source disk hangs on startup after cloning

I have a sata(1) and ide disk, the ide disk is a clone of the former. I have to change some settings in the linux loader and that's it.
I recently installed a second sata(2) disk. After cloning the sata(1) disk, the sata(2) disk starts without problems, but sata(1) hangs in the (windows xp) boot process, the screen with the flag. The cloned disk works without problems but the original disk hangs! WindowsXP hangs, Linux is (of course) accessible. How is that possible? Starting XP in safe mode has the same result, the startup process hangs in the windowsflag screen.

Instead of cloning sata(2) to sata(1) back, I would like to know what the reason is for this strange behaviour.
Any clues, please?

 

whenever windows xp hangs at the splash screen, 95 percent of the time, that's caused by the system drive letter changing. If you booted up the computer with both source and clone drive installed at the same time.that might have cause the problem. Usually the cloned drive is the one that gets the drive letters changed, but on rare occasions it happens to the source drive.

This is a easy fix, you just have to go into the registry of the xp that won't boot up and manually change the drive letter back to it's original configuration. I use a "boot corrector" (paragon partition manager version 9 works with sata drives) to fix these problems.

If you do a reverse clone make sure you disconnect one of the hard drives first during the first bootup, otherwise you might get the same problem again.

The reason windows xp hangs, is because windows is looking for the next startup files in the wrong drive. Example: The registry is telling windows that the files are in c: drive, but c: drive is now e: drive and it has no startup files.

 

Thanks for your interesting reply.
If the problem can be solved with your suggestion the bad news is that I will need to buy another tool to ~manage~ Windows(XP) I already have Acronis True Image, Disk Director, Perfectdisk, and a few freeware tools. Windows has always another surprise. I don't blame you.
(Small correction the Acronis products I would have bought anyway as I use them for Linux as well).

"you just have to go into the registry of the xp that won't boot up and manually change the drive letter back to it's original configuration."
I don't understand how, but this can only be done with the tool you suggest I understand.

I indeed booted the two drives connected.
Before I had this second Sata drive I have never had this kind of problem with the Sata and IDE drive. Why does this problem then occur with the (second) Sata drive?? I often fail to see the logic with Windows.

 

there are other ways to change drive letters using freeware but require more work. If it was the cloned drive that had the problem, it would be easier to just redo the clone. But if it's the source drive and you don't want to reformat it, the option is there to fix it. In my situations changing the drive letter has always got the drive to bootup everytime.

The only reason I use a boot corrector is because, it's a 5 minute fix using that repair. With windows xp, you need to have the knowlege on how to repair drive letter change problems. Eventually you will see it again.

But I would recommend you verify that it is a drive letter problem first before attempting any fixes. From your description I recognize it as a drive letter problem because I have encountered it before several times.


different ways to change drive letters
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=174958