I've got a 2 year old Dell P4 2Mhz Inspiron 4150 with a 40GB 5400RPM drive I use for mobile recording and softsynths - and it's also my repository for all my iTunes files. The drive is bursting at the seams and I have less than 500MB on it - so I bought a 60GB 7200RPM Hitachi drive for it. I also got a firewire/USB2 enclosure to facilitate the backup and to put the 40GB drive in for portable use afterwards. Running WinXP Pro SP2 Got Norton Systemworks Premier with Ghost in it for the transfer and subsequent backups on this and my DAW. Put the 60GB drive in the enclosure, made the back up from the laptop to it using Ghost's "Copy drive for the purpose of upgrading" option with the "copy MBR" option checked - all went smooth and the backup was created without incident. I can see and mount the drive and see the data on it. When I switch the drives and try to boot - I get an error message that it can't find the Hardware Abstraction Layer library (HAL.dll) and can't boot. The Ghost readme says something about boot failures with WinXP that can be associated with drive letter naming - somewhere along the way during the copy, the drive get assigned a drive letter other than "C" (even though I specifically unchecked the "assign drive letter" option). Then it says to use a specific switch to fix it. A switch from where? The disc is not bootable so if the DOS version is there I can't get to it. Anyone have an experience or ideas on how I can get the new drive to boot? Additional options to pick? A command to make it bootable after? Man - I really don't want to install everything from scratch... ??
I haven't ever used the particular option you used to create the backup image, I always just make a Ghost backup and then restore it to my new boot drive. It is true that XP is very particular about where it thinks the boot drive is and what the letter is (not necessarily C. I always unplug the power or cable from every drive except my new boot drive when installing XP or when restoring a Ghost image, this ensures the drive is recognized with the letter I want (usually C: in the image). That being said, you might be able to do a repair-install from your WinXP CD and clear this up. Boot from your XP CD and choose to install XP, then when it tells you there is already XP on the system you can choose to reinstall over it. Note that you cannot repair-install WinXP if your CD is older revision than the one you are repairing - most notably, a WinXP SP1 CD won't do a repair-install over SP2. One last thing, many (and even some newer ones) mobos won't boot properly from firewire or USB. Do you know for a fact yours will boot from an external drive on one of these devices? -- Sue Morton "Vinny" <> wrote in message news:95F1e.2223$... > I've got a 2 year old Dell P4 2Mhz Inspiron 4150 with a 40GB 5400RPM drive > I use for mobile recording and softsynths - and it's also my repository > for all my iTunes files. The drive is bursting at the seams and I have > less than 500MB on it - so I bought a 60GB 7200RPM Hitachi drive for it. > I also got a firewire/USB2 enclosure to facilitate the backup and to put > the 40GB drive in for portable use afterwards. Running WinXP Pro SP2 > > Got Norton Systemworks Premier with Ghost in it for the transfer and > subsequent backups on this and my DAW. Put the 60GB drive in the > enclosure, made the back up from the laptop to it using Ghost's "Copy > drive for the purpose of upgrading" option with the "copy MBR" option > checked - all went smooth and the backup was created without incident. I > can see and mount the drive and see the data on it. > > When I switch the drives and try to boot - I get an error message that it > can't find the Hardware Abstraction Layer library (HAL.dll) and can't > boot. > > The Ghost readme says something about boot failures with WinXP that can be > associated with drive letter naming - somewhere along the way during the > copy, the drive get assigned a drive letter other than "C" (even though I > specifically unchecked the "assign drive letter" option). Then it says to > use a specific switch to fix it. A switch from where? The disc is not > bootable so if the DOS version is there I can't get to it. Anyone have an > experience or ideas on how I can get the new drive to boot? Additional > options to pick? A command to make it bootable after? Man - I really > don't want to install everything from scratch... > > ?? >
Sue Morton wrote: > I haven't ever used the particular option you used to create the backup > image, I always just make a Ghost backup and then restore it to my new boot > drive. It is true that XP is very particular about where it thinks the boot > drive is and what the letter is (not necessarily C. I always unplug the > power or cable from every drive except my new boot drive when installing XP > or when restoring a Ghost image, this ensures the drive is recognized with > the letter I want (usually C: in the image). > > That being said, you might be able to do a repair-install from your WinXP CD > and clear this up. Boot from your XP CD and choose to install XP, then when > it tells you there is already XP on the system you can choose to reinstall > over it. Note that you cannot repair-install WinXP if your CD is older > revision than the one you are repairing - most notably, a WinXP SP1 CD won't > do a repair-install over SP2. > > One last thing, many (and even some newer ones) mobos won't boot properly > from firewire or USB. Do you know for a fact yours will boot from an > external drive on one of these devices? Thanks for replying Sue - Doing a repair install was actualy the first thing I thought of and I have the exact problem you mentioned, a SP1 disc and I now have a SP2 install upgraded over the web. I'm actually trying to boot the system with the new drive already swapped out in the laptop, and it's the only one hooked up. Any other ideas? Please <g>?
Did you check the support knowledge base on the Symantec site? Perhaps there is a known problem. Put your old disk back in the laptop, or go to another computer (friend?), you can slipstream your WinXP SP1 CD with SP2 and make a new CD which WILL do a repair install on your OS. (The computer does NOT have to be running XP.) A repair install might still not solve your problem, but I would try it if it were me. See this article: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp This is the article I used to create all my WinXP SP2 CD's, they have been used both for repair installs and for fresh installs and work fine. You will need your WinXP SP1 CD, the administrative version of SP2 executable (it's the full service pack, ~275mb) (article gives you a link to download from MS), Nero or other CD burning software, an ISO boot extraction utility (article gives you a link), and of course a blank CD-ROM. Sorry, those are all the things I can think of... -- Sue Morton "Vinny" <> wrote in message news:iOF1e.16072$... >> One last thing, many (and even some newer ones) mobos won't boot properly >> from firewire or USB. Do you know for a fact yours will boot from an >> external drive on one of these devices? > > Thanks for replying Sue - Doing a repair install was actualy the first > thing I thought of and I have the exact problem you mentioned, a SP1 disc > and I now have a SP2 install upgraded over the web. > > I'm actually trying to boot the system with the new drive already swapped > out in the laptop, and it's the only one hooked up. Any other ideas? > Please <g>?
