Windows XP Lost my XP after moving partition to new drive - how do I restore?

[TKR99]

I upgraded my SATA drive from 500 to 1 Tb & used Acronis Disk Director to move all 8 partitions across to it. XP is still showing as the 1st partition, healthy, active etc, yet when I try to boot directly from it the PC just hangs & goes nowhere as if it was a data only drive.

Is there an easy way to fix this or am I going to have to delete it & reinstall or something - would really prefer not to have to do that even though it's not my primary OS only because I've a lot of settings within it that I'd rather not lose.

 

[winrr]

Try recovering/restoring xp from its bootable cd and see if it returns to its working condition.
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[Adamsappleone]

Hello TKR99,

Try this, be sure to read over very carefully; Also, if in a dual boot situation, unplug your other system drives as to just repair XP.

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Hope this helps

Don

 

[TKR99]

Thanks guys - long forgotten that I'd had to do something like this a couple of years ago when I ran into errors with the installation, so some of it's coming back to me, but appreciate the pointers & info to help me get started all over again

 

[whs]

You may have to update the MBR which you can do with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard. Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

 

[catilley1092]

The tool that whs suggested is the one that I use for these purposes, there's been a few times that I removed a Linux install & it rebuilt the MBR. Much quicker than the OS install disk could repair it.

Cat

 

[TKR99]

You may have to update the MBR which you can do with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard. Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

I don't use a Boot manager to switch between the 2 OS' - instead use F11 at startup & select the XP drive when I want to load it. But I appreciate there may still be some additional work to do once I get it functional again - just have to wait & see. Will be tomorrow afternoon before I tackle it.

 

[whs]

There is always a bootmgr. You just happen to have 2 seperate ones on 2 seperate disks. Switching with the BIOS boot sequence is a viable option. But that does not mean that the MBR on your XP disk could not be out of wack. But that, of course, is only one of several possible problems.

 

[TKR99]

Ahh - good to know - will at least know what to do if needs be. Thanks, Romayne

 

[TKR99]

Sadly the repair didn't quite go as desired. First time around the (repair) installation hung at 99% with a slew of files not being able to be copied - after about the 10th one I figured it was likely a dirty disc so popped it out, cleaned it, back in & the installation completed. Only problem was that after it rebooted, I was left back exactly where I'd been prior to the installation - with the cursor hanging up in the top left & acting as if it was being presented with a data drive rather than a functional OS.

SO, ok I thought - try another reinstall in case popping the disc out missed something etc. Only this time it wouldn't progress past 55% before doing the same thing with endless files not being able to be copied.

At this point I'm beginning to wonder if the partition is going to be recoverable in any sense (i.e. even with a full new installation), so am wondering whether it would be possible, to copy/backup the Windows partition, remove it, format the partition, install new copy of Windows, but then overwrite it with the old one again? I'm just keen to try & keep the programs etc that I have installed as they are as a few have awkward settings I wouldn't know where to start trying to regain.

Or does anyone figure there might be a simpler solution to it than that?

 

[whs]

I would try to make an image of the partition. I have uploadedLink Removed - Invalid URL that you can use for imaging. Just download it, unzip the folder and burn the .iso to a CD (e.g. with ImgBurn or Roxio). Then change the BIOS boot sequence to load from this CD.

In the beginning you get a message about missing drivers - just Cancel. In case you are not familiar with Macrium, here is a tutorial. That includes a link to a tutorial that describes how to reinstall from the image. If nothing else, you can mount the image in a working system and recover your data.

Note: You need an external disk to park the image.

 

[TKR99]

Thanks WHS - certainly sounds worth a go. The OS isn't exceptionally vital in being my secondary/test/backup one but as I said, would be nice to recover it if possible. Appreciate your help & input. Romayne

 

[catilley1092]

Have you tried this tutorial?

