XP Image Restore Problem

G'day all.

To cut a long story short, here is my problem

Senario:

I used Notton Ghost to create an image of my XP Pro machine (so i could restore it if it ever went bad)
I am running a FAT32 volume

However i did not preserve the Dirve signatures or MBR, or orriginal partition.
(stupid me) LOL

Usualy this is ok because ghost defaults eberything to "c:" anyway, however the drive i ghosted was set up as (F: ) and all software is installed under that drive letter

Problem:

When Booting I am faced with a "windwos activation proble" saying that windows had a problem accuratly checking the licence. the error code was "80090006 "

Now my copy is legal and i paid for it from my UNI book store

This problem has occured because the drive letter of my primary Boot partition has changed to C and is no longer (F)

Now i have tryed to login and can not get anywhere (it jusyt boots me out back to the login prompt)

My problem is that i ca't change it back using all i know. I can't attach remotly for some reason, so now i cannot change the needed registry keys and from my experience with the recovery console, i cannot edit the regisry from their.

I Need to change the drive letter of (C) Back to (F) with no way of loging onto the system other then the recovery console.

if anyone knows what file the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
is stored in then i might be able to use an editor to fix the issue

or if anyone has come accross this same situation then please help me out

thanks

 

I don’t think that altering drive letters in MountedDevices will help on this occasion. I’ve tried to move XP to other partitions or hard drives when the drive letter has been something other than C and have never been able to tie down the variables of why it only works on rare occasions. Clearing the MountedDevices list before making the image, or removing the NT volume ID number from the MBR always ensured a failure to be able to get past the login screen.

Why do you believe XP is trying to mount itself as C if you can’t login to see? How did you end up with XP as the F drive in the first place? Did you do the original install as part of a multiboot setup. If you could tell me the exact setup of the hard drive and its partitions that this install of XP was setup on it might help me get a better handle on things. Also, is it a new hard drive that you are trying to restore the image to?

You could try rebuilding the NT volume ID number in the MBR with the XP Recovery Console. Just run the FIXMBR command. This number is closely linked to volume drive letter allocation.

The HKLM\System part of the registry hive is stored in Systemroot\System32\Config and includes System, System.alt, System.log, System.sav.
I use the BartPE bootable CD with the Registry Editor PE plugin to edit the registry in non bootable machines.

The activation issue should not be involved in the failure to get past the login screen.

I think your best chance of success is to reproduce the original partition setup on the drive you are trying to restore XP to.


EDIT:- Of course you could try a repair install. If it works it should retain all your data and most of your programs and settitngs. If it doesn’t then restore another image and your back where you started. www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

I had exactly the same problem an hour ago, did a google, ended up here.
However, Ive got another way to fix the problem.
Refering to McTavish's post, I got my trusty Windows 98SE boot disk, booted off of it, and did an fdisk /mbr, rebooted XP and voila.

Be nice, I'm new here!

 

Moving XP

I suspect a "repair install" is what you need.

 

You were lucky. Using the old fdisk to fix an XP MBR is risky and could easily hose your machine. Better idea to follow the instructions at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314058 for using the XP Recovery Console and running the Fixmbr command.

Welcome to the forum.

 

Luck? probably. I'd just ghosted my old xp c drive to another drive. the 'other drive' had been formatted under ntfs as a slave, I needed that system up el pronto, and it was doing something completely weird on bootup, thats when i realized that the drive didnt have any mbr/boot files on it.

The fdisk I used was an updated one, microsoft's update for win98 systems to handle drives bigger than 64mb, it recognizes ntfs partitions and treats them accordingly. I have an el original copy of the fix (although its probably not available on microsoft's site anymore), if you want to have a look-see.

Thank you for the welcome.