«

If your old windows partition was G: then either the new partition must be
g; or you need to fix it.
If you change windows partition drive letter you will break many things that
wrongly record the drive letter in paths. Within windows (non server
versions), it uses %systemdrive%, %systemroot% etc to make these mappings
dynamic, but there are always cases where this rule has not been followed -
EG 3rd party apps etc etc etc. (With server versions, there is some security
to ensure that someone cannot pinch and use a backup easily).

There is an MS KB article on how to fix this - that will get windows going
but is likely to leave a big mess for user world apps. So I would not
recommend this. It requires a regedit.

My advice would be to fdisk the new drive and move existing C partition then
D partition etc in order making sure that you do all the partition creates
and moves in 1 clean sequence. EG if you create partition C then D then
delete C then recreate C then D will/may be C and C will be E - well, thats
how you get drive letters stuffed up...

This may leave you with a stuffed MBR / boot config. You can fix that off
the windows CD easily - on the first menu for windows install, you don't
select the 1st option and select later the option to fix the boot config.
You can fix it with a stock repair install, but that will require you to
reapply service packs and critical updates too so is overkill (and
re-register).

If the net affect of the drive change is only the drive change then you
should not be prompted to reactivate if all is done correctly - but if it
does require it, don't worry about it & just do it.

HTH


"Peter Huebner" <> wrote in message
news: .co.nz...
> So I finally got that 250 Gb drive, divvied it up into 5 partitions and
> copied all my existing drives into the appropriate places.
>
> I have so far used Partition Magic 8 and Norton Ghost to copy the boot
> drive over. Ghost has the option of copying the MBR which I took, PM8
> instead reset the computer and did a batch copy job. Nothing mentioned
> about MBR there.
>
> Alas, alack, I am not getting much joy after I shut down, disconnect the
> old drives and try to boot from the new one.
> After 2 hours of sporadic disk activity it was still sitting on the
> light blue screen without getting any further.
>
> Tried a repair-install after booting off the CD. Again, very slow
> booting, eventually got to logon screen, tried to log in only to be told
> I need to activate windows since there is some doubt about my license.
> Course, the activation doesn't fsking work, probably because it hasn't
> loaded my firewall yet, or doesn't allow me to see the firewall
> interface to give permission or whatever. Great. I've always known why I
> was such a great fan of all that DRM and activation shite.
>
> Plugged the old drives back in, re-copied the boot partition. Unplugged
> them.
> Again, the new drive alone won't finish booting. I tried to boot into
> safe mode, but that, also , won't work - it gets stuck on the light blue
> screen again. Nor will it boot into safe mode with command prompt.
>
> One possible issue might be that Windows allocated the drive letter G to
> what is now the new C partition. But that shouldn't matter booting to
> safe mode, right?!?
>
> About the only thing I can see is to do a repair install again, and try
> telephone activation. Except I have no idea what the (phone)number is
> and of course they won't be there on the weekend anyhow.
>
> Any useful suggestions how this might be solved locally, with software,
> before Monday?
>
> -Peter

Brendan wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:37:14 +1200, Peter Huebner wrote:
>
>> So I finally got that 250 Gb drive, divvied it up into 5 partitions
>> and copied all my existing drives into the appropriate places.
>
> 5 Partitions ??? I'd have had a 5 gig C: and the rest as d:.

This is what I did, but then had to re-size it to 8GB. I like to put certain
apps on the C: drive, apps like AV etc. 8GB isn't too big to back-up.

<snip some valid comments>

> Yes.
>
> 1. Install the 250 as the master drive on the primary controller. Put
> the old boot drive as the slave.
>
> 2. Boot into ghost. Select to clone the WHOLE ****ing (old) DRIVE,
> partition table, mbr, the whole thing - to the 250. From DOS. Not
> windows.

Here I differ. I would install the 250 as a slave, make a partition on it
the same size, or slightly bigger than the old C: drive, then copy C: to
that with ghost. (Leave the rest of the drive unallocated for now. Then the
old C: drive can be removed, the new one put in it's place and other drive's
contents copied over to partitions created within XP. Always worked for me,
reactivation not required.

Otherwise excellent advice. I just differ on the methodology.
--
~misfit~

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:31:55 +1200, "Mercury" <> wrote:

>If your old windows partition was G: then either the new partition must be
>g; or you need to fix it.




The boot.ini file tell XP ware is it..


