new hardware, now windows won't boot

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Guest

this is going to take a bit to explain, but I really appreciate the help.
I've made quite a mess of things.

I'm running xp pro w/ sp2. I went a little crazy shopping on the day after
thanksgiving and I basically bought myself a new system. a couple days ago I
went about upgrading everything. everything was new, except for the hard
drive and cdrom. I knew that changing everything would be quite a shock to
the system, but I had done these things before and it had worked out without
too much of a problem.

I went from an asus a7v133 mobo w/ athlon 1.0ghz w/ agp graphics to a snazzy
new ecs nforce4-a939 w/ athlon 64 x2 3800 dual core w/ pci-e graphics. I
know, quite a change to expect windows to adapt to.

so I switched everything out and started her up. windows tries to start,
then black screen and restart. next time it has the alternate startup menu,
but nothing works. safe mode, everything has the same result: black screen
and then restart. when I do safe mode w/ command prompt I can see that the
last thing it loads is mup.sys, but ending that service doesn't solve it. it
must be something that is loaded after it. boot logging doesn't work. I
have a boot cd (ultimate boot cd for windows ww.ubcd2win.com) which has been
very helpful and has allowed me to at least verify that all my hardware is
working.

I tried using the recovery console to disable services, but there are so
many and I don't know what exactly is causing the problem, so it wasn't much
help. I figured windows was just trying to load the wrong drivers
(understandably) that was crashing it.

next I tried to repair the installation. windows setup copies the files
over and when it restarts, the windows loading screen shows for 10 secs or so
before it does the black screen and restart again. apparently the repair
installation is still using the wrong drivers.

I bought a new sata hard drive that was to replace the old hd once the
system was up. I put it in and decided to try installing windows fresh on
it. a fresh install on that hard drive and voila! it works! but here comes
the problem.

I still have all of my files and settings on the old hard drive, C. when I
start the computer, it asks which os to load, the one on C or the working one
on D. what I would like to do is be able to boot into the windows on C, and
then just reformat D, copy C to D, and trash C.

so basically I have a barebones working installation of xp and a broken
installation with all my stuff on two hard drives in the same computer. this
is the question (after all that explanation): is there a way I can extract
just the boot/services/drivers from the correct installation so I can apply
it to the broken one so it can boot? I can access the registry files on C,
so I just need to know exactly what registry trees to extract from D that
contain just the hardware information and drivers. hopefully then I can
merge that to the registry file on C and it will start.

any help is greatly appreciated! if I wasn't clear about something please
ask me to clarify, I've been working at this for two days so I'm going a
little loony about it.
 
All the boot files (system partition) is on your original ide drive for your
current working XP. So, you didn't install XP to the SATA drive entirely.
 
this is going to take a bit to explain, but I really appreciate the help.
I've made quite a mess of things.

I'm running xp pro w/ sp2. I went a little crazy shopping on the day after
thanksgiving and I basically bought myself a new system. a couple days ago I
went about upgrading everything. everything was new, except for the hard
drive and cdrom. I knew that changing everything would be quite a shock to
the system, but I had done these things before and it had worked out without
too much of a problem.

I went from an asus a7v133 mobo w/ athlon 1.0ghz w/ agp graphics to a snazzy
new ecs nforce4-a939 w/ athlon 64 x2 3800 dual core w/ pci-e graphics. I
know, quite a change to expect windows to adapt to.

so I switched everything out and started her up. windows tries to start,
then black screen and restart. next time it has the alternate startup menu,
but nothing works. safe mode, everything has the same result: black screen
and then restart. when I do safe mode w/ command prompt I can see that the
last thing it loads is mup.sys, but ending that service doesn't solve it. it
must be something that is loaded after it. boot logging doesn't work. I
have a boot cd (ultimate boot cd for windows ww.ubcd2win.com) which has been
very helpful and has allowed me to at least verify that all my hardware is
working.

I tried using the recovery console to disable services, but there are so
many and I don't know what exactly is causing the problem, so it wasn't much
help. I figured windows was just trying to load the wrong drivers
(understandably) that was crashing it.

next I tried to repair the installation. windows setup copies the files
over and when it restarts, the windows loading screen shows for 10 secs or so
before it does the black screen and restart again. apparently the repair
installation is still using the wrong drivers.

I bought a new sata hard drive that was to replace the old hd once the
system was up. I put it in and decided to try installing windows fresh on
it. a fresh install on that hard drive and voila! it works! but here comes
the problem.

I still have all of my files and settings on the old hard drive, C. when I
start the computer, it asks which os to load, the one on C or the working one
on D. what I would like to do is be able to boot into the windows on C, and
then just reformat D, copy C to D, and trash C.

so basically I have a barebones working installation of xp and a broken
installation with all my stuff on two hard drives in the same computer. this
is the question (after all that explanation): is there a way I can extract
just the boot/services/drivers from the correct installation so I can apply
it to the broken one so it can boot? I can access the registry files on C,
so I just need to know exactly what registry trees to extract from D that
contain just the hardware information and drivers. hopefully then I can
merge that to the registry file on C and it will start.

any help is greatly appreciated! if I wasn't clear about something please
ask me to clarify, I've been working at this for two days so I'm going a
little loony about it.
Click to expand...

