[charlesn56]

I know I am late to the game of upgrading to WinXP, please excuse me. I have been running WinME up until now and used the XP Home upgrade program to upgrade my system. I am running Acronis True Image version 8.0 (build 937). I have used this version before w/out any problems in the past. I am also running GoBack Deluxe Edition 3.11.59.
Before I upgraded I removed all signs of GoBack Deluxe Edition from my hard drive. Also, before I upgraded to WinXP from WinME I created an full image of the hard drive. After I upgraded to WinXP I created an second full image of the hard drive. Both images were created and saved on a second hard drive w/out any errors, and they check-out ok.
I am wanting to restore either image to a new hard drive (as the drive w/WinXP I am running has software problems, not caused by the upgrade). After creating and setting the partition on the new drive to active and formating it to FAT32, I restored both images at different times to the new drive. I get the same "load error press any key to reboot" on each image restore when I first try booting the new hard drive.
In reading some of the other topic titles my first question is, with only my XP Home upgrade CD is there a way of creating a bootable XP CD and using some of the built-in XP repair software? Or can I use any system floppy and repair the Master Boot Record if this might be my problem? Any ideas will be very helpful.

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Hi charlesn56, welcome to G2G.

Your XP Home Upgrade CD is bootable. You need to get into BIOS Setup and set the CD to boot before the hard drive. Then put the CD in the drive and reboot. Watch for the Press any key to boot from CD message and do so.

Boot the CD, enter R at the first opportunity, this will get you to the Recovery Console. From there you can try the fixboot command, see if that helps.

Otherwise, since you have backups of all your data (even if the image when restored does not appear to be bootable), I would do a Clean install of XP rather than use the upgrade you did. See here: Clean Install - Michael Stevens Tech

You should be able to do a clean install over the existing Acronis restore. If not, you will need your Win ME CD to insert when requested for Qualifying Media.

[Ztruker]

Hi charlesn56, welcome to G2G.

Your XP Home Upgrade CD is bootable. You need to get into BIOS Setup and set the CD to boot before the hard drive. Then put the CD in the drive and reboot. Watch for the Press any key to boot from CD message and do so.

Boot the CD, enter R at the first opportunity, this will get you to the Recovery Console. From there you can try the fixboot command, see if that helps.

Otherwise, since you have backups of all your data (even if the image when restored does not appear to be bootable), I would do a Clean install of XP rather than use the upgrade you did. See here: Clean Install - Michael Stevens Tech

You should be able to do a clean install over the existing Acronis restore. If not, you will need your Win ME CD to insert when requested for Qualifying Media.

[charlesn56]

I loaded the XP CD and used blank for the Admin. password. The fixboot command did not help my problem. Is there any other part the the recovery software that might fix the problem.

[Ztruker]

Okay, glad you can get to the RC now. Another possibility is the MBR (Master Boot Record) is hosed.

Boot to the RC again and enter fixmbr. See if that fixes the problem.

The fixmbr command is for XP what fdisk /mbr was for DOS, so may very well resolve your problem.

[charlesn56]

Thank You for your help! Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. It was my Master Boot Record that was the problem. With your suggestions, it now boots normally. Thanks again.

Edited by charlesn56, 31 January 2008 - 06:20 PM.

[Ztruker]

Hot ziggety! (always wanted to say that). Glad it worked and thanks for letting me know.