[SOLVED] Cloned multiboot; Puppy boots, Windows won’t start

[Sp3ctre18]

Well, not really solved; basically, if the fixes offered below don't work, you just have to re-install everything. Puppy was fine so I just reinstalled Xp, then DOS, then restored GRUB.

Well it's been a while since I've kept the Puppy PC aside for a while, but now I'm back.

So this may be more of a Windows question but Puppy Linux is one of my OSs here so if I need to do anything with grub or even windows files, it may be through Puppy and other linux utils - plus you guys deal with boot issues all the time, lol.

Here's the situation. I've got an old Compaq presario desktop 5035 from like '96 and I have a triple boot on it with Dos, Windows XP, and Puppy Linux (partitions 1 -3 respectively). Computer boots to grub, and I can boot to Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 (frugal, with settings/pref files on the HDD). I can also choose to run the Windows loader, and choose either DOS 6.22 or Windows XP. All works perfectly.

But Windows XP can crawl with a couple of programs and even Puppy is a little laggy. So, I figured I would clone the whole hard drive to a newer and bigger one in a newer and better PC - a Dell Pptiplex GX270. I just did a clone of another PCs hard drive to upgrade to a bigger hard drive, and that worked perfectly. Easy swap. (This was all with Clonezilla, and I did confirm for it to copy boot files / MBR or whatever)

Here, it's a swap + new machine. Not so good. I'm self taught on all this OS work from experience, google, and forums, so I don't know for sure, but I didn't think hardware change would affect the boot, although I guess it's plausible.

Puppy boots fine, and gparted confirms the hard drive is at least partitioned the same way as before + the extra unallocated space of the bigger hard drive. I later joined that space to the linux partition, made no difference. Boot flag is on Partition 2 (and works on the older computer), but I tried changing it around on this PC, but its location doesn't make a difference.

When I tried choosing my Windows bootloader entry in GRUB, I just see "Starting up" and nothing else; have to ctrl-alt-del to restart.

I've redone my research on working with menu.lst and boot.ini, and I have no improvement other than getting slightly past "starting up" to "NTLDR is missing" when I point things to the wrong place.

I could probably get everything fixed by just reinstalling but, I'd rather troubleshoot since this setup works fine on the other computer and for my own learning and experience.

Actually, even if I Attach the original hard drive, I have the same problem, so it does make me think it's because of the hardware. Is that it? How come? Can I solve this? I could probably end this post here but since I had some other info preparesd for my own references, I'll include it here.

Here are the files on the partitions' root folders; I'll skip files I know are for something else (ie, DOS programs) but I'll keep anything i'm not sure about.

sda1:
boot.ini
bootsect.dos
command.com
config.sys
drvspace.bin
io.sys
msdos.sys
msinput.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr
pagefile.sys
wina20.386

sda2:
WINDOWS folder
pagefile.sys

Here are my boot files. (ignore titles and stuff commented out; I'm not caring for them, they're not accurate)

Here's the menu.lst that worked PERFECTLY on the other HDD / PC:

#GRUB configuration file
color light-gray/black black/light-gray
#default=0
#timeout=30
#splashimage=/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#gfxmenu /boot/grub/message
#Windows boot part begins
title MS DOS & WIndows XP Pro (on /dev/sda2)
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot
#Windows boot part ends
##########################################
#Customized boot part begins
# title Windows XP (on /dev/sda2)
# root (hd0,1)
# map (hd0,0) (hd0,1)
# map (hd0,1) (hd0,0)
# chainloader +1

#Customized boot part ends
##########################################
#Linux boot part begins
title Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 Frugal (on /dev/sda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /LuPu525/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd pdev1=sda3
initrd /LuPu525/initrd.gz
boot
#Linux boot part ends
##########################################
#Customized boot part begins
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
root (hd0,2)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.

#Customized boot part ends
##########################################
#Customized boot part begins
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda3)
root (hd0,2)
setup (hd0,2)
pause Press enter to continue.

#Customized boot part ends
##########################################
#Customized boot part begins
title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)

#Customized boot part ends
##########################################
#Customized boot part begins
title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

#Customized boot part ends
##########################################

Here is boot.ini which is on the 1st partition:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\ = "MS-DOS 6.22"

NOTE: If I can get this multiboot worked out, I actually plan to upgrade XP to Windows 7. I've actually tried it already and it seems Windows 7 runs fine on here. Just saying in case that affects what I should do next.

Thanks; hope you guys have some idea.

[rcrsn51]

My first guess is that you need to rebuild the partition boot sector of sda2 to match the new hard drive geometry. Assuming that it is formatted as NTFS, install the attached PET and run

Code: Select all

partclone.ntfsfixboot -w /dev/sda2

However, Windows doesn't like being moved to new hardware, so there's no guarantee that it will boot successfully after this fix.

[jafadmin]

I'd bet the problem is with how the BIOS on the two machines "see" the HDD. That's about the right age difference for LBA to be an issue.

[Sp3ctre18]

run

Code: Select all

partclone.ntfsfixboot -w /dev/sda2

"No changes necessary."

Should it really be on sda2? I thought all boot stuff was usually on at the beginning of the drive and on sda1?
And yes, Sda2 is NTFS. Partitions are FAT16, NTFS, and ext3

I'd bet the problem is with how the BIOS on the two machines "see" the HDD. That's about the right age difference for LBA to be an issue.

