[Rizzle]

I need a super hero!

I have this VAIO computer which had two physical drivers.
(1) boot drive
(2) second drive.

The boot drive had an old XP install on it. It got slow and last year I just installed a fresh install on the second drive. This resulted in a dual
boot situation which allowed me to go back to the old XP in case we needed something of old.

Here is an attempt to paint you a picture.



The problem hit.The boot drive died. Best way I can describe it -- it fails to spin.
Because I cannot get XP Repair or SpinRite to access the drive. So I removed the drive.

The second drive works.
So my goal is to make this second drive boot XP without having to reinstall all those programs.
if possible.

I tried a number of things.

• XP Repair Disk - Result it cannot find an existing OS.
• XP Recovery - Result it found the OS enough to prompt me for the Admin password.
• Making the partition Active
• Making sure it had all the necessary boot files.

It is starting to look impossible. But perhaps one of the experts can help me before I have to start all over from scratch.

Thanks in advance.

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Simple question first, did you go into the BIOS and selected your second HD that is working as your primary boot drive.


If you already did then your next step should be to boot your computer from your XP installation CD, enter the Recovery Console and use the bootcfg command to configure your boot.ini file. Remember that your old xp HD that died was installed on C: by default so this hd xp install might not be intalled on C: but another letter (D: ect). Verify on what letter it is installed before going into the Recovery Console.

[Alzeimer]

Simple question first, did you go into the BIOS and selected your second HD that is working as your primary boot drive.


If you already did then your next step should be to boot your computer from your XP installation CD, enter the Recovery Console and use the bootcfg command to configure your boot.ini file. Remember that your old xp HD that died was installed on C: by default so this hd xp install might not be intalled on C: but another letter (D: ect). Verify on what letter it is installed before going into the Recovery Console.

[Rizzle]

Simple question first, did you go into the BIOS and selected your second HD that is working as your primary boot drive.

I inspected the AMI BIOS to make sure it recognized the HD and made sure that it was the first one the Boot.
But that was easy since I phyically removed the other HD. The only thing it can boot from is that HD or the CD.

If you already did then your next step should be to boot your computer from your XP installation CD, enter the Recovery Console and use the bootcfg command to configure your boot.ini file. Remember that your old xp HD that died was installed on C: by default so this hd xp install might not be intalled on C: but another letter (D: ect). Verify on what letter it is installed before going into the Recovery Console.

Yes I took a 4-day journey here.

Recovery Console and log into the working HD with the known Admin password: Success.
Bootcfg /REBUILD :failed
"Error:
Failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations.
This error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent Bootcfg from successfully scanning.
Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors."

chkdsk /R found something on the first session
Bootcfg /REBUILD: failed again to rebuild and basically encouraged me to do a chkdsk /R again
So I manually recreated boot.ini using a reference from a MSFT KB Article.
But when I go back to do a Bootcfg /LIST : failed and it still reports
"There are currently no boot entries to display"

Here is a copy of the Boot.ini I manually created

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Microsoft Windows XP Home Professional" /fastdetect

Previously as you might imagine Drive 1 was not marked Active. the partition was an Extended one.
Before I made my first post here, I used some tools from Hirens BootCD v14 to make it a logical partition and marked it Active.
I did this after making a backup of the partition table structure.

Because of the Bootcfg /LIST and Bootcfg /Scan not being able to find Windows when the Recovery Console seems to be able to make me wonder if I something went wrong in that partition process.

What can I do to get you guys more information that will lead us to a solution here?

Edited by Rizzle, 27 June 2011 - 06:00 PM.

[Alzeimer]

Did you try a repair install, you will not loose any personal files but it will reinstall xp

[Rizzle]

Yes I did. But it never gets to that screen.
According to the guides on this site that means it does not find an operating system. Actually the guide says

If no installations are found, then you will not be given the option to repair. This may happen if the data or partition on your drive is too corrupted.

Which is strange because it seems to find it find when I go into the Recovery Mode.

Edited by Rizzle, 27 June 2011 - 07:55 PM.

[Alzeimer]

My personal solution would be to save your personal data and format your drive completely (erasing any other partition on your hd) and reinstall xp completely from scratch.

Unless someone here as another solution this is my best solution.

Sorry to have not been able to help more.

