WinXP License Error after ghost

[dude]

Configuration:

System Directory: E:\winnt\

Ok, when I ghosted my hard drive that had the sys dir (above) to a different drive, it would load up to the welcome screen of XP and then a window pops up and says "A problem is preventing windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. Error Code: 0x80090006". There's nothing but an "OK" button. You hit it and the same error comes up.

What's going on? The new system directory, I assume, is C:\. I would put it back on E:\ but I can't get into windows to confirm what drive letters it is taking up or change the drive letters to something so it'll occupy E:.

Help!!!

 

[corkyg]

Not quite sure what you are trying to do. To "ghost" a drive to another drive means to use Norton Ghost to clone HDD1 to HDD2 or vice versa. Your narrative then implies you are talking about partitions, not drives.

If that is the case, your "ghosted" copy will have a screwed up registry. What exactly is the end game here?

I clone my main HDD every week to a backup identical HDD. Even then, when I boot to the backup drive, Windows has to "find new hardware." The hardware hash is very sensitive and will only accept a moderate level of change at any one time. Suffice it to say, I don't use Norton Ghost to clone the drives. I use Drive Copy 4.0 with its own boot disk so that Windows is not involved at all in the cloning process. No interference that way! It will also let you hide the backup drive so none of the letters change.

 

[dude]

Yes, I'm trying to copy just a partition. Yes, it's Norton Ghost. Ghost does a sector by sector copy, not file by file, so I do get a complete original copy of the original drive/partition.

The "end game" here is to copy partition 1 on my 75GXP to my partition 1 on 60GXP. It all goes well until I plug up the 60GXP and it gives me the "license error code". I can't get any further than this. It's definately not trying, I assume, to do a "hash" of the hardware because, I assume this will prompt me to dial "home" to MicroSoft, which would require me to actually get into Windows.

I don't go through windows to clone my drive. I use the self booting Ghost disk. I clone a copy of the partition to the new drive.

I can do this with any Windows 9x or ME machine without any disk utilities. I can use Windows and make an exact copy of the drive being cloned (except for the 386.swp file of course). That, I've done numerous times from people I help upgrade to faster/larger hard drives. Unfortunately, for any WinNT (2000 and XP included), this method doesn't work at all because of certain files having to be located at certain places. I have done a Ghost of other WinXP systems but they all had their winnt directories on C: drive.

I tried moving drives around and it still doesn't work (to make it think it changed drive letters).

The funny thing is, if I put the old drive back in (or any Ghosted copy of it) on any drive (which we'll call ghost2), and have that drive I want to use to boot up ( which we'll call ghost1), it will, and I can't delete the ghost2 partition. If I shut down and remove ghost2, it won't work and come up with the license error again. I have a feeling it's reading something from ghost2 for some reason...

I also tried to boot of fthe XP CD and "fix" errors but it does so and then reboots with the same "license error".

What gives?