Error Loading OS

[worley2]

Hello,

Apologies if this has already been raised but I cannot seem to find an answer on these forums.

I have a dual-booting PC with Windows XP Home on my master drive (C:/) and Windows XP Pro on my Slave drive (D:/). I wanted to remove the (c:/) drive to put it into another computer and leave the d: drive in the current one. Earlier today I unplugged the IDE cable from the C: drive and booted the system (leaving power cable in the drive) and received the message 'error loading OS'.

I put the c: drive back in and still received the same error.

I have tried bootcfg to rebuild the boot.ini and have tried numerous other options in the windows recovery console. It seems I cannot access my BIOS either to check settings there.

I wiped the c: drive in the hopes that installing XP Pro on it might help but when the computer restarts after copying the first set of files it just goes straight back into OS installation options rather than continuing the current install process.

I am not bothered about data on the C: drive but would like to keep the d: drive and OS intact.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

[worley2]

A brief follow up message:

I managed to get access to the BIOS and with the master (C:\) drive unplugged it recognises the slave drive. I have rebuilt the boot.ini with only the slave drive attached but I am still receiving the 'error loading OS' message on restart.

Is there any problem in changing the jumpers on the slave drive so that it becomes the master drive? Will I lose any data? Alternatively, would it be possible to take the slave drive out of this PC and put it into another PC to boot it/recover data from there?

Thanks/

[s7p9a2m4]

When you had both Xps installed the second one boots from the first one installed. You would have needed to add two boot files to the second xp and do the fixboot or fix mbr commands.

It is unlikely you can boot xp on a strange machine - it would not recognize the hardware. You should be able to slave the drive to rescue data as long as it has not been encrypted or protected in some way.

There is no problem with changing slave/master jumpers.

You need to make sure the bios is trying to boot the proper hard drive.

[worley2]

Originally Posted by s7p9a2m4

When you had both Xps installed the second one boots from the first one installed. You would have needed to add two boot files to the second xp and do the fixboot or fix mbr commands.

It is unlikely you can boot xp on a strange machine - it would not recognize the hardware. You should be able to slave the drive to rescue data as long as it has not been encrypted or protected in some way.

There is no problem with changing slave/master jumpers.

You need to make sure the bios is trying to boot the proper hard drive.

Thankyou for your reply.

Currently, when I attempt fixmbr the system tells me that there is the possibility that I won't be able to access any OS's that I have installed so I haven't tried it yet.

It seems that what I should do is change the drive to master, remove the otehr HD which now has no OS installed at all, and then execute the fixmbr and fixboot commands. Do you think this would work?....am I risking the data on the HD if I do that?

Many thanks.

[s7p9a2m4]

The master boot record is separate from the normal partitions and will not affect data on such.
I would go ahead with writing a new mbr.

[worley2]

Originally Posted by s7p9a2m4

The master boot record is separate from the normal partitions and will not affect data on such.
I would go ahead with writing a new mbr.

Hi,

I have now set the slave drive as master and have removed the other drive which has XP Home on it. All that remains then is a master drive with Windows XP Pro installed.

I have been into the recovery console and have executed both fixmbr and fixboot and have listed the current OS's that can be found using bootcfg /list. It finds the XP Pro installation but when i boot all I get now is a black screen with the cursor flashing in the top left corner. It waits for me to insert a CD or floppy before doing anything. I have tried repairing the installation using the xp Pro cd but that returns me to the same point.

I am at a loss as to what I should do from here. Luckily I have managed to retrieve the data by putting the drive into another computer, but I'd like to get this one back up and running too.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks/

[s7p9a2m4]

I'm puzzled why the "repair" did not copy the needed boot files to your Xp pro.
I suspect you installed xp pro after you installed xp home. This means your pro install was booting from xp home. Your xp pro install is missing two files necessary for booting. These files are ntldr. and ntdetect. You need to copy these files to your xp pro. Fixboot or fixmbr will not work until these files are present.

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How to Repair the Boot Sector:

[worley2]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I have copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the windows installation CD via the recovery console, I then re-executed the fixmbr and fixboot commands but it still fails to boot.

I have again tried repairing the current installation (it does tell me that it has tried 'upgrading' once before but that I can try again - not sure why it says upgrade) again but still to no avail.

I'm at a loss as to what to do next?

[s7p9a2m4]

Let me recap.
You have set your D drive with xp pro as master. You have copied the boot files. You have run fixboot and fixmbr. You have tried to 'repair' but it specifies 'upgrade'. Your bios does recognize D drive as master(hd0). Your bios is set to boot the right hard drive(hd0). Your machine will still not boot.

[TopFarmer]

have you set the partition as active yet ? if not it will not boot.

[worley2]

Originally Posted by TopFarmer

have you set the partition as active yet ? if not it will not boot.

no, I haven't done that - how do I?

thanks/

[worley2]

used windows 98 boot disk and ran fdisk utility.
partition is now set as active but when I booted it up the pc went into reinstalling xp pro for some reason.
never mind, will see what happens.

thanks all for your help/