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It's supposed to keep your files intact while repairing the system. If it's successful, or any other repair attempt is, please backup the install ASAP afterwards. Having a system image is a quick fix for when these type of things happens. And when installing another OS to another HDD, always remove the one that the install isn't going onto & access each through the BIOS option, only 5-10 seconds is lost.

Cat

 

[TKR99]

Thanks Cat but yes, that was the type of repair I did try but which now won't complete for some reason. However, I might give it one more go at the weekend when I've more time & energy to put into it. Will keep you posted.

 

[TKR99]

Just to wrap up on this one - I've now tried numerous different fixes to sort this problem out but for whatever reason none worked - the only one I didn't feel happy attempting was fixing the MBR (even though this appears to be corrupted) as it gave a lot of warnings about maybe damaging partitions or that I could lose access to other partitions on the drive & since this is the largest of my 3 drives & holds almost all my important partitions bar 1, I just didn't feel it was worth the risk. Plus even though I managed to get a complete repair installation done, it STILL wouldn't boot into it for anything, & when I tried to repeat the venture it started throwing up unrecoverable errors. It's a brand new drive so doubt there's anything wrong with it (hopefully!!) but I think I'll back up everything else too again to be sure.

SO, I suspect the only option is to maybe try and remove all my data off the drive & just wipe the partition & start over again - frustrating but at least it will be a fix & provide me with my alternate OS to have for times when Win 7 goes belly up!

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to provide me with so much info & options on it, but think I'm just going to give up on recovery & just go for a reinstall.

 

[Adamsappleone]

Hello TKR99,

Not sure where your info about losing access to other partitions is from, to me, that's doesn't sound right, especially if you're just doing a MBR fix, I've done it a few times and it's never affected other partitions. I always keep my important stuff on separate partitions and/or drives off the OS drive/partition if in the event something does go wrong, my other partitions/drives will not be affected in any adverse way.
So, if you're still uncomfortable doing that fix, then a clean re-install would be your answer.

Good luck and keep us posted,

Don

 

[TKR99]

Hi Don
The info came from the fixmbr program I accessed through the Recovery Console on the disk - it basically stated NOT to go ahead with the fix unless you were unable to access the partitions anyway (which I am through Win 7), plus warned as I said of the danger of causing problems that might make them inaccessible. I must admit it threw me too as I'm unused to seeing such warnings with no other alternatives presented. But it's just not worth it as knowing me, that's just what would happen & I'd be in a bigger world of pain than I am just not being able to access XP.

I do have XP all in its own partition but just then have so many others on the drive as well & while I could always move them to my other 2 drives it's again a lot of work for minimal good reason in my view, so better to leave well alone methinks. Thanks anyway, Romayne

 

[Expert]

I upgraded my SATA drive from 500 to 1 Tb & used Acronis Disk Director to move all 8 partitions across to it. XP is still showing as the 1st partition, healthy, active etc, yet when I try to boot directly from it the PC just hangs & goes nowhere as if it was a data only drive.

Is there an easy way to fix this or am I going to have to delete it & reinstall or something

Does the 500GB drive still have a bootable copy on it or can you make it bootable by transferring the copy back from the 1TB drive?

Is either drive a Western Digital?

Is the 500GB more than 2 years old and XP compatible but the new drive has Advanced Format Technology and is not XP compatible?

If you have a Western Digital, (Either one) you can download a free copy of Acronis True Image for WD to backup your boot drive

If the new drive has advanced format, just save yourself the grief and boot from the old drive, using the new one for data

Partition the new drive with the XP CD (Not Acronis or Paragon or anything else) for absolute compatability but only if it is NOT advanced format

Partition managers other than Microsoft's are not directly compatible with Windows due to its proprietary nature

I have NEVER lost data due to a partition made with an XP CD but have stopped using other partition managers after repeatedly losing data due to undocumented compatibility problems that will never be documented as long as Windows remains closed source and proprietary

 

[TKR99]

Hi Expert - thanks for the info, but I ended up just reinstalling XP as it was the simplest option ultimately. All sorted now anyway but aprpeciate you taking the time to respond. Thanks.