Windows won't boot

[wjb]

Hi,

I have a hard drive with WinXP Pro which will not boot even though all the
boot files appear to be there. This is a restore from a full system backup
and I'm suspecting that either the MBR is missing, the partition was not
made active, or both. Will booting into the Recovery Console and running the
FixMBR command do the job if that is the case? And are there any risks
involved as this is the only copy I have of that disk.

Thanks

 

[Bill Blanton]

I have a hard drive with WinXP Pro which will not boot even though all the boot files appear to be there. This is a restore from a
full system backup and I'm suspecting that either the MBR is missing, the partition was not made active, or both.

Could be either or both, though it's hard to say without knowing exactly
what you did to do the "restore" of your backup, or what, if any error
messages you are seeing (or not seeing)

Will booting into the Recovery Console and running the FixMBR command do the job if that is the case? And are there any risks
involved as this is the only copy I have of that disk.

fixmbr will only rewrite the boot code that finds the active partition. It won't
make a partition active. Generally it's harmless to run unless you have
some type of drive overlay software installed. That includes drive manufacturers
BIOS extension software and programs such as Goback.

 

[wjb]

Thanks for your reply, Bill. The restore was done via Norton Save & Restore
and verified without any errors. The computer is a Dell laptop Inspiron
8200, but I don't know whether it has any BIOS extensions. And other than AV
software, there are no other programs such as GoBack. In response to your
reply, is there any way at all that a non-boot partition can be made active?
Are there any tools out there that will do that?

Thanks again
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I have a hard drive with WinXP Pro which will not boot even though all the
boot files appear to be there. This is a restore from a full system backup
and I'm suspecting that either the MBR is missing, the partition was not
made active, or both. Will booting into the Recovery Console and running
the FixMBR command do the job if that is the case? And are there any risks
involved as this is the only copy I have of that disk.

Thanks

You need to report how far Windows gets in the boot process and what
messages you see on the screen. Without this information it's not possible
to give you any specific advice.

 

[Gerry]

WJB

Norton Save & Restore replaced GoBack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoBack


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bill Blanton]

I'm not familiar with Save and Restore. It is possible that the cloned?
partition was not set active, however it's hard to say. What exactly
happens when you try to boot the clone?

 

[Bill Blanton]

Gerry, from what I can tell Save and Restore is different than Goback.

 

[Gerry]

Bill

I have no direct experience of either.

It seems the direct connection is between Ghost and Save & Restore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Ghost#Norton_Save_And_Restore_1.0_.28Ghost_10.0.29

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bill Blanton]

Thanks for the info. That seems to be the case. That means that S&R would not
be a boot factor as a potentail GB install would be.