xpp home wont boot from HD

[justintime]

My Father got a computer from my brother with xp home on it. I spent
some time removing all the junk on it and adding things for him to use.
I added a new network dialup for an ISP I signed him up for and it
checked ok, I was then changing the email login when the computer locked up.
I rebooted and it would not recognize the HD. I just get a - at the top
of the screen.
I removed the HD and put it on my computer and it looked ok. I copied
the HD (files) to my HD. I then reformatted and copied back all his
files. It still wont boot from his HD. So I downloaded a XP boot disk
that has

boot.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr

on it, it boots from the floppy and loads into XP on his computer with
his HD as long as I boot to the floppy first. So I know everything is
ok. However I cant make it boot from his HD Drive 0 without booting to
the floppy first. I also tried booting into safe mode. Same problem.
I copied all the files to C: but it still wont boot.
I tried booting with my XP pro cd into the recovery consol but it wants
the Admin password and I dont know it nor does he and my brother forgot
it. I tried to change it with a linux floppy that goes through the
motions except changing the password which doesnt change. I only have XP
pro and nobody has a xp home CD. I am guessing that the MBR is bad but
dont know how to fix it without the recovery consol. If I cant find an
answer soon Ill have to put a copy of XP pro on it but it wont be legal
which the XP home was.

Does anybody know how to get the computer to boot from the HD?

Thanks

 

[justintime]

I also used part magic to check the HD that drive C was active and it
was. I also checked the admin tools drive info and its also active there
and OK.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

If you suspect the problem is the mbr (and it certainly sounds like it could
be), boot with a Win98 floppy and run fdisk /mbr. This has the same effect
as running fixmbr from the recovery console.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[justintime]

Didn't work, I still just get a - and no boot.

Larry

 

[Bob Harris]

A wild thought, but any chance there is a small hidden partition before the
XP partition? Some recovery/restoration programs use such things. I
understand that Norton GHOST 2003 played with somehting like this, and could
leave a PC unbootable, until one used a Symnatec tool to fix it. Anyway, if
such a partition exists, then fixing the MBR might simply make it the boot
partition. Of course, you want the XP partition to be the boot partiton.

Thus, try running FDISK to see what partitions you have, and maybe that will
lead to some insight.

The second link below has good screen shots of FDISK in action, with info
about options. In fact, you can walk-through a simulated
FDISK session on their website, without actually running FDISK.

Links to using FDISK:

http://www.fdisk.com/home/
http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk1.htm
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/install/fdisk.htm
http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module6a6.htm

See the following for bootable floppy images, include a special FDISK for
disks > 64 Gig. Link also has "setup disks for XP", which can run its
recovery console form a multi-flopy set.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Larry,

My next step would be to run fixboot from the Recovery Console, but since
you don't know the admin password.....

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[justintime]

Yes you were right, there was a small partition in front. It was an IBM
computer. Too late now I wiped the HD and reformatted it and installed
win XP pro. Although they will not be able to update it since its not
activated on that computer.

Thanks