I don't know if you guys are both referring to the same overall thing or not, but that sounds more like I would suspect, because I'm pretty sure the hard drive has nothing to do with this. Neither hard drive works on this PC, so I would definitely suspect the newer hardware and BIOS of the PC as having issues with the hard drive configuration.

[rcrsn51]

so I would definitely suspect the newer hardware and BIOS of the PC as having issues with the hard drive configuration.

Yes. If you clone a Windows install to a new machine with an entirely different motherboard and chipset, it will just hang up. The new machine is trying to boot with the old hardware configuration and it is too much of a mismatch.

[Sp3ctre18]

So, do I really have to reinstall Windows and DOS, or should there be a way to make it work?

[sfeeley]

Unfortunately you probably have to reload xp.(moving machines may be theoretically possible but certainly from searching the web seems super hard) A fresh install will probably run faster if that helps you feel better.

If you think you will be changing machines a lot it might be worth putting windows into a virtual box ( either in puppy or as a portable). Not done it myself but pretty common I think

[Sylvander]

I'm no super expert, but...

1. You are attempting to boot a Windows installation that is matched to the old hardware, and therefore has drivers installed to operate the old hardware, but NOT the new.
So...

2. How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

3 You would need to slipsteam an XP CD to include the drivers for your new PC hardware.
This so that during the repair, the Windows disk has available to it all the drivers needed for the new hardware, and so is able to install them.
How to Slipstream Device Drivers.
Also...

4. If the new HDD is a SATA...
How to Slipstream XP With Raid Drivers
This so that XP is able to access the SATA HDD, otherwise the attempted repair access isn't possible.

5. And if/once XP is repaired and fully-functioning...
You'd need to go online to Microsoft and do the necessary to register the new hardware as the legal new hardware on which the XP is to work.
Otherwise it will disable itself after a certain period.
It was 30 days at one time; not sure how long you get now.

[Sp3ctre18]

Thanks guys. Yeah, that's a bit too much to go through. Like I said, I don't really mind re-installing; I was just hoping some magic could be done somehow, hehe, but I guess not. I've done two similar cloning and moving operations that worked fine, but I guess the hardware differences here are just too much.

I should still have some documentation at hand to make sure I know in what order to install everything. Any issues, I'll post back here. Once all is good I'll mark the topic solved.

For my understanding, could someone explain the issue just a little bit more? If we call out the hardware miss match, where exactly may the problem lie? BIOS settings? Could it really be CHS vs LBA issues? Would such problems be on BIOS or in boot files such as ntldr?

Or is it more about drivers on the Windows side? I recently put the hard drive of a Dell dv5 laptop (with windows 7) into a dv7, and it worked fine - after apparently installing drivers for EVERYTHNG, it seemed. Why didn't that happen here? Necessary drivers too dissimilar? Win XP not as able to handle such the switch?

Why did Grub not have a problem, being the primary boot loader?

[Sylvander]

1. Dell OptiPlex GX270 specification PDF file.

Looks like this was originally supplied with XP installed, so an XP disk probably includes drivers for this hardware.
Hence, you may be able to do a repair without the need to slipstream extra drivers.
Try it and see.
It may still be necessary to slipstream the final service pack = SP3?

2. My understanding, for what it's worth:
(a) When Windows XP is being installed on hardware that existed when XP was made...
The XP disk would probably include drivers for that particular hardware.
Hence...
(b) During the installation...
The Windows Setup program detects the hardware, and installs appropriate drivers, if it has them, and all is well.
But...
(c) If there are no drivers on the disk for 1 or more items of hardware...
[Because the hardware didn't exist when XP was made?]
XP would be unable to install drivers for the problem item[s] of hardware.
Then...
(d) When Setup goes to the 2nd stage of the installation...
Where it attempts to boot the newly installed system of Windows files inside the "Windows" folder [after it attempts to "initialize" the hardware, using the installed drivers]...
If it is unable to initialize any item of hardware...
Because there is no driver installed?
The process will freeze.
And...
(e) The user is [or used to be in older versions of Windows like Win95] expected to power-off, then power-back-on...
And the Setup will resume...
And Windows will know which initialization failed, from the record it keeps during the operations....
And it will auto-skip the initialization of that hardware item, and proceed to the next item.
And if that item initialization succeeds, all is well, but if it fails, again it would halt, and again the user should power-off etc, until all initializations are complete, and XP reaches the desktop.
(f) XP is now installed...
With all drivers installed that were available on the CD.
But...
(g) If any drivers are missing...
Those items of hardware will not be functioning....
As should be seen in device manager, and they could be installed there if XP is functioning well enough to do it.
Hopefully, these are not VITAL items, the absence of which would cause the PC to be unable to load XP, or unable to function.
In such instances, the necessary drivers would need to be slipstreamed into the XP disk.

[John Doe]

I moved an XP install to new hardware once successfully, but I had the full set of drivers from this tool bundled in:

http://driverpacks.net/

It also required two reboots and a lot of luck. The driver wizard actually froze up on the first boot and the keyboard and mouse only started working after the second reboot.

Best of luck.

[Sp3ctre18]

Thanks Sylvander, yeah that adds a bit more to my understanding.

To both of you, yeah bundling the drivers or slip-streaming or whatever wasn't really worth the effort. Like I said, I was just hoping there was a way to do some magic and make some things work, but I guess not.

Reinstalled XP, reinstalled DOS, and restored GRUB, and all is good.