[MVMike]

System spec: Dell Dimension 4600i with 120GB SATA drive on motherboard. Bios version A12. Pentium 4 processor at 3.4GHz. Am running Windows XP Pro with SP2.

Current drive approaching capacity. Upgrading drive to Maxtor 300GB SATA. Will make new 300GB drive the boot drive and will remove the 120GB drive to use elsewhere. Formatted the new 300GB drive to NTFS and bootable and copied the 120GB drive files using MaxBlast 4. No issues. Disconnected the old drive. Connected the 300GB drive to SATA-0 on the motherboard. Started the computer. Reset the bios making the new 300GB SATA drive the boot drive.

Windows welcome screen comes up. Able to select user name / account / logon. Computer goes through some churning, the windows sounds announces its presence and then up comes the wall paper. That's it. Just wall paper. No trash can. No start button in bottom left corner. No toolbars. Just wall paper.

When I hit ctrl-alt-del the windows task manager does show up. From this I go under "File" and select "New Task (Run. . )". From the small window titled "Create New Task" I select the "Browse" button. From here I can see everything; the desktop, my computer, etc. Through my computer I can see and open the hard drive including all the programs and files. I can open files and run programs from this location. For shut down I go back to task manager. Bottom line: Without using task manager just cannot see anything on the desktop except the wall paper and the cursor arrowhead.

When I replace the 300GB drive with the original 120GB drive everything works as it should. I reformated the new 300GB SATA drive and reloaded all files from the 120B drive (again, did this using the copy process from the MaxBlast 4 CD). Same thing as before: Everything works - except going from the welcome screen to a functional desk top with all the taskbars, start button, etc.

Appreciate any assistance. MVMike

Edited by MVMike, 02 January 2006 - 01:40 PM.

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Here's how I solved the problem.
- Maxtor told me their freeware copy program was not guaranteed to copy 100%. Not happy with that but appreciated their honesty.
- To the original 120GB drive: I did a virus scan, spyware scan, cleaned out all the temp files, and defragged.
- Put the new drive (300GB) in the computer, connected it, turned on the computer, set bios for two SATA drives, then formated the 300GB drive as an additional drive. I used the hard drive format software included with windows.
- Got a CD with DOS and Symantec Ghost.
- Booted from CD with DOS so that no programs were running on the original hard drive. From the DOS boot disk (CD actually) which contained Symantec Ghost, I copied the 120GB drive over to the 300GB drive.
- After copy was completed, I removed the 120GB drive and set the 300GB as the boot.
- Started the computer, entered the start-up and re-set the BIOs, then continued on to windows and logged in like what was done with the 120GB drive.
- The 300GB drive worked like a champ.

MVMike

[MVMike]

Here's how I solved the problem.
- Maxtor told me their freeware copy program was not guaranteed to copy 100%. Not happy with that but appreciated their honesty.
- To the original 120GB drive: I did a virus scan, spyware scan, cleaned out all the temp files, and defragged.
- Put the new drive (300GB) in the computer, connected it, turned on the computer, set bios for two SATA drives, then formated the 300GB drive as an additional drive. I used the hard drive format software included with windows.
- Got a CD with DOS and Symantec Ghost.
- Booted from CD with DOS so that no programs were running on the original hard drive. From the DOS boot disk (CD actually) which contained Symantec Ghost, I copied the 120GB drive over to the 300GB drive.
- After copy was completed, I removed the 120GB drive and set the 300GB as the boot.
- Started the computer, entered the start-up and re-set the BIOs, then continued on to windows and logged in like what was done with the 120GB drive.
- The 300GB drive worked like a champ.

MVMike

[warriorscot]

You know instead of allthe fuss with copying software its much easier to do a fresh install of XP on a new drive and set it up into any amount of partitions you want then just cut and paste the files from one driv to another that way you dont mess around with 3rd party software and you dont carry the baggage from the previous install that gets accumulated and slows it down, glad you got it fixed on your own just put this in as a simplest way is sometimes the bet avisory for future.

[MVMike]

Understand about the fresh install. You are right about the simplest way. Wish I would have done that and gotten rid of the accumulated baggage on the original drive. I was in a hurry and thought the copy-over method would be quicker. It turned out not to be very quick. Lesson learned: Don't get in a hurry and don't take short cuts.