Swapped HDD - can't boot.

[eneles]

That must be another computer.

[Jack.Sparrow]

It is Pro. Fairly old laptop, the manufacturers weren't as stingy back then.

The new HDD now only has 1 partition. Using a typical boot.ini. Still didn't boot

Searched the new hdd (will do the old one in a minute) and found 31 i386 folders

i386.gif

Also had a peek in the recovery CD, there is an i386 folder on that as well (512MB)

[Jack.Sparrow]

Formatted the new HDD and running through the whole thing again. Can't see why it would make a difference, but you never know.

[Jack.Sparrow]

Nope, same thing.

Plugged the new HDD into a different laptop and it came up with 'NTLDR is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart" which loops. Do you think I could use the recovery CD using this other laptop to fix the issues? The CD Drive is very much functional on this one.

[eneles]

Recovery CDs don't have the recovery console, AFAIK. You could use the i386 folder from the recovery CD to create an "ordinary" installation disc - but the procedure isn't 100% "kosher", so instructions won't be posted here.

You could try making a BartPE disc...

I'm still working on the 6 floppy > CD conversion...

[Jack.Sparrow]

I think I'll wait for the conversion then

[eneles]

Don't hold your breath - it's Sunday morning here...

[Jack.Sparrow]

No rush. Soccer final as well in 7 hours (4am my time)

Back on topic Formatting it once again using different settings. Last attempt tomorrow, have a couple of things to try.

[Jack.Sparrow]

Made the CD using the I386 folder but only did a SP1 version. Apparently it came with SP2 I was sure I had to install SP2 on it. (I might be using the wrong recovery CD, dad's laptop is also the same brand, but different model. The CD's look identical.)

Tried to boot using a uBuntu CD, CD drive is not playing nice (looks like it's dead)

Now though, I get a BSOD instead of the compressed error. (Plugged into another laptop)

STOP 0x0000007B (0xBACCF528, OxCooooo34, 0x00000000, same as previous).

None of the options will get it to boot (Safe mod, last known...) but I do get a glimpse of the XP loading screen sometimes.

[Mattlock]

By chance, are you swapping the drive positions before or during the "Make bootable" operation? Typically this operation would need complete prior to swapping the drive positions.

I'm not real familiar with XXclone either so I won't be much help here, but I can tell you that reformatting your drive isn't going to make a difference. Any cloning operation is going to wipe your drive prior to making the clone.

I would recommend trying Macrium Reflect or Free version of Acronis if one of your drives are Western Digital. (I been Acronis for years and love it)

[eneles]

I haven't finished the rec-con application yet...

But, you can try this: http://vlaurie.com/computers2/downloads ... ole_cd.zip
Floppy package download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994/
Rename the floppy package - Bootdisk.exe, save as all files. Then run RecoveryCD.bat.

[Jack.Sparrow]

Not sure I know what you mean Matt. The make bootable step initialises the MBR, the boot sector and boot.ini. I've tried running it both before and after cloning.

I only reformatted cause I remembered I had checked the compress option when I first formatted it, but yeah, it didn't make a difference

Macrium needs a CD drive I think (going by Nicholas's article) and mine is busted. One of the HDD's was Hitachi, the other was Fujitsu.

Think this is a lost cause though, made another XP CD with SP2 streamlined, it loads all the files then chucks the same BSOD (same stop code, different first parameter). Pretty much given up now, been at it for 3 days without any success. The laptop is on its death bed as well (going on 6 years, with some time spent running programs above its specs), so no biggie.

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated

EDIT: One last try can't hurt I'll give that a go tomorrow Nicholas. If I try it today and it doesn't work, I'll definitely break something.

[Done_Fishin]

The compress option most likely creates an image file rather than a copy of the original .. it's to be able to recover the original disk from a file so that is more than likely why you were getting those strange errors.

what you should be doing is looking for a disk to disk option and like the others here I am also no expert with XXClone, give me Norton Ghost any day!

BSOD most likely because you tried booting the copy from the wrong hardware .. IT MUST be booted on the machine that it originally came from, for the hardware drivers to match ..

[Jack.Sparrow]

The compress option most likely creates an image file rather than a copy of the original .. it's to be able to recover the original disk from a file so that is more than likely why you were getting those strange errors.

I meant the compress option when you format using 7's disk management tool

BSOD most likely because you tried booting the copy from the wrong hardware .. IT MUST be booted on the machine that it originally came from, for the hardware drivers to match .

Oh, that's probably it. Can I still repair the boot part using another computer? (Was just about to try the method Nicholas suggested)

[eneles]

Yes, you can use another computer to fix the boot files, MBR etc...

[Jack.Sparrow]

Sweet, I'll do that now then. Just need to use the command on the previous page? Or something different?

[eneles]

Run bootcfg /rebuild first. Follow the steps in Dunedin's article.
No joy? Try fixboot and fixmbr.

[Jack.Sparrow]

Ok thanks Nicholas. 1 last thing before I go off and try it. Can I install VWWare and fix this using that? Things will go a lot faster if I could

[eneles]

I don't know, but my guess is that it won't work.

[Jack.Sparrow]

Fair enough. Thanks.