>If you change windows partition drive letter you will break many things that
>wrongly record the drive letter in paths. Within windows (non server
>versions), it uses %systemdrive%, %systemroot% etc to make these mappings
>dynamic, but there are always cases where this rule has not been followed -
>EG 3rd party apps etc etc etc. (With server versions, there is some security
>to ensure that someone cannot pinch and use a backup easily).
>
>There is an MS KB article on how to fix this - that will get windows going
>but is likely to leave a big mess for user world apps. So I would not
>recommend this. It requires a regedit.
>
>My advice would be to fdisk the new drive and move existing C partition then
>D partition etc in order making sure that you do all the partition creates
>and moves in 1 clean sequence. EG if you create partition C then D then
>delete C then recreate C then D will/may be C and C will be E - well, thats
>how you get drive letters stuffed up...
>
>This may leave you with a stuffed MBR / boot config. You can fix that off
>the windows CD easily - on the first menu for windows install, you don't
>select the 1st option and select later the option to fix the boot config.
>You can fix it with a stock repair install, but that will require you to
>reapply service packs and critical updates too so is overkill (and
>re-register).
>
>If the net affect of the drive change is only the drive change then you
>should not be prompted to reactivate if all is done correctly - but if it
>does require it, don't worry about it & just do it.
>
>HTH
>
>
>"Peter Huebner" <> wrote in message
>news: a.co.nz...
>> So I finally got that 250 Gb drive, divvied it up into 5 partitions and
>> copied all my existing drives into the appropriate places.
>>
>> I have so far used Partition Magic 8 and Norton Ghost to copy the boot
>> drive over. Ghost has the option of copying the MBR which I took, PM8
>> instead reset the computer and did a batch copy job. Nothing mentioned
>> about MBR there.
>>
>> Alas, alack, I am not getting much joy after I shut down, disconnect the
>> old drives and try to boot from the new one.
>> After 2 hours of sporadic disk activity it was still sitting on the
>> light blue screen without getting any further.
>>
>> Tried a repair-install after booting off the CD. Again, very slow
>> booting, eventually got to logon screen, tried to log in only to be told
>> I need to activate windows since there is some doubt about my license.
>> Course, the activation doesn't fsking work, probably because it hasn't
>> loaded my firewall yet, or doesn't allow me to see the firewall
>> interface to give permission or whatever. Great. I've always known why I
>> was such a great fan of all that DRM and activation shite.
>>
>> Plugged the old drives back in, re-copied the boot partition. Unplugged
>> them.
>> Again, the new drive alone won't finish booting. I tried to boot into
>> safe mode, but that, also , won't work - it gets stuck on the light blue
>> screen again. Nor will it boot into safe mode with command prompt.
>>
>> One possible issue might be that Windows allocated the drive letter G to
>> what is now the new C partition. But that shouldn't matter booting to
>> safe mode, right?!?
>>
>> About the only thing I can see is to do a repair install again, and try
>> telephone activation. Except I have no idea what the (phone)number is
>> and of course they won't be there on the weekend anyhow.
>>
>> Any useful suggestions how this might be solved locally, with software,
>> before Monday?
>>
>> -Peter
>

Tony wrote the following:

> The boot.ini file tell XP ware is it..

There is more to XP than just its own boot loader, kernel and a swag of
device drivers. There are numerous subsystems, file paths, services,
optional programs, recently used file lists, shortcuts, then special folders
to name a few. Add to that installed s/w with registered classes pointing to
G:\... and nothing much will work unless it is reinstalled - or the drive
letter reverted.

So are you trying to tell the world that since the path to windows - which
will be wrong if the partition has moved ordinal position on the HDD - is in
the boot.ini, that all the above issues with software that has to date
recorded "g:\...somepath..." in numerous places including the registry, that
somehow this gets magically fixed? It doesn't unless everywhere a path to
the system drive is recorded is recorded as %systemdrive%\some-path. Simply,
this does not happen unless the s/w doing this is part of windows itself...
Even then, 3rd party drivers are prone to not following the rules esp. if
they are not WHQL'd.

Drive letters are an abstraction of the physical storage. Not the other way
around. Move the physical storage and you break the abstraction. Most of the
time this is easy to fix (assign a drive letter) however for an OS disc this
is usually not the case.

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:41:43 +1200, Tony wrote:

> The boot.ini file tell XP ware is it..

There is so much wrong with that string of words that it can hardly be
called an English sentence!


Bling Bling

--
IBM: "Linux is not just another operating system. It represents a
collaboration of the best programmers in the industry coming together to
create an operating system that works on any hardware platform."

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:02:30 +1200, ~misfit~ wrote:

>> 5 Partitions ??? I'd have had a 5 gig C: and the rest as d:.
>
> This is what I did, but then had to re-size it to 8GB. I like to put certain
> apps on the C: drive, apps like AV etc. 8GB isn't too big to back-up.

