Windows problems when booting from Backup HD

[Guest]

Hi
Thanks to two kind geniuses here (Pegasus and Shenan Stanley), when my
1-year-old hard drive died (it had cyclic redundance check errors they warned
me about) I'd bought a new SATA, installed it and cloned the old one. The
old one died just hours after I cloned it. Literally less than 6 hours after
I cloned it, it was dead. What a God-sent rescue. From now on I'm staying
away from Maxtor and sticking with Seagate.

Anyway, now:
1) WindowsXP assigned F: as the local drive instead of C: so my links and
some programs are broken
2) WindowsXP is claiming it's a counterfeit copy when all I did was do a
repair reinstall because Norton 10.0 didn't create a bootable drive quite
correctly (but it saved my data, which is far more important!!)
3) Windows Installer keeps popping up every single time I do anything, even
opening an Internet Explorer window. Every time Installer starts it locks up
IE.
4) My IDE drive that came with my system now conflicts with my SATA drive
every time I turn on Primary Master in BIOS

I just bought yet another Seagate 400GB SATA hard drive so I can clone the
working new one before changing the working drive's letter from F: to C: --
then I'll reinstall SP2 + updates and clone it again. Can someone help me
with the 4 issues listed above?

Thanks again, Pegasus and Shenan!!
Truly GettingByOK now

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

Hi
Thanks to two kind geniuses here (Pegasus and Shenan Stanley), when my
1-year-old hard drive died (it had cyclic redundance check errors they warned
me about) I'd bought a new SATA, installed it and cloned the old one. The
old one died just hours after I cloned it. Literally less than 6 hours after
I cloned it, it was dead. What a God-sent rescue. From now on I'm staying
away from Maxtor and sticking with Seagate.

I think that Maxtor disks are as good as Seagate disks. Among the
couple of thousand PCs I have purchased over the years, I have not
noticed any difference in quality.

Anyway, now:
1) WindowsXP assigned F: as the local drive instead of C: so my links and
some programs are broken

You should change this immediately. Run regedit, naviate to
HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices, rename \DosDevices\F:
to DosDevices\C: and reboot the machine. If you already have
a value "DosDevices\C:, delete it.

2) WindowsXP is claiming it's a counterfeit copy when all I did was do a
repair reinstall because Norton 10.0 didn't create a bootable drive quite
correctly (but it saved my data, which is far more important!!)

This might disappear after you have fixed up your system drive letter.

3) Windows Installer keeps popping up every single time I do anything, even
opening an Internet Explorer window. Every time Installer starts it locks up

Ditto.

4) My IDE drive that came with my system now conflicts with my SATA drive
every time I turn on Primary Master in BIOS

I do not understand what you mean with "turn on Primary Master
in BIOS".

I just bought yet another Seagate 400GB SATA hard drive so I can clone the
working new one before changing the working drive's letter from F: to : --
then I'll reinstall SP2 + updates and clone it again. Can someone help me
with the 4 issues listed above?

Thanks again, Pegasus and Shenan!!

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Brian A]

Try this first and see if it helps only if you can boot to Windows on the SATA
drive. Always create a recent backup of the registry before attempting any editing
in the registry.
How to back up, edit, and restore the registry in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756

Boot to the SATA drive.
Click Start > Run, type in: regedit and press Enter.
Expand Hkey_Local_Machine\System.
Click on Mounted Devices.
Delete all Entries in the right pane Except the "Default" entry.
Close out of regedit.
Right click MyComputer.
Click Properties > Advanced tab > "Startup and Settings" Settings button > Edit
button.
Edit the boot.ini to the below, watch the word wrap as there shouldn't be any. The 5
lines below should all be on their own line. Watch for spaces, there should only be
2, one before each /.
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Professional" /noexecute=optin
/fastdetect

Shutdown.
Disconnect the SATA drive and boot to the PATA drive.
Perform the same steps to delete the entries in Regedit.
Close regedit and shutdown.
Disconnect the PATA drive and reconnect the SATA drive.
Boot to the BIOS and set the SATA drive as the first boot device.
Save, exit and reboot.
Windows should now load and the drives should be re-enumerated.
Reboot again and then shutdown.
Reconnect the PATA drive and reboot.

If the PATA drive is detected as the boot drive or an issue appears, you may need
to remove the Active bit from the PATA drive to boot properly to the SATA drive.





--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375