Re: Using Ghost to upgrade hard drive - XP Pro SP1

Tech Tip: Click here to run a free scan for Windows Errors and optimize PC performance

From: I'm Dan (dgREMOVE-THIS1261_at_cs.com)
Date: 02/16/04 

Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:53:41 -0800

"Ken Hart" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> FIXED!!!!!!! You hit the nail on the head. Running
> FDISK solved the problem. And I didn't have any issue
> with activation once the new drive was up and running.
>
> Thank you for your time and expertise.

You're welcome. FTR, XP remembers drive letters by partition signatures,
which are derived in part from the Disk ID (a 4-byte code buried at the end
of the MBR) and the starting sector location of the partition on the disk.
In your case, you must have partitioned and/or formatted the new disk and
let XP see it before doing the cloning. Once the old XP saw the new
partitions, it assigned new drive letters (G, H), and those were recorded in
the registry. The registry was cloned along with XP to the new disk, but by
now it had a record of the new disk's partitions as G and H. At this point,
trying to boot from the new disk doesn't do any good because it "remembers"
it is G:, and it's downhill from there.

The Win98 "fdisk /mbr" command and the XP "fixmbr" command are intended to
rewrite the MBR, but the Win98 version doesn't know about Disk ID's and
inadvertantly overwrites those four bytes. In this case, we take advantage
of that "mistake" because it has the effect of invalidating the partition
signatures -- since the signature is derived from the Disk ID and the Disk
ID has been changed, XP is forced to recalculate the signatures and reassign
drive letters, forgetting it used to be G:.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A Dual-boot question; I thought C was always the partition with the running OS
    ... The Server 2003 will then call its partion "C:" Local Disk. ... When Server 2003 starts up, it will call itself "C:" and it will call the WinXP partition "E:", but again, who cares? ... The OS then assigns drive letters to the first primary partition recognized on each successive hard disk. ... Because they're on separate hard drives, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • Re: 2 partitions
    ... I tried to change the drive letters using the Disk Management utility but it ... I'll leave the small partition as is because Gateway claims they do ... restore your computer using the files in the restore partition. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Unable to change drive letters
    ... I used a win xp pro disk to reinstall not a manufacturers disk. ... Is there any way round this or am I stuck with the drive letters as is. ... The resulting partition would ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Help - need to create boot sector
    ... >> in a primary partition on your second disk then the drive letters ... > Well I just put in an old disk (reformatted as a single primary NTFS ... > IDE1 master, copied the boot files onto it from the XP cd, and did the XP ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Boot from USB PRM (Partitioned Removable Media ) failed after loading OS2LVM.DMD error: "OS/2 i
    ... Drive letters for removable media, regardless of partition type, will ... AND extended partitions, if any, from the first removable disk, ... DEVICE statements include drive letters or just a backslash? ...
    (comp.os.os2.bugs)