Many folks report XP adapting successfully to hardware upgrades of this
magnitude without having to do anything extra. However the flip side is if
the first reboot after the upgrade fails, it can trash the existing XP
setup. This is where I have landed when trying the same. Consequently, I
now skip the attempt to boot XP after a huge hardware change and go right
for the repair install -a half hour to reinstall is a lot easier to deal
with than a complete rebuild.

Anyhow, for getting rid of the old copy of Windows and cleaning up the boot
process, see this article:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#19

It describes rectifying the situation of 2 XP installations on the same
partition but can be applied to your situation as well. Set System
Properties> Advanced> Startup and Recovery to start with your new install.
Then fix the boot.ini to remove references of the "old" Windows. Once that
is done, you can delete the files and folders for the old XP installation.

Don't forget the stuff under Program Files on that old hard drive. The new
Windows knows nothing about any programs located there. It does not use any
of the Common Files in this location either. While some programs may still
run, they will be few. The programs that reference the registry during
operations will need to be reinstalled while logged on to the "new" Windows
setup. You can reinstall those programs on the new hard drive's Program
Files folder or into Program Files on the old hard drive if you prefer.
Your choice. If this is too confusing, just blow away the old Program Files
folder and use the new one instead.

For accessing data on that drive if using NTFS: You may run into permission
problems. Windows may still be protecting data on the old drive for your
old account and will deny access. If that happens, take ownership of the
files and/or folders to regain access.

How To Take Ownership of a File or Folder
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421
 
All the boot files (system partition) is on your original ide drive for your
current working XP. So, you didn't install XP to the SATA drive entirely.
Click to expand...

Good point. While the old Windows folder (and most any other folder) can be
removed, the system files stored in the root of that partition should be
left alone.
 
thanks for the help so far.

I want to keep the "old" installation, I just need to fix it.

I have two installations of windows, the old one is broken and the new one
works. isn't there some way I can use the new one to fix the old one?
 
thanks for the help so far.

I want to keep the "old" installation, I just need to fix it.

I have two installations of windows, the old one is broken and the new one
works. isn't there some way I can use the new one to fix the old one?
Click to expand...

You can't fix the old Windows setup from within the new one. Replacing
system files might go okay but the registry differences cannot be smoothed
over. All references in the new registry refer to a different drive layout
and different locations of inter-related files and folders. These are
different than what is needed for the old install's registry. There's way
too many entries and references to change, even if you could find them all.

What you could do is try a repair on the old install. If it works, then use
the article I referred to before, to remove the Windows that is currently
your working install (the one on the SATA drive if I'm reading correctly).

Important: When you run a repair install, do not take the first Repair
option. Instead make the menu choices as if you were running a regular
setup. When you get to the final pre-installation screens asking where you
want to install Windows, a Repair option for the copy on the IDE drive will
appear *IF* setup deems it to repairable. If the repair option does not
appear at this point, the setup is trashed from the failed boot with the
new hardware and cannot be recovered. Been there, done that and there's no
way out at that point except a clean install. The article below gives
directions for performing a repair install:

How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

I should mention that if you have a recent image from the old setup, there
is another optioin. You could setup with the old hardware. Restore the
image. Make sure it works. Then upgrade the hardware again and do a repair
install right off the bat -avoiding the failed boot with new hardware. That
sounds like a lot of work though. It's a tough choice to make (doing this
or doing a clean install) even if you have an image available to work with.

So to recap, your options are:

Make the best of what you have now and use the new install of Windows as a
starting point. (Not a bad option, really.)

Try a repair install of the old Windows. If successful, fine. If not,
you're back to where you are now. Decide if you're going to stay with this
new Windows or bite the bullet and restart from scratch.

Some fancy (and tedious) footwork with old hardware and an image of the old
setup. Annoying but, barring any other problems, will get you to your
objective of keeping the old Windows setup.
 
Many folks report XP adapting successfully to hardware upgrades of this
magnitude without having to do anything extra. However the flip side is if
the first reboot after the upgrade fails, it can trash the existing XP
setup. This is where I have landed when trying the same. Consequently, I
now skip the attempt to boot XP after a huge hardware change and go right
for the repair install -a half hour to reinstall is a lot easier to deal
with than a complete rebuild.
Click to expand...

this gave me an idea and now - Problem solved!

When I tried to do a repair installation (after I had already tried the
first reboot), it did the same restarting loop. but I had system restore
points from before. I copied over the registry files from the restore point,
restarted, and went straight into windows setup without letting it try to
boot. worked like a charm. all files and settings are intact, new hardware
works great. now I'll follow the directions to get rid of that other xp
installation.

thanks again so much for your help!
 
this gave me an idea and now - Problem solved!

When I tried to do a repair installation (after I had already tried the
first reboot), it did the same restarting loop. but I had system restore
points from before. I copied over the registry files from the restore point,
restarted, and went straight into windows setup without letting it try to
boot. worked like a charm. all files and settings are intact, new hardware
works great. now I'll follow the directions to get rid of that other xp
installation.

thanks again so much for your help!
Click to expand...

You're welcome! Nice twist and good thinking on your part! Am very glad to
hear that you have this striaghtened out. That means you can now relax and
enjoy all that great new hardware!
 
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