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New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image (Read 4995 times)
BR
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New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image
Aug 3rd, 2010 at 1:44am
 
I have a Dell Precision 690 that had a failing HD.  Dell sent me a new drive, which I installed.  I did a drive image with Ghost 9.0 of the failing HD a week before the new drive was sent. I am not experienced with Ghost, but have used it to backup and restore files - never a complete drive.  It took 3 attempts to get a good image, but I did get a verified image.  Once the new drive was installed, after countless problems, I was able to use the recovery environment to restore the image, and it was verified. However, even though I told it to make it a bootable image, and to copy the MBR, it will not boot.  Before it gets to any Windows screen it says Windows can not find a bootable drive.  I don't have the full syntax of the error at the moment (I'm at home, it's midnight, the machine is at my office), it is a couple of sentences, but no error code.  Prior to the re-image, I had installed XP on the brand-new drive and it was working fine. 

Please tell me there is a solution here - I really need this image.

Thank you.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image
Reply #1 - Aug 3rd, 2010 at 2:43am
 
@
BR

I have an idea what is wrong but I need the full text of the error message. Which OS do you have in the image? WinXP?

Is the error, "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk.  Check boot path and disk hardware."?
 
 
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Re: New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image
Reply #2 - Aug 3rd, 2010 at 10:05am
 
Yes, that is the error.  Yes it is Win XP on the image.

Awaiting any help! Thank you!
 
 
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Re: New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image
Reply #3 - Aug 3rd, 2010 at 3:34pm
 
@
BR

I like Dells. Most have a small FAT primary partition (for Diagnostics) preceding the OS partition. This makes WinXP the second primary partition in the partition table. The WinXP boot.ini references partition(2). If you don't restore this partition to the new HD as well as restoring the WinXP partition, WinXP won't boot as boot.ini will be pointing to an empty MBR partition table slot. WinXP is now the first and only primary partition in the partition table.

But easily fixed.

boot from the Ghost 9 CD
Advanced Recovery Tasks
Utilities
Edit boot.ini
change partition(2) to partition(1)    ie change the 2 to a 1
this needs to be done twice (two lines)
click Save
click Save (it should show saving to the C: drive)
click Yes on C:\BOOT.INI already exists. Do you ....
Close (the boot.ini window)
click Back
Click Exit to restart computer

Success?

 
 
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Brian
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Re: New HD Image won't boot - Windows can't find boot image
Reply #4 - Aug 4th, 2010 at 5:21pm
 
@
BR

Any news for us?
 
 
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