upgrade hard disk on a factory intsalled XP system?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RB
  • Start date Start date
R

RB

I have a PC with factory installed XP Home. I have no XP
original CD. I want to upgrade the HD in size & speed.
I used the drive copy utility that came with the Western
Digital HD and it will copy an image of the old drive but
the new HD is not bootable. I tried making a floppy with
DOS files from XP, but the utility says it will not be
bootable even after transferring these files. (true) How
do I get the new drive to boot?
 
RB said:
I have a PC with factory installed XP Home. I have no XP
original CD. I want to upgrade the HD in size & speed.
I used the drive copy utility that came with the Western
Digital HD and it will copy an image of the old drive but
the new HD is not bootable. I tried making a floppy with
DOS files from XP, but the utility says it will not be
bootable even after transferring these files. (true) How
do I get the new drive to boot?
Click to expand...

Your system should (must?) have came with some method of restoring it
the "factory new" condition. That is a requirement of the license
that Microsoft gives to the OEMs. Check back with the computer
manufacturer/dealer as to what the System Recovery options are for
your system.

What you need to do at this point is to download 6 diskette setup boot
disk set from Microsoft.

Obtaining Windows XP Setup Boot Disks
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 310994

Boot the computer with these diskettes and when it has finished (it
will take a while) choose the Repair (Recovery Console) option.

At the Command Prompt enter the following commands:

FIXMBR
FIXBOOT C:

Then reboot the computer and hopefully it will now boot into Windows

If not then use the 6 boot diskettes again to get into the Recovery
Console and this time enter:

CHKDSK /R

p.s. What exactly happens when you try to boot from the copied hard
drive? What error messages do you get?

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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