Windows Logon screen freezes after copy partition

Dont know if this is a general problem but every time i have tried copying an installed OS to another primary partition and set it as active and hidding all other drives, i also change the boot.ini to match the new partition that is copied to. but freezes at the windows blue login screen like windows has some kind of registred information about which partition it orginal was installed on. I tested some solutions out but havnt found away to over come this problem. i have tried the OS selector with 4 OS that i installed that worked great. but also if i delete one of the OS like partion 2. than the other OSes that booted before will freeze at windows Welcome screen. i have tried using Ghost and diskdirector for coping the partition.

dont know if this can have something to do but my windows installations is made with Raid SATA controller using F6 and windows start.

have i done something wrong in the cloning procedure or should i use some kind of Syspreb before cloning?

 

Mock,

This usually means there is a drive letter issue related to the old HD seeing the new partition before cloning is commenced. The easy solution is to clone to unallocated space. So delete the destination partition before you clone. I assume you are doing partition clones and not whole drive clones. Remember to remove the old HD before booting to the new HD for the first time.

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

If you want to try fixing the non booting OS, use Method #3 in that link.

PS Are you cloning to the same HD. In that case, ignore Method #3, copy to unallocated space as above and edit boot.ini. You may not have to edit boot.ini if the partition slot has been changed by DD.

 

Im cloning a partition from Partition 1 to 2. and make them all appear as C: and primary Active partition. couldnt see how it could be a drive letter issue. because it seems every time when cloning and starting as an Active drive the letter allways appears as c: and again as i described the problem also appead when i deleted one of the partitions in middle of 4 primary OS. but when coping i used many diffrent methods like unallocated space with diskdirector and with ghost i tried partiton copy.

but again it seems there is some very good info i will try out. first i could think of was to maybe clear the MBR. that is one of the things that i not didt after cloning because OS Selecter just found the new Clone with out problem and i admit it also sound good with method 3. but isnt it possible to use Manage drive with a PE or BartPE and look what drives to change drive letters for?

 

Mock,

Have a good read of that link I posted. If you clone your C: drive to say F: drive, the new OS tries to take F: drive letter but also wants to be C: drive. It's confused and won't boot.

I suggest uninstalling any boot manager before trying again. Cloning to unallocated space. Only install the boot manager after everything is finished.

I understand you want each OS to be C: drive when it's booted and hidden when another OS is booted. A good guide is...

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

I've been able to do this with 15 WinXPs on the same HD.

Your problem has nothing to do with an incorrect MBR.

 

Ok this worked like a charm, just started a boot cd and made the Fdisk /MBR and than runed the CD from Acronis Media Builder. after that all worked out and now started without freezing. All this time i used on google to solve this problem was so easy. At first it seemed that many people experenced a problem with a Mup.sys i first thougt was the same problem has because they sayed it was freezing at the login screen. And at this forum i couldnt find any threads about freezing windows. thats way i thought i had a hardware problem or didt something totally wrong and that it should work just without doing anything.

I can only say big thanx for solving this problem

 

Good news. fdisk /mbr does write new boot code but boot code isn't the problem. fdisk /mbr also zeroes the DiskID and this allows WinXP to reassign new drive letters at the next boot. So the rogue OS can then become C: drive.

fixmbr doesn't help in this situation as it doesn't zero the DiskID.