Why cant a cloned hard drive with XP boot properly?

I tried cloning a hard drive with 2 primary partitions using the recovery CD from Acronis True Image Home 2009 which is build 9709. Both drives are SATA and the destination drive is running off the controller where it normally will run.

The first partition is XP Pro SP3 and the second one is Vista Business SP1. XP is being booted via the Vista bootloader and will only boot part way. I get the normal splash screen and then see a blue background with a smaller XP logo and that is as far as it goes. Vista boots fine!

Is this normal that one still has to do a repair install on XP which means reinstall video drivers and all of the MS critical updates

 

enduser999,

Just a few questions about your method.

Was the new HD unpartitioned free space prior to the clone?

Did you remove the old HD from your computer before the first boot from the new HD?

 

sounds like xp partition ID drive letter mismatch problem. A repair install of windows xp won't fix it. This is a 5 minute fix with the right utilitys.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=234946

 

New drive was unpartitioned and the old drive was removed before first boot.

 

As you expected, it should have gone smoothly. I don't know how you will fix it with WinXP booting via the Vista boot loader.

Edit:... As it's not your primary HD I'd zero the DiskID and then do a Vista BCD edit. It may work.

 

Zero DiskID??

 

The concept is explained here in Method #3. It allows Windows to recalculate partition signatures and reassign drive letters. I've never used it with a situation as you have experienced. Good luck.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm#method3

In addition to using a Win98 floppy you can zero the DiskID with Clear Sig, a component of Bootit NG. Also can be done with Acronis DDS and DriveImage XML. The latter doesn't zero the DiskID, it writes a new DiskID.

Doing this will stop Vista from booting hence the Vista BCD repair. But try to boot WinXP prior to booting Vista.

 

Well I am lost on which post you are referring to in the above thread or the 5 other threads that are mentioned in that thread.

 

If at any time prior to the cloning the source windows xp was exposed to the drive that it was going to be restored on (example windows xp would bootup and it would see the other drive (slaved) connected to the motherboard, xp at this time gave that drive a drive letter and also now has that hard drives ID in the registry).

When you did the clone, the clone window xp boot's up and it has the wrong hard drive ID. It might have the mounted drive letter c:, but the hard drive ID of the drive it originally saw as a slave drive (maybe it was f: etc). During bootup the registry goes by harddrive ID when it looks for the startup files, when not found it freezes.

Once windows xp has another hard drives ID in it's registry, it's a problem that cannot be overcome as far as redoing the clone. It can only be fixed with a "boot corrector" or a bartpe with the xml plugin. Those are the only 2 methods that has worked for me in fixing the problem.

refer to last post on this link. I've never tested the bartpe method with a dual boot, it might get xp to boot but unsure if you will loose the ability to boot vista.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=210322

 

Well got the cloning to work but used a free util from Easeus called Drive Copy. Made sure the the destination drive was on the controller connection where it was going to be used and was empty. Copied the drive and before rebooting I unplugged the source drive. Both XP and Vista boot fine. Do not know why the other utils had problems. I need to do this to another machine here so I had to get the process correct.

 

Thanks for the follow up. It is appreciated.