Moving Hard Drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Me2Ewe
  • Start date Start date
M

Me2Ewe

I moved 2 15 GB HDD's to another computer one had XP Pro and the other 2003
server. This is the second time or third I have done this but now when I
start it it doesn't go to GUI it says Press Any Key To Reboot.
Does that not usually mean not seing OS?I have 2 of them shouldn't it see
one of them the CMOS settings appear in order.
Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated.
Bruce
 
Hi,

The OS's would only be seen if the active partition were loading the proper
boot loader. Is one of these the active partition on the system, or is
something else already installed the primary boot device?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
These were the original drives I took them out to put in another machine and
now I wanted to put them back because they didn't.t work there either. Do I
have something set wrong then? How do I get the proper boot loader then?
Thanks for reply
Bruce
 
Check in the BIOS setup and make sure the boot hard drive wasn't changed
from the original, Some BIOS's automatically change it to the new drive when
it is installed for some reason.
 
Hi,

Check your BIOS boot order, something else is likely taking the first
position. You may need to switch which hard drive is grabbed first.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I had it set every way I did want A first the cd-rom then HDD, but would not
work either way
 
Are the hard drives visible and properly identified in the BIOS? Make
sure that they are in the pc in the EXACT order and cabled as they
originally were, the system and boot volumes must be in the same order
and have the same drive letter assignment. Can you see these drives and
Windows installation with your XP setup disk or Recovery Console? Do
the drive letters match the expected arrangement? Is the system volume
active, use a Windows 98 boot disk and verify that the system
partition/volume is set as active. Can you boot using the logon command
in the Recovery Console? If not use the map command to verify the drive
letters and ARC paths.

(Note that the system volume on NT is the volume holding NTDETECT.COM,
ntldr, boot.ini and scsi drivers if needed. The boot volume holds the
Windows files. A system volume can also be a boot volume, there can be
more than 1 boot volume but there is only one system volume.)

John
 
""use a Windows 98 boot disk and verify that the system partition/volume is
set as active""
Do you mean use F-disk off 98 disc?
"Can you boot using the logon command in the Recovery Console? If not use
the map command to verify the drive letters and ARC paths.""
Not following you here. What do you mean map command & how can I use
Recovery Console if I can only access CMOS settings, Do I need a XP Pro disc
as well I might just as well reformat then since all the trouble what do you
think. There was not too much important stuff on there that I cant put on
again easy enough
If I cant get it fast I will do a format
B
 
In-Line.
""use a Windows 98 boot disk and verify that the system partition/volume is
set as active""
Do you mean use F-disk off 98 disc?
Yes.

"Can you boot using the logon command in the Recovery Console? If not use
the map command to verify the drive letters and ARC paths.""
Not following you here. What do you mean map command & how can I use
Recovery Console if I can only access CMOS settings, Do I need a XP Pro disc
Click to expand...

Yes, you need an XP disc to use the Recovery Console. In the BIOS
(CMOS) change the boot order of the computer so that it boots to cd first.

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314058

To get information on any command while in the Recovery Console use the
/? switch, example: map /?
as well I might just as well reformat then since all the trouble what do you
think. There was not too much important stuff on there that I cant put on
again easy enough
If I cant get it fast I will do a format
Click to expand...

Is this the same computer that needs 2 days to shut down and that has
"haunted" components? Then maybe yes, if you feel like it and if you
have nothing that you want to keep on the installation, it might be a
good idea to flatten the box and put a clean installation on it. If
this is a different installation that had no other problems then you can
salvage the installation. And by the way, for all it's worth, yanking
drives out of a computer and just sticking them in another computer to
be used as boot volume is not good practice and although XP is somewhat
better than its predecessors at accomplishing the feat, expecting a
computer to boot up and run without problems in such cases is optimistic
to say the least. There are steps to be taken to move Windows to new or
different hardware.

John
 
I had it set every way I did want A first the cd-rom then HDD, but would not
work either way
Click to expand...

Try HDD first since that's what you're troubleshooting. Once you know the
drives are still bootable on this hardware (or not), you can go back and
change your boot order to something else.

Recently moved my hard drives from one set of hardware to another. The new
computer has a different processor, motherboard and some new extras - so I
didn't even try to boot the drives without running a repair install first.
Reapplied updates.

This method of moving the Windows drive to new hardware has so far proved
successful for me (knock on wood). Long ago, I tried without the repair
install hoping to save some time. That XP install ended up getting
completely trashed and had to do a clean install instead. No longer try to
cut corners when transferring Windows drives!

If you don't recall running a repair install when you first moved the
drives, you may have been lucky and that may have been a one way deal.
Going back to the old PC may require a repair install.
 
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