Page 1 of No XP Login after Ghosting Drive

Hi Newbie. Just start off by saying what a great find this site has turned out to be!

Have a Laptop running Windows XP Professional with a 40Gb HD. Ran Norton Ghost to image the existing drive to a new 80Gb HD. Ghosting process ran well (apparently) and all the OS, folders and files all seem to be on the new drive. I selected the new drive to be bootable in the Ghost options.

Having installed the new drive in the internal bay, it is automatically recognised by the BIOS and the bootup proceeds normally with the Windows XP startup screen until we get to what should be the WELCOME screen. At this point all I see is the Windows logo on a blue background, (it doesn`t even say "Welcome") and there is no Login or account information.

Therefore I cannot log in to the OS and the bootup appears to be "hung" at this point.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks,

Andy Woolford

www.flightpro.co.uk

Andy,

You need a second PC to perform this process on and BootitNG
Download and extract the Zip file, run the BOOTITNG applicaton (or shortcut), it`ll open in an MS-DOS window, accept license agreement, create floppy boot disk or ISO and burn to CD. Boot laptop from floppy/CD, you will be greeted with "Welcome to Setup. Click OK button to install Bootit NG to the hard drive", click the Cancel button, "Notice - You are now entering maintenance mode.....", click OK, click the Partition Work button, click the View MBR button, click the Clear Sig button, followed by OK on the notice box & Apply, click Close.
Click the Reboot button, remove floppy/CD whilst PC reboots.
Windows should now restart normally.

Cheers,

DBS

Wow... thanks for the quick reply.

Not quite clear on what to do with the second PC?

What does this (BootitNG) do exactly?

Thanks again.

Andy Woolford

As you can`t log on to your own PC I think you`ll find the second pc is so you can log on and download the programme bootitNG

Andy,

Billyflash said it all! You need to be able to download BootitNG and create a disk to boot your laptop from.

Quote:
What does this (BootitNG) do exactly?

To quote the Terrabyte Unlimited website

Quote:
BootIt™ NG is a partition and multiboot manager with a powerful and simple-to-use set of tools for partitioning, imaging, and multi-booting your computer.

Basically when you (or the OEM who built your laptop) installed XP it takes a "hardware snapshot" of the system, should the hard drive be "transplanted" from one system to another, either physically or by ghosting to another drive to prevent piracy Windows should ask you to re-activate. But as you only upgraded your hard drive the hardware snapshot of your system is basically the same except for the hard drive signature, also known as SID therefore XP appears to hang or freeze at startup, sometimes you get an error message. So you need to startup with the BootitNG disk, follow the procedure in my original reply, also here http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=9660&st=0
clear the drive sig and hey presto XP will boot again. Seems that no drive sig is better than the wrong drive sig!
I`ve done this numerous times through the years I`ve had XP, both on my own PCs and upgrades I`ve done for others and it works every time.

Cheers,

DBS

Many Thanks DBS,

I was a bit confused... only because my laptop is still operating on the original drive until I found a fix for the new one. Anyway with that cleared up - I`ve burned a CD from the ISO image.

Now just need to get my screwdriver out...

Thanks for the explanation. I will keep you posted on progress. Does this Drive Signature also contain the Drive Description and serial number etc which appears in Device Manager, or System Information fields? (eg Toshiba MK4018GAP).

If so - should I expect to see a few blank spaces in my system data in future? Not necessarily a problem of course - just so I know what to expect.

Regards,

Andy Woolford

Andy,

Quote:
Does this Drive Signature also contain the Drive Description and serial number etc which appears in Device Manager, or System Information fields?

No it`s stored in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the disk as far as I`m aware and the Drive Description, Serial No. etc. is retreived from the Firmware in the chipset so new drive will show up in Device Manager no probs.

Cheers,

DBS

Well, thanks DBS... the fix worked fine. I now have everything working properly on my new 80Gb HD.


Neat little utility that BootitNG! I`ll keep it handy for the future.

Thanks again and Best regards,

Andy Woolford

This item was edited on Thursday, 15th December 2005, 23:55

Andy,

Glad to hear it went well. :D
Not so scary stuff after all! Easy for a newbie! If you`re prepared to remove your hard drive with a screwdriver then a little software "tinkering" is a breeze.
Keep the little utility filed you never know when you may need to call on it again! :B

All the best,

Cheers,

Darren

Darren,

Well, although a Newbie to this forum, I must confess to having had prior experience in the field. That login had me pretty flumoxed though. I thought I had a pretty good software toolkit, but you know what it`s like when you need a screwdriver and only have a blunt knife? Anyway, thanks again Matey.

Regards,

Andy Woolford