Problem cloning or restoring hard drive HP nw8440

I am trying to upgrade the OEM 80 GB SATA drive with a 320 WD SATA using Acronis TI 2009. I am running the OEM install of Win XP Pro. I have imaged and restored (to a USB drive) and have cloned, both with the original drive in the laptop and the target in the external enclosure, as well as with the original drive in the enclosure and the new destination drive in the laptop (it's final location). I get errors when I boot with missing win xp start files. This laptop does come originally configured with the HP restore partition, which I have not uninstalled. I can image the drive and browse it without any problem. I have read the posts of problems with HP laptops and the geometry issues. I can't figure out why one of the methods to restore or clone has not succeeded. I did try to repair the windows installation with a legal copy of Win XP, but that failed to fix the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks for any replies.
G Entis

 

Hello gentis,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image

Have you tried to use Acronis bootable disc to clone the drive? Have you detached source drive before booting from the target drive? Can you please clarify the exact error message you receive?

If the original hard drive is not removed from the computer before the first boot from the target drive the booting issue can take place. This happens because Windows gets somehow "confused" while trying to mount the letter for the system partition because it is already associated with the original hard drive. In this case, please make sure you disconnect the original hard drive while performing the first boot from the target one.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I made sure to detach the source drive (external USB) and did clone using the TI 2009 boot disk. I have been able to get the new target disk to boot initially, the system (XP Pro SP3) recognizes the new hard drive as new hardware and asks to be restarted to complete installation. Then, I will start getting errors like can't start Windows, can't find
"WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM", try to repair with XP installation disc. This is an HP OEM Win XP Pro. I have a non-OEM XP Pro disk that I have used to try and repair. This doesn't work. Errors continue and finally system crashes and become unbootable.

I have also tried restoring to the target drive from an external image made with TI 2009 saved on a large external USB hard drive. The image is good (verified) and I can browse it. But after restore, the target disc won't boot, giving the same can't start Windows, can't find
"WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM".
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Hello gentis,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image

Use the following Microsoft KB article to solve the issue.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev