HP x4000 Windows XP - Won't Boot

Discussion in 'HP' started by TDK, Oct 13, 2007.

  1. TDK

    TDK

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2007
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    I installed Win XP Pro SP2 (upgrade) over Windows 2000 Pro on a Maxtor U320 SCSI 73 Gig drive. Everything has run fine for months. I have attempted to clone this drive to a Maxtor U320 147 Gig SCSI using Acronis True Image 10 & 11 several times. After cloning, I pull the SCSI ID (1) pin from the destination drive and try to boot it. Although I can see the drive has been cloned and look at files on the new drive via Partition Magic 8.0 it won't boot. Basically, on startup, the system goes through the usual post process, identifies the drive/drives are there and then goes into the 5 second delay /cursor blink which precedes the HP Utilities hardware check which is also a 5 second display wherein one can hit F10 is he wants to configure the drives. I never get past the initial 5 second cursor blink. It always dumps me to the HP e-diagnostics menu screen and I'm cooked. Since it won't get past the hardware check, it also does not progress to the Windows XP spalsh and startup routine.

    I've tried been through the (hit F2) BIOS setup many times and things are fine. I've got the latest BIOS US16 but it has not been re-flashed since XP was installed. The HP utilites reside on a hidden partition that is formatted (automatically) as FAT16. My C: partition is formatted as FAT32. All other logical partitions are formatted as NTFS.

    Acronis email support stinks. They ask for files and lots of system information and then never respond. I've been suffering with them for nearly 3 weeks. I've also searched every possible forum and HP support paper I can find and no one discusses boot problems with this system relative to Windows XP and SCSI drives.

    Under Windows 2000 Pro, I had used Drive Copy 4.0 to clone the shipped disk with this system (36 Gig to 73 Gig) and it worked just fine. I am thinking there may be some problem with the residual DOS files in HP utilities that are used during the initial startup that Windows XP does not like and the new hard drive cannot be identified.

    Once I pull the cable on the cloned drive and re-attach it to the original drive, the system boots up fine and I'm still running Windows XP.

    Has anyone successfully cloned a disk in such a system with XP?

    TDK
     
    TDK, Oct 13, 2007
    #1
Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments (here). After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.