Ghosted HD with norton.. but it wont boot windows!

mechanix · 06-02-2006, 01:04 AM

Hi all, I formatted a HD and made an exact copy of my existing HD using norton ghost 9.0. it even gave me a boot OS option when copying that i clicked on. everything copied just fine, but when i try to boot on the new HD, it tries to boot up windows xp, but a blue screen comes up blank then it say "logging off windows" and thats that. it just sticks on the blue screen. Its like xp wont let me upgrade my HD using norton ghost.

is there a way around this? thanks for any help

PC eye · 06-03-2006, 08:36 AM

When you clone a drive you are not necessarily making it an active primary. A number of the installed programs may run still but it has not seen a full install of the XP with it's updated hardware detection and master boot record. You could try using the fixboot and fixmbr commands at the recovery console to see if that helps. But you are mostly ilkely going to need at least a repair install to get Windows running on the new drive. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm You will probably be forced to delete the current installation to actually see Windows running though.

mechanix · 06-06-2006, 02:59 AM

thx dude i appreciate the responce. you opened up the door for me. do you think a boot disk would do the trick?

PC eye · 06-06-2006, 03:44 AM

When repairing an XP/Linux installation where the boot.ini file was somehow lost?/deleted? not showing up at all a boot floppy made for 98SE was all it took to repair/replace that. The simple fdisk /mbr command at the dos prompt when booting off the floppy solved that quick. With the XP installation cd you can also choose the repair option upon booting from that to reach the recovery console. At the prompt enter either or both of the commands "fixboot" and "fixmbr" to give that a try. But remember you just made a major hardware change upon swapping out the primary drive.

You are most likely going to have to delete the current installation(not wipe drive) in order to have a working copy of Windows running again. The XP installer will clean up all of the leftovers from the original installation and start fresh. That will produce a new mbr at the same time. A quick repair with the two commands probably won't see the results you are after. It may or may not see any results there. Just be ready for a new install of XP. That is the one thing that will see a working OS.

06-02-2006, 01:04 AM	#1 (permalink)
mechanix New Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 8	Ghosted HD with norton.. but it wont boot windows! Hi all, I formatted a HD and made an exact copy of my existing HD using norton ghost 9.0. it even gave me a boot OS option when copying that i clicked on. everything copied just fine, but when i try to boot on the new HD, it tries to boot up windows xp, but a blue screen comes up blank then it say "logging off windows" and thats that. it just sticks on the blue screen. Its like xp wont let me upgrade my HD using norton ghost. is there a way around this? thanks for any help

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06-03-2006, 08:36 AM	#2 (permalink)
PC eye Diamond Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Inside a pc Posts: 19,734	When you clone a drive you are not necessarily making it an active primary. A number of the installed programs may run still but it has not seen a full install of the XP with it's updated hardware detection and master boot record. You could try using the fixboot and fixmbr commands at the recovery console to see if that helps. But you are mostly ilkely going to need at least a repair install to get Windows running on the new drive. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm You will probably be forced to delete the current installation to actually see Windows running though.

06-06-2006, 02:59 AM	#3 (permalink)
mechanix New Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 8	thx dude i appreciate the responce. you opened up the door for me. do you think a boot disk would do the trick?

06-06-2006, 03:44 AM	#4 (permalink)
PC eye Diamond Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Inside a pc Posts: 19,734	When repairing an XP/Linux installation where the boot.ini file was somehow lost?/deleted? not showing up at all a boot floppy made for 98SE was all it took to repair/replace that. The simple fdisk /mbr command at the dos prompt when booting off the floppy solved that quick. With the XP installation cd you can also choose the repair option upon booting from that to reach the recovery console. At the prompt enter either or both of the commands "fixboot" and "fixmbr" to give that a try. But remember you just made a major hardware change upon swapping out the primary drive. You are most likely going to have to delete the current installation(not wipe drive) in order to have a working copy of Windows running again. The XP installer will clean up all of the leftovers from the original installation and start fresh. That will produce a new mbr at the same time. A quick repair with the two commands probably won't see the results you are after. It may or may not see any results there. Just be ready for a new install of XP. That is the one thing that will see a working OS.