I've been fighting with dh's computer for too long now. His three year old 1T SATA drive started getting blue and green screens (I kept ignoring them, shame on me) and finally refused to boot. The final BSOD error was 0x0000008E. Tried fighting with resolving that for a while and gave up. We got a new 1T SATA drive (same brand, same size) and tried loading a backup (surprise!) of his old drive, and it won't boot. Note that I'm trying to put the new drive into the same computer, so all the hardware is the same as on the backup. I tried loading a new Windows XP install, and it works fine. While in there, we partitioned the drive. The first partition is a little over 450gb; the original drive's partition was around 430gb. I tried loading the backup using Drive XML into that partition, and it won't boot. It goes through the POST and stops at a black screen with only a cursor. The drive stops spinning and there are no other flashing lights indicating the drive is trying to do something. I can get into the BIOS, I can use other CD-based operating systems like Knoppix or Bart PE. I can see the restored image on the new drive and all its programs and files and it all looks fine. It just won't boot to Windows. I checked the properties of the partition with Knoppix and it shows that there is an active boot partition on the new drive.
This is what I've done - fixboot, fixmbr, ntdetect, bootcfg, all with every switch I could find, Windows repair (it finds the OS, tells me it fixed it, but still won't boot), manually replaced/repaired boot.ini and the NTLDR file, replaced boot-related registry files (SAM, default, and all those other ones), ran a memory test on each (4, total of 1gb) DDR2 RAM stick (they're ok), removed all USB drives and devices, disconnected the CD/DVD/Blue Ray drives, changed the boot order to try directly from the hard drive, reseated all the cards - video, USB, RAM, sound, etc., ran chkdsk three times (fixed one thing the first time through), and probably a bunch of other things I can't think of right now.
We can restore all the data he has since I can see and access all the files from the backup. I really want to try to save the apps on the backup. He's got several that can't be reinstalled - mostly online downloads or old downloads from companies who aren't around any more. And those apps are the main reason we aren't on Windows 7. If there's a way to transfer those installations, I'm listening. I'd also hate to think the backup is somehow no good. Otherwise, if you see something in my description that I missed or should adjust, or have ANYthing else I might try, pleeeeeeeeeassse let me know. Also, I've been through the forum but didn't find a solution (or tried those I did find), but if I missed one that can help, please direct me to it.
This is what I've done - fixboot, fixmbr, ntdetect, bootcfg, all with every switch I could find, Windows repair (it finds the OS, tells me it fixed it, but still won't boot), manually replaced/repaired boot.ini and the NTLDR file, replaced boot-related registry files (SAM, default, and all those other ones), ran a memory test on each (4, total of 1gb) DDR2 RAM stick (they're ok), removed all USB drives and devices, disconnected the CD/DVD/Blue Ray drives, changed the boot order to try directly from the hard drive, reseated all the cards - video, USB, RAM, sound, etc., ran chkdsk three times (fixed one thing the first time through), and probably a bunch of other things I can't think of right now.
We can restore all the data he has since I can see and access all the files from the backup. I really want to try to save the apps on the backup. He's got several that can't be reinstalled - mostly online downloads or old downloads from companies who aren't around any more. And those apps are the main reason we aren't on Windows 7. If there's a way to transfer those installations, I'm listening. I'd also hate to think the backup is somehow no good. Otherwise, if you see something in my description that I missed or should adjust, or have ANYthing else I might try, pleeeeeeeeeassse let me know. Also, I've been through the forum but didn't find a solution (or tried those I did find), but if I missed one that can help, please direct me to it.
