeling about what is going to
happen to the 2nd part (still ready that I only have 1 partition, just a
smaller one) but I will mess with it and see what happens. Maybe it is a
size thing.
Any further suggestions will be tried also, if this doesn't work...
Thanks for the response(s) thus far!
KWW

 

[KWW]

I used the WD floppy utility while the new drive was Slave and the old drive
was Master. I tried redoing it (again) and it says the copy is complete -
and then when I make the slave drive the master (and set jumper)
and then use a different drive as the slave (my original slave drive that
I'd taken off to perform this task) it comes up with that error message.

Is there a partition size limit for Boot disks? I tried swapping which was
slave/master but it still didn't work using the full size for the (main)
partition so I am going back and trying to partition it into two roughly
equal-sized parts. R.E. size... actually I remembered incorrectly, it is a
WD "120 GB" (i.e. 114 GB actual) drive.

Anyway, any further ideas will be tried and are appreciated!
KWW

 

[KWW]

Didn't work... tried using my W2k starup floppies - didn't help either.
This seems familiar... like one of those dumb a$$ sorts of steps I am
forgetting.

 

[KWW]

Didn't solve it. There is something simple I am probably forgetting.

 

[Jim Self]

Hi,

Tough luck huh.

I think I'd try formatting your new drive to a clean state, then try
using it as the master without another drive in there too. Set your BIOS
so your box boots from the win 2000 cd and try to do an install to the
disk and see if it'll take.

If you can get the new disk to boot you should be able to find a way to
copy your old stuff to it, might even be able to get your old win
running there too, but I wouldn't count on it.


---==X={}=X==---


Jim Self
AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have never tried running Win2000 on such a large partition. If this
was my machine then I would run some experiments in order to
find out what's going on, perhaps doing something like this:
- Buy a copy of Acronis PartitionExpert and Acronis TrueImage.
They cost very little money and are worth their weight in gold.
- Use TrueImage to copy your old partition to the new disk,
maintaining the original size. Does it work?
- Use PartitionExpert to expand the partition to 30 GBytes. Does
it work?
- If there is a jumper on the new disk to reduce the usable size,
try it out. Some disk have these jumpers to resolve incompatibilty
issues.

With respect to the Acronis products: You must first install them
on some Win2000 machine that has a CD burner, then burn a
rescue CD. You can then use the rescue CD to boot your problem
machine, even if the hard disk is completely blank.

 

[KWW]

I shall look into these products. Thanks!