XP partition moved - now I'm always immediately logged out again after each login-attempt

[Michael Moser]

Hi, I am having a problem logging into XP:

I am in the progress of migrating to Win7. As a temporary solution I want to have a dual boot capability, i.e. I bought a larger HD, created two partitions on it, installed Win7 on the first partition, and then I used a disk-imager to copy my entire old XP disk 1:1 to the second partition. I then set things up so I can now choose between the two partitions using the Win7 boot manager. The choosing and booting works in principle fine.

But when I try to boot WinXP, I have the very strange effect, that the system boots and starts WinXP up fine up to the point where it presents the login screen. When I then enter my name and password it at first seems accepted, i.e. I get a "Loading you settings..." box but to my dismay only seconds later that dialog always turns into "Logging off..." (???!@#@$&!) at which point the system hangs for some long period. If I wait long enough (~5 minutes) it eventually returns to the login screen again. I also tried to login as Administator but that failed as well (the error message mumbled something about no domain server to verify my id which is complete nonsense, since the system wasn't ever part of any domain, so there is no server in the world that could verify anything here!).

What could cause this and why can't I not log into that copied/moved 1:1 Window XP installation? How can I fix this?

Michael

 

[John John - MVP]

Hi, I am having a problem logging into XP:

I am in the progress of migrating to Win7. As a temporary solution I
want to have a dual boot capability, i.e. I bought a larger HD,
created two partitions on it, installed Win7 on the first partition,
and then I used a disk-imager to copy my entire old XP disk 1:1 to
the second partition. I then set things up so I can now choose
between the two partitions using the Win7 boot manager. The choosing
and booting works in principle fine.

But when I try to boot WinXP, I have the very strange effect, that
the system boots and starts WinXP up fine up to the point where it
presents the login screen. When I then enter my name and password it
at first seems accepted, i.e. I get a "Loading you settings..." box
but to my dismay only seconds later that dialog always turns into
"Logging off..." (???!@#@$&!) at which point the system hangs for
some long period. If I wait long enough (~5 minutes) it eventually
returns to the login screen again. I also tried to login as
Administator but that failed as well (the error message mumbled
something about no domain server to verify my id which is complete
nonsense, since the system wasn't ever part of any domain, so there
is no server in the world that could verify anything here!).

What could cause this and why can't I not log into that copied/moved
1:1 Window XP installation? How can I fix this?

Michael

Can you access the Windows XP registry with the Windows 7 registry
editor? Typical instructions here: http://www.rwin.ch/xp-live/regedit.htm

Then follow the instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188/

Basically what is happening is that Windows XP was assigned drive letter
C: when it was installed and by changing the disk and moving Windows XP
to a non active partition the Windows XP Mount Manager has assigned
different drive letter to the partitions, it has assigned drive letter
C: to the 'Active' partition (the Windows 7 partition) and it has given
another drive letter to the Windows XP partition.

You need to modify the \DosDevices\ values at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices so that the partition holding
the Windows XP operating system is assigned drive letter C:, this is
explained in the above article. This will not affect how Windows 7 will
see the partitions, it will not change drive letter assignments in
Windows 7.

John