[Rizzle]

Hmm... Well thanks so much for your time. I do appreciate it greatly.
This unfortunate because I have no diskspace on any of my other drives or externals after losing the boot drive.

[EdioIlha]

Hello there!
Did you try to put the second Hard drive in the position where the first Bad hard drive was? I dont know if I have missed this information, Im sorry if missed that info.
I remember when I had a similar problem with a HP Laptop model(I don't remember wich model it is now). It just boot from the first HD, if there is not HD in the first Sata Port it will not boot.
Best Regards

EdioIlha
Sorry for My poor English!

[Rizzle]

Thanks for your reply.
I will switch SATA cables in case you are right.
I am hoping that you are right so I can learn from it.

Edited by Rizzle, 28 June 2011 - 09:29 PM.

[Rizzle]

Same thing happens. Boots up a blank screen and hangs with a blank screen. Never see a Windows XP logo.

[EdioIlha]

Im sorry my hint wasnt good.


EdioIlha

[Rizzle]

Thanks for trying m8!

I have continued my research.
I found one person named Vladimir88 that had the same or similar problem I have and was successful. The problem is he doesn't detail how he did it.

The following posts shows promise.

• http://www.computing...-xp/173472.html (Posts #14,18 and 19)
• http://www.michaelst...l.htm#warning2 (Warning #2)
• http://www.digitalwe...cle.jsp?id=8658

I am currently reading the 3rd reference. Hopefully it will give us some clues.
EDIT: That 3rd reference didn't help for this situation. But the first reference gives me hope. Still searching for answers.

Edited by Rizzle, 29 June 2011 - 10:39 AM.

[Rizzle]

Well I did a fresh install without formatting a new partition. And upon the first boot the same exact thing happened. After POST, boots up a blank screen and hangs with a blank screen. Never see a Windows XP move into the final setup process.I'm starting to think it is something wrong with the partition.

[Alzeimer]

Well I did a fresh install without formatting a new partition. And upon the first boot the same exact thing happened. After POST, boots up a blank screen and hangs with a blank screen. Never see a Windows XP move into the final setup process.I'm starting to think it is something wrong with the partition.

This is why I suggested to you to format completely your HD, if you do not you will have remains of the old corrupted files left on your partition that might stop you from booting.

After thinking about it more I think that what happened is that the XP installation on your new HD was added as a second boot with your original old XP installation on your old HD so that your boot config is written on the old one the reason why not even your XP cd can detect the XP installation on this one.

If you want to be sure everything is erased on that HD use a program like DBAN Darik's Boot and Nuke boot cd to completely erase any data on it so you are sure it is empty of anything and then do a fresh install.

Just to be on the safe side you should maybe also test your HD by downlaoding the Utility boot program from the manufacturer and test it to see it is still in perfect working order.

[Rizzle]

Thanks Alzeimer for your insight. It looks like I may be forced to follow your words to the letter.

Last night I booted into Hirens and used DiskGenius or PartitionWizard. My intent was to squeeze enough space to format a new partition and keep the old. Perhaps I could install fresh XP in the newly created partition. Then work on moving the data over between partitions.

• I noticed it was an NTFS partition. There was 8mb of unallocated space before the partition. And perhaps 10GB after.
• Resized the existing 140GB partition to 110 by including the 8mb before and shrinking it down thus leaving 40GB of unallocated after.
• Then I booted XP Install (while ignoring the incomplete fresh install on the suspect partition) and installed by formatting the 40GB with NTFS (not quick format)
• After the format the XP install proceeded.

When it rebooted to complete the install again the same thing happened. Black screen after POST.

And here the strange thing that tweaked my brain. The XP install boot disk no longer boots.

I am used to seeing "Press any key to boot from CD..." or similiar.
This time it skipped that and went directly to the CD boot process. It flashed its (XP Install Boot Process) normal first text saying something similiar to "Setup is Inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..." Then it goes black.

How can a bad HD prevent the XP CD from booting.
Hirens CD does boot but when I select Mini XP boot it gives the same symptoms.
I find that the linux OS on the Hirens CD boots fine. So I can at least get into PartedMagic
Again how can a bad HD prevent an XP CD from booting?


This is an opportunity to learn something here.

Edited by Rizzle, 30 June 2011 - 12:57 PM.