System specs: Windows XP sp3 (upgraded from Windows ME) Athlon 64 /512 mg ram. My Hard drive is almost full 32gb of 38.1g. Original disk works perfectly. I have a VERY expensive custom-made database system that I cannot afford to lose. I’ve cloned my hard drive at least 30 times to 7 or 8 different hard drives (160gb-320gb)and can’t get a bootable disk. I’ve cloned with Acronis, Xxclone and Partition Commander 10 Professional (I lost the key to re-install this one can’t find it with Key Finder, SIW, Belarc etc..) When I put the hard drives in an enclosure, everything tests perfectly. No errors and I can use all of the programs, I just can’t boot from the clone. I thought that maybe because the file system was FAT32, so I upgraded to NFTS, still no luck. I tried the first “r” in repair on XP disk (Fix MBR/Fix Boot/ Rebuild MBR “Rebuild failed”) then the second “r” install says it can’t find windows. I’ve used Bart PE, windows ’98 and Millennium boot disks , BootMe, ERD Commander and Partition Commander. I can get into windows with all of these, but they all say that there are no errors. I’ve toggled the drive letter-unmounted and remounted-to letter C, “corrected” the MBR, used a “Model” MBR ect. with these programs (each time I used a new clone). My boot.ini looks like this:
[boot loader] timeout = 30 default = multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
I can find this on the clone in the boot.ini backup and “My Documents and Settings”, but not in the configuration files. I don’t know how to put it there. I’ve tried changing some of the spacing and switching “fastdetect” and “NoExecute = OptIn” around like in the “Model” boot files to no avail. This is making me crazy!!! I did a clone on an identical system FAT32 (both made by my ex-guru who had a career change) and it cloned fine. The only difference between this one and the one that cloned was this one was originally Windows ME and not XP. I really don’t know much about writing boot codes myself. Please help!! Also I lost the key to my Visual Basic 6.0 disk that I need to make the database program work if I use my hard drive in an enclosure on another machine. I saw a Key Finder program that says it finds the key to VB server 2003, but doesn’t say if it can find VB 6.0. any suggestions? I’m really sorry that this is so long.