Boot Partition failing after cloning with Migrate Easy

I recently decided to upgrade my boot drive, so I picked up a Western Digital SATA II hard drive to replace my Maxtor ATA-133. The IDE drive had two partitions on it, a boot partition and one just for storage. I installed the SATA drive, made sure the SATA drivers were installed on the IDE drive, and fired up Migrate Easy 7.0. I used proportional cloning for the two partitions, and left the data on the IDE drive intact in case there was a problem. It is a good thing I did, too. I tried booting from the SATA drive, but though Windows XP Pro seems to start up, once I enter my password and the little "Logging on" box pops up, the box then disappears and is soon replaced with the "Logging off" box. I tried unplugging the IDE drive in case there was a conflict, but nothing changed. I reconnected the IDE drive and booted from it, and everything seems fine, with a minor exception. While there never seems to be a problem reading the storage partition on the SATA drive, on some reboots the boot partition cannot be found at all. I tried re-cloning, but the problem persists. Since the drive seems to be readable, I am afraid something is going wrong with the cloning. Might that be the case, or am I looking in the wrong direction?

 

Hello TheLivingNick,

Thank you for choosing Acronis System Transferring Software.

Please prepare Windows using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) prior the cloning. You can find the description of the preparation at this FAQ article.

If the problem remains then please reboot your computer to enter Windows in safe mode. The description of this process is given below:

1. Click Start and then click Shut Down.

2. In the drop-down list of the Shut Down Windows dialog box, click Restart, and then click OK.

3. When your computer restarts but before Windows launches, press F8.
On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press F8 when the boot menu appears.

4. Use the arrow keys to highlight the Safe Mode with Networking option, and then press ENTER.

In this mode please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach the collected report file and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko