XP boots part way....

[William B. Lurie]

Michael Solomon:
You'll recall several weeks ago, my problems with Drive
Image, and making a clone of my master hard drive.
With your help, I finally learned to make a Drive Image,
and from the Drive Image, I created a clone of my hard drive.
At that time, it booted and ran interchangeably with the
Master, which was my goal. I intended to do that trick once
a month.

Today I plugged in the clone, and it's back in the mode where
it boots past the Windows XP black screen, to the Windows logo
blue screen, where it should say "loading personal settings",
and then load the rest of the way, but it loads to that blue
screen *without* the 'loading personal settings', and it hangs
there. I've been there before.

I shut down, verified with 3 tries, then tried Recovery
Console during boot-up. That fails because I get a DOS-text
looking error message saying that some file is missing.

I am not about to find that file and patch it in from the
master drive, even if I could. I'm suspicious that the drive
itself might be ready for 'retirement'......but I thought I'd
ask for your opinion anyway. I kind of get nervous thinking
about trusting something that works, I put it aside, and when
I plug it in again......it doesn't.

Bill Lurie

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

I have the same suspicion, perhaps its the drive or perhaps there's been
some change in how the drive is connected or even some master/slave setting
that is the issue.

One other possibility, if you've made any changes in the hardware setup, it
wouldn't be in the hash on the cloned setup and as such, cause the system
not to boot. If that file was a "Hal" reference, that's most likely the
case.

 

[William B. Lurie]

I have the same suspicion, perhaps its the drive or perhaps there's been
some change in how the drive is connected or even some master/slave setting
that is the issue.

No, Michael. I've been very careful. About everything. No changes.
It should have fired up just as it did two weeks ago.

One other possibility, if you've made any changes in the hardware setup, it
wouldn't be in the hash on the cloned setup and as such, cause the system
not to boot. If that file was a "Hal" reference, that's most likely the
case.

Although as a scientist I'd love to pin down the source
of the malfunction, I'm going to throw this 6 GB drive into
the scrap pile. I'll try to repeat the whole sequence, from
the Drive Image, on a new hard drive in the near future. I
was hoping RC would get me to FIXMBR, but it won't get to RC.
I'll report back after I have some new news to report, and
thanks.
Bill Lurie

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

All right, Bill, sorry I didn't have more for you.