Imaging to different hard disk does not boot XP

I thought I would relate my special experience with TI8 and restoring an image to a different hard disk following a hard disk failure in the XP OS files. Since cloning was not an option, the new hard disk (from a different manfacturer) needed to be restored from an image. The old hard disk had only one partition so I thought this would be an easy restore. Finding that windows would not boot after successfully restoring the image to the new hard disk I went straight to these forums. Here I found a lot about MBR and windows not booting, which led me to try various methods for fixing the MBR.

The problem was that the PC started and hung with the BIOS-like message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem..." The solution was to take this message and search microsoft.com for it. This led to the 'cause' being the boot.ini file, which tells the PC where to find the OS on the hard disk. After using the recovery console to enter the command 'bootcfg /rebuild' it searched the disk for the OS. Once found the new location was added to the boot.ini and the PC would then boot into XP by selecting the first OS entry on startup. The second (old) entry on boot.ini could be deleted after running sysdm.cpl, going to Advanced tab - Startup & recovery settings and selecting the Edit control, which places boot.ini in a notepad window for the second entry to be deleted and saved at root.

This advice could be added to the FAQ for TI support since a lot of users only have one simple partition and only ever restore following a hard disk crash where the image is the only restoration point and the new disk is likely to be different.

 

I see a lot of these problems reported and am interested to know if your backup was a 'disk' or 'partition' backup.
I can see the problem you had could be caused if only the partition was backed up, but if the disk was backed up I would be worried.


Ian

 

Hello deputydog,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Thank you for your input in the improvement of Acronis Forum. It is really appreciated. We will certainly consider all your wishes and add this advise in the future.

Thank you.
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Irina Shirokova

 

Hi deputydog,

This is my standard technique for a new HD. I create partitions on the new HD in the same order as on the old. They don't really have to be formatted correctly as the image overwrites the partition anyway. I then restore individual images to the appropriate partition. Always works. I've never used the full disk technique.

How did you do it? Did you restore into unallocated space (blank disk) or did you create a partition. I'd certainly be interested to know why my technique works, as Acronis say not to use it, and where we differ.