partimage and Windows XP

Amos H. Weatherill right_maple_nut-/E1597aS9LT10XsdtD+oqA at public.gmane.org
Mon Jan 8 23:57:39 UTC 2007


Hello, All.

I recently purchased a 120Gb HD to replace the 40 Gb HD in my laptop.
I have a multi-boot system on the 40Gb including XP, and I'm somewhat
stumped as to how to clone a Windows partition from one drive to the
other.  Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to put both drives
into a computer together, but I can boot with Knoppix or the Ultimate
Boot CD and save partition images to an external USB HD.

I booted the 40Gb HD with Ubuntu and used "partimage" to create
gzipped partition images for both Fedora Core 5 and Windows XP on the
USB HD.  I put the 120Gb into the laptop, booted Knoppix, and used
partimage to unpack both images - Windows onto hda1, the first primary
partition (it's on hda2 on the old HD).  FC5 went onto a logical
partition.  Both partitions were slightly larger than the original
partitions.  With a GRUB install and a bit of tweaking, FC5 booted
fine.  But attempting to boot XP got me the GRUB parameters on screen
and a screeching halt.  The partition is mountable and appears to have
the expected files, but won't boot.

This is a problem that I know about.  Your XP won't boot on the new drive
because you didn't make the WinXP partition hda2 like it was on the old HD.
Boot into Knoppix and mount the WinXP partition, then edit the file called
boot.ini.  You need to look at the string that tells WinXP where to find its
system partition.  The file will look something like this :

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect

The lines that you need to modify are the 3rd and 5th in the above example.
The operative part is the 'partition(1)' part of the lines.  Your file
probably has 'partition(2)' in it.  This is why Windows can't boot off the
new HD.  Change the lines to 'partition(1)' and it should work.  Don't
forget to save the file as an MS-DOS ASCII text file or windows won't
understand it.

If you have any problems with this, my E-Mail address is
'right_maple_nut-/E1597aS9LT10XsdtD+oqA at public.gmane.org' and my telephone # is 416-441-3453.

Signed.
Amos H. Weatherill.

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