Windows XP not booting after restoring hard drive image [solved!]

Ninox

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Feb 13, 2013
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10,510
Hello,

My hard drive started failing, so I bought a 1 TB WD Green to replace it. I backed up everything on the old hard disk to two different locations before inserting the new hard drive -- a secondary internal hard drive and a portable external hard drive. However, I've had nothing but problems with transferring the contents of my old hard drive to the new one.

I was hoping in restoring everything from my old hard drive to my new one using Macrium Reflect Free, but so far, neither of the two main methods have worked. I tried using a Windows PE disk to restore an image on my portable hard drive, and after the program was done, Windows XP wouldn't boot up -- after the green Gateway text appeared and disappeared, all I got was a blinking place marker on a black screen. I reinstalled Windows XP, created a Linux Rescue CD and tried restoring an image using it, but I got the exact same result.

The only reason I can think why this might be happening is that I created an image of my portable hard drive's contents (since I didn't realize I needed to make an image until after replacing my main hard drive), but I don't know if this really is the source of my problems. Another thing I suppose I should add is that in many of the tutorials for this process, I noticed that partitions were mentioned. My hard drive has only one partition, but I don't know whether that is relevant to this situation or not.

Any help or advice with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Solution
How do you backup your data to the two HD? Using the software? Or just copy and paste?

If use the software, that means the backup don't complete or something wrong. If you just copy and paste, then it is the problem because you left some windows registry files behind.

Anyway you need start again to backup the data to the new green 1 TB HDD. You can use the WD software " Acronis True Image WD Edition Software" to copy the whole drive to the new one, if the old drive is still working.
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
How do you backup your data to the two HD? Using the software? Or just copy and paste?

If use the software, that means the backup don't complete or something wrong. If you just copy and paste, then it is the problem because you left some windows registry files behind.

Anyway you need start again to backup the data to the new green 1 TB HDD. You can use the WD software " Acronis True Image WD Edition Software" to copy the whole drive to the new one, if the old drive is still working.
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
 
Solution

Ninox

Honorable
Feb 13, 2013
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10,510
I didn't use copy and paste -- I used Macrium Reflect to create an image of my hard drive, then tried restoring the image using the two available methods. Neither method showed any sign that there was something wrong with the image; everything went perfectly find until I rebooted my computer. (I also tried replacing the hard drive with the secondary hard drive [which has an exact copy of the old hard drive on it] and encountered the exact same problem.)

EDIT: I had a look at Acronis, and I'm currently attempting to create a clone of my old hard drive with it.
 

Ninox

Honorable
Feb 13, 2013
6
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10,510
Cin19, your post provided me with more help than the numerous other forums and websites I've been searching these last few days. Acronis True Image WD Edition did the job -- I plugged in my old hard drive, made a clone of it on my new hard drive and plugged the new one in. I now have a new working hard drive with Windows XP and all my programs and settings installed on it.

I was afraid that I'd have to pay an expert to transfer the contents of my old hard drive to my new one, but you pretty much fixed everything for me with just one link. Thank you very much for your help!