boot problem

Wychwar

Member
I have cloned a Samsung 80gb drive to a Western Digital 160gb. This has been succssful, both drives appear in Disk Management but not in My Computer on XP but both show on Win 7. With both drives connected I can boot into either OS but when I remove the Samsung Drive I can only boot into Win 7. I get a message directing use of XP installation disk to "Repair Computer". I only have an XP pro disk not the Home Edition with which the computer is loaded. The XP Pro does not give me the option to "repair your computer". The error page seems to indicate a missing "ntldr"
Help Please !

Regards,

Wychwar
 
A little bit more detail please.
No way of telling from your description whether the problem is with the BCD information on the WD clone or with the cloned XP.
Both can be a problem.
The BCD contains hard-coded UIDs which describe the physical device signature. "Clone" it to another device and the clone is still describing the location on the original HDD (depending on the software used to make the clone).
Clone XP to a different device and you might cause schizophrenia in the XP registry as described here.
Goodells.Net :: Understanding MultiBooting
information about the contents of EasyBCD "view settings" (detailed) as seen from the original and the clone and XP's boot.ini on each would help, as would a detailed description of XP failure symptoms.
 
I have carried out the clonong procedure twice. First using Easus Todo Backup Free and then with Acronis True Image Home 10. In both instances I could not boot into XP only Windows 7. Copied below is a transcript taken from the screen that appears when attemptinto boot into xp.

WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the
cause. To fix the problem:


  1. Insert your Windows installation disk and restart your computer.
  2. Choose your language settings, and then click “Next.”
  3. Click “Repair your computer.”

If you do not have this disk, contact your system administrator or computer
Manufacturer for assistance

File: \NST\ntldr

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is
missing or corrupt.

Below is the informtion copied and pasted from th "View Settings" page of BCD. Originally this had only two entries but I have managed to make it into three. This is from the XP OS which according to My Computer is on the cloned drive (95.2gb as against 26.89gb for the Samsung disk. Incidentally all disks appear under "Disk Management" but only the Western Digital under "My Computer.

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows XP
Timeout: 25 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {default}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume5
Bootloader Path: \NST\ntldr

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {56cccae6-d387-11e2-bc80-000fea37fdbf}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {56cccae9-d387-11e2-bc80-000fea37fdbf}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume5
Bootloader Path: \NST\easyldr1

Please let me know if you require more information.

Regards,

Wychwar
 
Can you attach a screenshot of Disk Management, taken from the cloned copy of W7. Please annotate which partition is which, if your Volume Labels don't make it obvious. The sticky will help with using post attachments if you need any.
 
Hello Terry,
Thanks for your interest in my problem. As requested I have taken a screen shot of the Disk Management page when booted into Windows 7 from the cloned disk. I have highlighted the partition which is labelled "F" which has the operating system in use. Have followed the instructions from your "sticky notes" and have attached the image as a bitmap. Hope this is of use to you.
The odd thing is that I am pretty sure that when I boot into the other versions of either OS the drive letters on the cloned disk had been allocated correctly (i.e. as the original) "C" for Win XP "D" for Win 7. The fact that the drive letters are shown as "F" and "G" could be the root of the problem as outlined in Goodells.Net. Also from this it would appear that repeating the disk cloning exercise after first formating the 160gb disk, then removing the original disk prior to rebooting into the cloned disk might work.

Many Regards,

Wychwar (Roger)
 

Attachments

  • SCREENSHOT.bmp
    632.9 KB · Views: 18
The problem might lie with the software you used (and which facility). If you are successfully booting the W7 copy and it's now a different letter to what it used to be on the original, then it's not a "clone" in the true sense of that word.
Many partition managers, when you use their "copy partition" function will "intelligently" modify the copy to alter thousands of registry entries (and the BCD information) so that the "copy" is an independent system which doesn't clash in any way with the original. i.e. it's designed to be run alongside the original.
That's not what you want, because you intend to replace the original, so you need a true "clone", identical in every way (bar the space it occupies) to the original.
You'll probably be better off using the backup/restore function of the partition manger, making a duplicate image of the partition, but instead of subsequently restoring it in-place as you would after a disaster, you restore it to its new larger location.
You might want to use
Changing the Boot Partition - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
before you make the new copies
At the moment your XP is "system"

Disk Management flags have the following meanings
"boot" = "this is the system you're running"
"system" = "this is where I found the boot files for the currently running system"
"active" (on the first HDD in the BIOS boot sequence) = "this is where I started the search for the boot files"
"active" (on subsequent HDDs in the BIOS boot sequence) ="this is where I will look if I don't find something in the MBR on the first HDD"

Presumably you added W7 to an existing XP HDD. A new Windows install will always put its boot files in the "active" partition on the HDD which is MS's way of automating the dual-boot, but you can use EasyBCD to put the boot files back with W7, so that it will be "active" "system" and "boot" when you run it.
 
Hello Terry,

I have no idea whether this series of e-mails has been concluded or not.

Unfortunately a similar, possibly worse, situation has recurred. I purchased "Easy Recovery Essentials" from Neosmart but so far this has not enabled me to boot into either of the Windows operating systems that I have installed on my computer.
I have sent an e-mail to Neosmart requesting assistance.
I am now re-visiting the series of e-mails you and I had back last year. This enabled me to get the computer running satifactorily.

Perhaps you can help me again.

Incidentally are you a member of the staff of Neosmart?

Regards,

Wychwar (Roger)
 
No, this is a user forum, all the mods and what few others answer any queries are just home users of one or more Neosmart tools, with the exception of CG, who is admin, author, owner and general all-round whizz-kid. That's why replacements, support and refunds for paid products are dealt with on another site.
What happened to break your system ?
 
Hello Terry,

Thanks for the reply. I should have realised that it would be unlikely that you would be Neosmart staff when you live in Wiltshire. I am located in Worcestershire.

For quite a while my computer was working happily with the two hard drives, booting into either OS. I then had trouble with Windows 7 following attempts to install programs. During attempts to remedy this remedy this I discovered a solution to the NTLDR is missing message so I disconnected the Samsung disk, used the solution and was able to boot into XP.

I had been engaging in an exchange of e-mails with the technical department of Easeus the makers of Todo Backup, the software I had used for the clone and to take backup images of my operating systems. I copy here part of their last e-mail to me:-

The reason why you can't boot from disk 2 should be that the "System
partition" exists on disk 1. As you have Ease BCD, we think you can
create a "System partition" on disk 2. Ease BCD will copy the boot files
to disk 2.

I attempted to alter the boot menu in EasyBCD and that’s when the trouble really started. Since, despite attempting numerous fixes all I get is a return to

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart your computer. Doing so initiates a repeat ad infinitum.

I have made contact with Neosmart Technical and received a reply. Subsequently answering the question they asked.

Many Regards,

Wychwar (Roger)
 
Back
Top