Moved XP partition to another HD, but can't boot into XP now

[hydroponik]

So prior to installing Windows 7, i moved my XP partition to a second hard drive. I thought the W7 installer would detect my XP partition but it didn't, so my option boot options are for Windows 7 or the recovery mode.

I went into easybcd and added an option for Windows XP, and set it to drive Z: (which is where my xp partition is located inside Windows 7). I rebooted and tried to load XP, but it just stays at a blank screen.

I have copied the ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini from the XP partition to the Windows 7 root drive as well. How can I fix this so I can load XP?

 

[Billb2]

You can't "copy a partition" and still have it be bootable.

If you could do that, MS would soon be loosing a lot of money on OS sales.

 

[hydroponik]

It was cloned using EASEUS. I think there is something wrong with the boot files, but not exactly sure how to fix it.

 

[nod218]

If you moved it to another drive, did you try fixing the mbr ?

 

[hydroponik]

Can I fix the MBR using the W7 dvd? I didn't want to do anything crazy and then have both of the windows not being able to boot.

 

[hydroponik]

Ok, i edited the boot.ini and changed "rboot(0)" to "rboot(1)" and now it will boot XP, however once it loads, it goes into the Easeus clone screen. Apparently I never went back into XP so it thinks there is still a pending operation, and tells me to reboot.

So I reboot, and it still boots up XP, however once it loads windows, I just get a blank screen. Does anyone know what's wrong here?

 

[postmortemIA]

you don't get how it works. xp installation expect it to be on first hard drive, first partition. no cloning will make that happen since it is on SECOND drive now. best you can do is set boot order so that 2nd drive is primary boot device, that might work.

additionally, mbr on second drive is probably not existent unless cloning app did it for you.

 

[hydroponik]

I already tried using the second HD as the primary boot, but it just tells me to boot from CD, which probably means no MBR on the 2nd HD. There has to be some way to make XP bootable...

 

[postmortemIA]

yes, and it is to restore mbr by using fixmbr and fixboot commands. these can be ran from Repair option when you boot from XP CD.

 

[hydroponik]

But wouldn't using the xp repair option mess up the windows 7 bootloader? I still want to be able to dual boot.

 

[postmortemIA]

it shouldn't but to be safe disconnect the w7 drive before you try it

 

[hydroponik]

Let me try when I get home from work, will let you know how it turns out.