Too the point I go....with a positive attitude!

Thanks to the Rad dude and this site I tried my first drive cloning.
Using ver2002, bootdisk, etc I made image of a 6gig Compaq (yuck) laptop with XP Home and verified it with no errors.
Restored in onto a 20gig Travelstar drive successfully.
Upon powering up laptop I get  NTLDR Missing.  :(
So I tried restoring again thinking I had to restore the .ghs file separately. Not so I found out.  Restored successfully but still got the same error.
Some web searching shows these symptoms with Win2k but not XP.  Am I unique? (well sure I am but...)
I wonder if the OS being Compaq/propietary is looking for OEM hardware..?? If so can I fake it out?
I'll stop here.  Hope I gave enough info.  Thanks tons!

does v2002 support XP?

ntfs?

disk-to-image and disk-from-image?

not partition-to-image?

where did you store image? On a CD? external drive?

Compaq can be tricky.

Do you have an XP CD you can 'Repair' ('R') with?

You should be able to see and verify NTLDR file is there. I bet it's there.

Both drives contain one single primary partition?

does v2002 support XP?   Yes

ntfs?  Yes

disk-to-image and disk-from-image?  I Used both

not partition-to-image?  Nope, the whole enchilada

where did you store image? On a CD? external drive? I Removed 2.5" drive and installed in tower.  Stored image on internal drive.

Compaq can be tricky. I've found that out!

Do you have an XP CD you can 'Repair' ('R') with? Of course not! Its a  Compaq and I use XP Pro!

You should be able to see and verify NTLDR file is there. I bet it's there.  Bet so too.

Both drives contain one single primary partition?   Being a Compaq there's a 2nd partition with the Recovery files on it.  I kept both partitions but didn't let it increase the partitions itself. I kept the recovery partition about the same original size. (1.3g)

An update...I 'chatted' with Compaq tech suppt today and found out The Compaq Presario 1274 is not capable of accepting a larger drive than 6.4gig.  I asked for a BIOS upgrade but was told there is one but not that'll allow larger drives...FYI - //brad

it max'es out at 6.4G? that doesn't sound right, or it's an OLD laptop.

are there any compac forums you could ask around and see if anyone has any experience with that particular model laptop installing a disk larger than 6.4 gigs?

just cuz a tech sppt dude said it, don't take it as gospel. he could be wrong.

Hi Brad.

I've had this happen to me a couple of times at normal boot-up and and it's a PITA.

The cause is:

"This problem may occur if the MFT root folder is severely fragmented. If the MFT root folder contains many files, the MFT may become so fragmented that an additional allocation index is created. Because files are mapped alphabetically in the allocation indexes, the NTLDR file may be pushed to the second allocation index. When this occurs, you receive the error message that is described in the "Symptoms" section of this article.

Typically, files are not written to the root folder. This condition may occur if a program regularly creates and removes temporary files in the root folder, or if many files are copied to the root folder by mistake."

More info here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320397


First couple of times I had to restore from a Ghost Image but then found out how to do a 'Repair Installation' from the Windows XP Pro Install Disk. This re-writes all the Windows folders and files, including NTLDR. (New Technology LoaDeR - the file that loads the NT File System) I suspect that your image was created with the problem about to happen and trying to restore from it has caused the MFT root folder to overflow.

If you can get hold of a Windows Install Disk with the version of Windows that you have to try, then that should work - you have to choose the SECOND 'Repair' option.

Don't know what you would do with a Compaq OEM recovery disk though.

Best of luck!!


Ian. 8)

I am sure Ian is correct but another thing to consider is that compac and dell laptops often contain hidden diagnostic partitions and sometimes BIOS asks for them when booting.
Just a thought.