8gb is ok. I will allow it

>> Yes.
>>
>> 1. Install the 250 as the master drive on the primary controller. Put
>> the old boot drive as the slave.
>>
>> 2. Boot into ghost. Select to clone the WHOLE ****ing (old) DRIVE,
>> partition table, mbr, the whole thing - to the 250. From DOS. Not
>> windows.
>
> Here I differ. I would install the 250 as a slave, make a partition on it
> the same size, or slightly bigger than the old C: drive, then copy C: to
> that with ghost. (Leave the rest of the drive unallocated for now. Then the
> old C: drive can be removed, the new one put in it's place and other drive's
> contents copied over to partitions created within XP. Always worked for me,
> reactivation not required.

This did not work when Peter tried it.

When you did it, were you using proper NTFS drives or partitions converted
from original DOS ones ?

--

.... Brendan

334331 +(4902)- [X]

<LordChewy> so my dad found my porn folder
<LordChewy> and he was getting all ****ed
<LordChewy> so its all like "does this surprise you? i'm not stupid you
know"
<LordChewy> "i know dad"
<LordChewy> "what do you have to say for yourself?"
<LordChewy> at this point i stare at him straight in the eyes and say
"Cocuments and SettingsRickyMy Documentsfaxessent faxes"
<LordChewy> and he just shut up
<kingKahn> what is it?
<LordChewy> its his porn folder


Note: All my comments are copyright 19/06/2005 6:11:50 p.m. and are opinion only where not otherwise stated and always "to the best of my recollection". www.computerman.orcon.net.nz.

In article <> in nz.comp on
Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:41:43 +1200, Tony <> says...
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:31:55 +1200, "Mercury" <> wrote:
>
> >If your old windows partition was G: then either the new partition must be
> >g; or you need to fix it.
>
>
>
>
> The boot.ini file tell XP ware is it..

Correct and it uses ARC format for XP
e.g.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot.ini

In article <. nz> in
nz.comp on Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:37:14 +1200, Peter Huebner
<> says...
> So I finally got that 250 Gb drive, divvied it up into 5 partitions and
> copied all my existing drives into the appropriate places.
>
> I have so far used Partition Magic 8 and Norton Ghost to copy the boot
> drive over. Ghost has the option of copying the MBR which I took, PM8
> instead reset the computer and did a batch copy job. Nothing mentioned
> about MBR there.
>
> Alas, alack, I am not getting much joy after I shut down, disconnect the
> old drives and try to boot from the new one.
> After 2 hours of sporadic disk activity it was still sitting on the
> light blue screen without getting any further.

Why five partitions. What do you gain by this?

Ghost will have no trouble at all if you just ghost the old drive and
load the image onto the new one. Try that.

In article <> ,
am says...
>
> Why five partitions. What do you gain by this?

I am collating 3 drives with a total of 7 partitions. 3 of those I am
amalgamating since they're mostly archived files plus the mail drive
which goes by its sharename anyway (as far as the server is concernet)
and not by drive letter. The other partitions are there to preserve
paths in software. I can't be shagged to go through all my software with
a fine toothed comb and reset all the paths for working directories et
cetera.

> Ghost will have no trouble at all if you just ghost the old drive and
> load the image onto the new one. Try that.
>

My situation with Ghost is a bit embarrasing. I bought it 'new' via
trademe, as part of Norton Sysworks Premier. It's legit, no probs,
activates fine. Should've had a separate boot CD with it for Ghost, but
didn't. The seller claims never to've heard about the separate boot disk
and I cannot really refute him since I've seen quite a few complaints on
webforums that people bought the same software package and didn't get
the boot CD in the box.
One guy said he took it back to the shop and they opened every box on
the shelf and none had the boot CD. Go figure. So one thing I cannot do
with my bloody 'Ghost' is to burn a disk image and restore it from the
'recovery environment'.
Haven't been able to find an .iso of that disk; not that I've looked all
THAT hard. Doesn't seem to be on Symantec's site anyhow.

I'll see if I can find another way around that drive letter problem.

-P.

Now..... when a person shuffles the partitions on the disc, the arc paths
are wrong or did you forget that?
Then add in to the mix that the drive letters may have been changed and the
flow on consequences for installed apps, registry values etc and you have
quite a mess.

arc paths are the least of the problems as they can be fixed automatically.

some handy commands:

msconfig
bootcfg

msconfig can automatically fix some errors in a stuffed up boot.ini. If you
wish to manually edit it you can with notepad, but an easier and less error
prone way is to use msconfig or bootcfg from the command line. MSConfig is
the preferred way for non-experts these days.

- Tim

"Rob J" <> wrote in message
news: z...
> In article <> in nz.comp on
> Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:41:43 +1200, Tony <> says...
>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:31:55 +1200, "Mercury" <> wrote:
>>
>> >If your old windows partition was G: then either the new partition must
>> >be
>> >g; or you need to fix it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The boot.ini file tell XP ware is it..
>
> Correct and it uses ARC format for XP
> e.g.
> [boot loader]
> timeout=30
> default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
> [operating systems]
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP
> Professional" /fastdetect
> C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"
>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot.ini
>
>