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[irashapiro]

Using Ghost 10 but the situation applies to all ghost versions:

Need to copy my C drive to a new, larger drive.  C now has 2 OEM utility partitions that do not have drive letters.  One is FAT and is 55MB (yes, that is MB, not GB) in size.  The other is FAT32 and is 3.16GB in size. The C partition is about 160GB NTFS.  The new drive is 500GB. When I ignore the 2 utility partitions and copy my hard drive C partition to the new, bare, unformatted drive, I choose to expand to use all available space, set partition active, and copy MBR.  First question:  Should a drive letter be chosen for the destination drive?  Letter C is not available since it is in use by the current boot drive.  After copying, the new drive will not boot.  "Windows could not start because of a
computer disk hardware configuration problem".  Microsoft article says this may be due to a defect in the boot.ini file. Looking at this file, the original says that partition (2) is the windows partition (remember there are 2 utility partitions). The boot.ini got copied to the new hard drive where the windows partition is really partition (0).  This generates the
error.  I edited the boot.ini on the destination drive to say
the windows partition is (0), not (2).  Now it won't boot and has a HAL.DLL corrupt error. Now my other questions:  Should I first copy each of the utility partitions to the new hard drive so that C remains partion (2)?  Once I do that, will I be able to use the full amount of remaining space on the new hard drive for my C partition?  I believe that once the drive has partitions, the option to expand to fill the available space is no longer available.

[Brian_K · Accepted solution]

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irashapiro wrote: I edited the boot.ini on the destination drive to say

the windows partition is (0), not (2). 

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irashapiro,

You have done well. Make boot.ini partition(1) and WinXP will boot. There are two places in the boot.ini to make it partition(1)

Let us know what happens.

[irashapiro]

Brian_K:  I really appreciate the quick reply. 

So I guess I can't count!  I figured the partitions were 0,1,and 2 knowing there were 2 utility partitions on the original drive.  Is my counting method incorrect? Please explain your counting method and why partition (1) is the correct choice.  I am aware that the change needs to be in two places in boot.ini.   I will try your suggestion and get back to you, but it will not be till the weekend as the system is at a different location than where I am. 

How about the other questions:  Is it correct to assign a drive letter during the drive copy or should "no letter" be the choice?

Is it possible to restore the utility partitions, one at a time, and then follow with the C partition and "expand to use all available space" for the C partition?  I seem to remember that the "expand" option greys out if there are any partitions already on the new drive.

Lastly, why did the boot.ini issue occur?  Should I have expected Ghost to "adjust" the partition number?  Do the more current versions of Ghost take care of this issue automatically.

Thanks  again.

[Brian_K]

For general information, there are two boot.ini errors....

1   "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."

You get this error when boot.ini on the active partition is pointing to an empty MBR slot (is pointing to a non-existent partition, rather than the one where Windows is installed)

2  "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:<Windows directory>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file."

You get this error when boot.ini on the active partition is pointing to a non bootable partition

partition(2) is a non-existent partition

There is no partition(0). Numbering starts at partition(1). So I guess the error for this is the hal.dll one. Non bootable.

The numbers refer to the relative position of the primary partitions in the partition table. So if you had WinXP as the only primary partition and it was in Slot 3 of the partition table, it would be partition(1) in the boot.ini. Numbering is NOT related to the physical position of the partition on the HD.

[Brian_K]

We posted at the same time. I guess you have a Dell. Personally I wouldn't bother about those two partitions. You can run Diagnostics from the Dell CD and you don't need the Recovery Partition as you have Ghost.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=159

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873

[irashapiro]

Perfect and understood.  Thanks for the details. 

Sorry to repeat, but do you have any answers for the other questions I posed?

Thanks again!

[Brian_K]

How about the other questions:  Is it correct to assign a drive letter during the drive copy or should "no letter" be the choice?

No drive letter.

Is it possible to restore the utility partitions, one at a time, and then follow with the C partition and "expand to use all available space" for the C partition?  I seem to remember that the "expand" option greys out if there are any partitions already on the new drive.

As long as the big partition is restored last

Should I have expected Ghost to "adjust" the partition number?  Do the more current versions of Ghost take care of this issue automatically.

They should, but not always.

[irashapiro]

You have been SO very helpful.  I'll post my results asap.

Thanks.

[irashapiro]

DONE!  The partition # in the boot.ini file was the problem.  Thanks for your help!  I learned something here and that's never bad.

Ira

[irashapiro]

One more note that may help others.  I assumed that the original C drive partitions were in order Dell Utility, Dell Restore, and C.  That is NOT correct.  The Dell Restore partition is at the end of the drive, after the C partition.  That's what made the numbering even more confusing.  Dell Utility is partition #1, C: is partition #2 (hence the 2 in the original boot.ini file).

Ira