Terry
07-10-2005, 03:17 AM
After a hard drive crash I have restored a copy of XP Pro (SP2) onto a
different drive. This is a copy of the original working system. The copy
won't boot properly.
When windows starts up it reaches the screen with the XP logo on a blue
background. This screen would normally say "Windows is starting up" (or words
to that effect) just below the logo, but doesn't now. The pc just sits at
this screen forever.
The original XP was installed on drive C: which was partition 1 (90GB) of
disk 0 (disk size 120GB) with 2 other partitions.
The copy now lives on an identical drive (partitioned differently) in
partition 1 (40GB) of a disk with 3 other partitions.
I have copied the same XP to a drive I have borrowed. This drive is a single
partition of 160GB. On this disk it boots up perfectly.
I have already spent hours of trial and error trying to investigate this
problem but without success. I have eventually reached the point where I
think the problem is most simply demonstrated, read on....
Target system:
P4
512MB DRAM
IDE HD Seagate Barracuda 160GB 8MB cache ATA100.
IDE HD Maxtor Diamondmax 120GB 8MB cache ATA133.
I also have another PC that I am using to xcopy XP installations from. On
this system I am running XP and have an xcopy of my original XP installation
and an xcopy of a minimal XP installation.
My Original XP installation is configured with no pagefile and with Norton
anti virus installed but with automatic checking switched off so that it
doesn't crash if the OS is on a different drive letter.
Test 1:
I Deleted all partitions on the Seagate and Maxtor drives, created a new
single partition on each and quick formatted to NTFS.
I xcopied my original installation onto both clean drives.
I ran CHKDSK on both drives, both were clean.
I ran fixmbr on both drives.
On my target system I connected the Seagate to IDE 0 / drive 0 and booted.
This worked fine.
On my target system I connected the Maxtor to IDE 0 / drive 0 and booted.
This hung at the windows logo just before the login screen.
Test 2:
Similar to test 1 except I connected both drives with the Seagate as drive 0
and the Maxtor as drive 1. Using a boot floppy I booted from the Maxtor
(drive 1) (this is the disk that failed to boot in test1) and it booted
correctly. There were problems with services starting up but that is because
the boot drive was now D: instead of C: (the original boot letter).
Test 3:
Similar to test 1 but with a minimal XP installation.
Both drives booted successfully.
There is clearly something about the Maxtor drive that my original
installation doesn't like (but only when its drive letter is the expected C.
I have booted with logging turned on but I see nothing obvious in the ntbtlog
file, it looks very similar to the system that boots correctly.
I'm not sure what else to investigate.
different drive. This is a copy of the original working system. The copy
won't boot properly.
When windows starts up it reaches the screen with the XP logo on a blue
background. This screen would normally say "Windows is starting up" (or words
to that effect) just below the logo, but doesn't now. The pc just sits at
this screen forever.
The original XP was installed on drive C: which was partition 1 (90GB) of
disk 0 (disk size 120GB) with 2 other partitions.
The copy now lives on an identical drive (partitioned differently) in
partition 1 (40GB) of a disk with 3 other partitions.
I have copied the same XP to a drive I have borrowed. This drive is a single
partition of 160GB. On this disk it boots up perfectly.
I have already spent hours of trial and error trying to investigate this
problem but without success. I have eventually reached the point where I
think the problem is most simply demonstrated, read on....
Target system:
P4
512MB DRAM
IDE HD Seagate Barracuda 160GB 8MB cache ATA100.
IDE HD Maxtor Diamondmax 120GB 8MB cache ATA133.
I also have another PC that I am using to xcopy XP installations from. On
this system I am running XP and have an xcopy of my original XP installation
and an xcopy of a minimal XP installation.
My Original XP installation is configured with no pagefile and with Norton
anti virus installed but with automatic checking switched off so that it
doesn't crash if the OS is on a different drive letter.
Test 1:
I Deleted all partitions on the Seagate and Maxtor drives, created a new
single partition on each and quick formatted to NTFS.
I xcopied my original installation onto both clean drives.
I ran CHKDSK on both drives, both were clean.
I ran fixmbr on both drives.
On my target system I connected the Seagate to IDE 0 / drive 0 and booted.
This worked fine.
On my target system I connected the Maxtor to IDE 0 / drive 0 and booted.
This hung at the windows logo just before the login screen.
Test 2:
Similar to test 1 except I connected both drives with the Seagate as drive 0
and the Maxtor as drive 1. Using a boot floppy I booted from the Maxtor
(drive 1) (this is the disk that failed to boot in test1) and it booted
correctly. There were problems with services starting up but that is because
the boot drive was now D: instead of C: (the original boot letter).
Test 3:
Similar to test 1 but with a minimal XP installation.
Both drives booted successfully.
There is clearly something about the Maxtor drive that my original
installation doesn't like (but only when its drive letter is the expected C.
I have booted with logging turned on but I see nothing obvious in the ntbtlog
file, it looks very similar to the system that boots correctly.
I'm not sure what else to investigate.