Aha! There's the missing link on info I needed! I'll give that a try - That makes sense to me. Sue Morton wrote: > Did you check the support knowledge base on the Symantec site? Perhaps > there is a known problem. > > Put your old disk back in the laptop, or go to another computer (friend?), > you can slipstream your WinXP SP1 CD with SP2 and make a new CD which WILL > do a repair install on your OS. (The computer does NOT have to be running > XP.) A repair install might still not solve your problem, but I would try > it if it were me. > > See this article: > > http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp > > This is the article I used to create all my WinXP SP2 CD's, they have been > used both for repair installs and for fresh installs and work fine. > > You will need your WinXP SP1 CD, the administrative version of SP2 > executable (it's the full service pack, ~275mb) (article gives you a link to > download from MS), Nero or other CD burning software, an ISO boot extraction > utility (article gives you a link), and of course a blank CD-ROM. > > Sorry, those are all the things I can think of...
Vinny: Just out of interest; Have you checked your boot.ini file on C:\ ? Where is it pointing the system to find the drives? cheers GREGi
GREGi wrote: > Vinny: > Just out of interest; > Have you checked your boot.ini file > on C:\ ? > Where is it pointing the system > to find the drives? > > cheers > GREGi Disk0 partition2 Dell has got a 1st partition that "somthing"... hmmmn - I'll check to make sure WinXP is loaded in partition 2 on the new drive...
Vinny wrote: > Dell has got a 1st partition that "somthing"... hmmmn - I'll check to > make sure WinXP is loaded in partition 2 on the new drive... How'd you go with that Vinny? Get it working? cheers GREGi
GREGi wrote: > Vinny wrote: > >> Dell has got a 1st partition that "somthing"... hmmmn - I'll check to >> make sure WinXP is loaded in partition 2 on the new drive... > > > How'd you go with that Vinny? > > Get it working? > > cheers > GREGi Haven't had a chance yet - I'm working on the machine in question at the moment with the original drive in it. Later on tonight I'll hook up the other drive and check the boot.ini, and edit it if necessary so I can try it. As I recall, I think there were 2 other small partitions on it for some reason, so I'm hoping you put your finger on it!! <keeping fingers crossed> For sure I'll post either way. Thanks for the suggestion! V.
Most of the Dell's, HP's, and such have a small partition on the sys drive for "recovery". This is where the oem version of the OS lives instead of shipping media. One option to try would be to do another ghost that includes the sys partition AND the recovery partition. It's been a while back, but I think I remember having problems like this. I've gone back to building my own of late, but I used to wipe out pre-installed OS's and reinstall from media to get rid of the recovery partition and dependency. Then again, it could be something else completely ... "Vinny" <> wrote in message news:XT42e.4251$... > GREGi wrote: >> Vinny wrote: >> >>> Dell has got a 1st partition that "somthing"... hmmmn - I'll check to >>> make sure WinXP is loaded in partition 2 on the new drive... >> >> >> How'd you go with that Vinny? >> >> Get it working? >> >> cheers >> GREGi > Haven't had a chance yet - I'm working on the machine in question at the > moment with the original drive in it. Later on tonight I'll hook up the > other drive and check the boot.ini, and edit it if necessary so I can try > it. > > As I recall, I think there were 2 other small partitions on it for some > reason, so I'm hoping you put your finger on it!! > > <keeping fingers crossed> > > For sure I'll post either way. Thanks for the suggestion! > > V.
BobF wrote: > Most of the Dell's, HP's, and such have a small partition > on the sys drive for "recovery". This is where the oem > version of the OS lives instead of shipping media. > > One option to try would be to do another ghost that includes > the sys partition AND the recovery partition. > > It's been a while back, but I think I remember having problems > like this. I've gone back to building my own of late, but > I used to wipe out pre-installed OS's and reinstall from > media to get rid of the recovery partition and dependency. > > Then again, it could be something else completely ... > > > "Vinny" <> wrote in message > news:XT42e.4251$... > >>GREGi wrote: >> >>>Vinny wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Dell has got a 1st partition that "somthing"... hmmmn - I'll check to >>>>make sure WinXP is loaded in partition 2 on the new drive... >>> >>> >>>How'd you go with that Vinny? >>> >>>Get it working? >>> >>>cheers >>>GREGi >> >>Haven't had a chance yet - I'm working on the machine in question at the >>moment with the original drive in it. Later on tonight I'll hook up the >>other drive and check the boot.ini, and edit it if necessary so I can try >>it. >> >>As I recall, I think there were 2 other small partitions on it for some >>reason, so I'm hoping you put your finger on it!! >> >><keeping fingers crossed> >> >>For sure I'll post either way. Thanks for the suggestion! >> >>V. > > > STILL haven't had a chance - just getting home from work now. Might be this weekend before I try these out... I think this is the right track though...
Vinny wrote: > STILL haven't had a chance - just getting home from work now. Might be > this weekend before I try these out... I think this is the right track > though... Fingers crossedfor you at this end mate....... cheers GREGi
