New hard drive won't boot

H

Honkycat

New Member
Hi,
I backed up my intire (250GB running XP) C drive on my Dell Dimension 9100 to an external drive. I then put in a new 750 GB WD 7500AACS drive and did a restore from the external drive using Acronis. It took about 9 hours to do this.
When I tried to start up I got the message:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Any ideas what might be wrong? I did the F12 setup thing and the hard drive diagnostics which said "pass". I've done a restore data to the old hard drive using exactly the same method and external drive before and it worked fine.

I've put the old drive back and it works as normal. Surely as the new one has exactly the same windows and settings copied to it, it should work too?
Btw, I don't have an XP disk or anything... I don't think the dell came with one, and I'm not that savvy with changing registrys and that sort of thing :confused:

I'd be really grateful for any advice

Cheers,
Steve
 
Go into your bios and make sure that your new HD is set as the first booting deviece. That would be the first step.
 
I would have thought it not needed(I think Acronis does it for you) but.... did you FORMAT the new disk first before installing the OS onto it and also was it a "backup" or a "clone" that you did, because if just a "backup" although in theory it should have copied EVERYTHING, it may not have the SATA drivers required for the new drive!!
 
I agree with Sg1.. Sata Drivers may not be loading. If possible, you should of re-installed the os onto the new drive first then use some type of data restore/transfer software from the old drive to the new. Dell usually comes with a restore cd that is green or purple. Those disks may not look like it but they do have the operating system images on them.
 
Thanks! Yes, it was a backup I did to the external. Maybe that's it! I'll do a clone and see if I can re-do the whole thing. I don't seem to have a Dell disk sadly so this is the only way. I have hope now, thanks!
 
Ahh.. I just noticed it says you have to remove the "old" disk when the cloning is finished? That's not so good. Does it ruin your existing disk or something?

Edit: you can keep the old data. However, I tried it and nothing seems to have appeared on the external drive (although my backup had to be deleted... this is scary stuff!).Acronis said it had completed the clone (in seconds!) but the log says not. I'm lost...
 
Last edited:
Honkycat said:
Ahh.. I just noticed it says you have to remove the "old" disk when the cloning is finished? That's not so good. Does it ruin your existing disk or something?.
Click to expand...
I don't believe it "ruins the original data, it just confuses the hell out of the system because it "clones" the old disk and the pc sees two identical disks with even the same id numbers(I may be wrong) I usually read the instructions on software and make sure I remove the old disk after cloning ;)

Can you try the cloning process again? does the original hard drive still boot as it used to before all this started? If so... remember to remove the old harddrive out of the system this time :D

GOOD LUCK and if you do manage to blow up your system in the meantime...............
MerryXmas.jpg

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OK, here's the latest. I looked at the way I did the Acronis backup to the external and realised that I hadn't ticked ALL the boxes... ie, I just ticked C drive, not FAT 16 etc. So, I ticked them all, backed up again and did a new restore to my new 750GB drive overnight. I got up, "operation completed" and woohoo windows started!. BUT, I then went to My Computer expecting to see 500GB free but discovered that it's the same as my old drive....3GB free!!. Has it done some sort of partition or something, and if so, how do I get to use the rest of my new drive??
Thanks ,
Steve.
 
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