Win XP Boot Error??

[Guest]

I recently upgraded to an 80GB hard drive from a 10GB, reloaded all of my
systems software, and never had a problem.

Yesterday when I booted my system, xp started normally, but then for some
reason had to restart after detecting all of my hardware & USB connections.
Problem is, since that restart, I've been kicked into an endless cycle of
"Windows did not start normally on a previous attempt..." and no matter which
option I select in the menu (including last known good & safe mode??), it
never fully reboots back into windows xp.

i switched my hard drives back, and when i open windows on the old drive, i
notice that now the new drive cannot be read by any of my system programs nor
by my norton tools, so i can't even try to examine it myself & fix whatever
errors there may be on the drive. when i look at it in windows explorer, it
says it's in "raw data" format & it doesn't look like anything is being used
on the drive (0% used).

I know for a fact that there are programs & files on there, but what I can't
figure out is what the heck happened that would cause something like this & I
can't seem to figure out how to fix it.

Anyone have any ideas???

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You would be better off trying to boot with just the new drive, if you want to try saving data. Either an install to a new windows
folder, (and 'take ownership" of old data), or a "Upgrade" setup (assuming it was not a "preinstalled" version of XP)

Uninstall SP2, BEFORE you Upgrade setup from CD (that lacks sp2 on it.)
875350 - How to remove Windows XP Service Pack 2 from your computer: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=875350 How to
Perform a Windows XP Repair Install: http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm