Unable To Boot XP-Pro After Hardware Upgrade

Question

Unable To Boot XP-Pro After Hardware Upgrade

I have an E-Machines ETower system that I wish to keep in
service for another year or two.

  Pentium 533 MHz
  RAM 256 MB max

It came with a 7.5 GB disk drive that booted with CHS addressing.
It has been upgraded successfully with a 20 GB disk drive using
LBA logical block addressing and a 8.2 GB NTFS partition.  I now
wish to replace the 20 GB disk drive with something larger.

The ETower BIOS only recognizes a maximum of 134 GB with LBA
addressing.  Therefore the 160 GB disk drive I purchased is not
usable.  I then purchased an 80 GB disk drive to keep within the
134 GB limit.  I also noticed a jumper configuration to limit
the disk drive to 32 GB but that is not much of an upgrade over
my current 20 GB drive.

I temporarily placed the 80 GB disk drive in a similar computer
having 256 MB RAM and an 800 GHz Pentium.  I install both Linux
and Windows XP Pro. The 80 GB disk is Seagate model ST380011A.

    Partition 1    = 40 GB (NTFS) for Windows
    Partition 2    = 800 MB (EXT2) for grub
    Partition 3    = 1.2 GB (swap) for Linux
    Partition 4    = 39 GB (EXT2) for Linux

Windows XP Pro - SP3 with updates was successfully installed on
Partition 1 and is bootable on the temporary system.

Linux with grub, is successfully installed and bootable.  It is
also configured to chain-boot the Partition 2 for Windows XP
and works on a temporary system.

After moving the newly-configured disk drive to the ETower, where it
is to reside, Linux boots OK but the Microsoft XP bootstrap is
broken.  Linux can also see a larger 160 GB disk even though the BIOS
truncates large drive recognition to 134 GB.

Attempts to fix Microsoft XP-Pro bootstrap did not work.

CDROM Boot XP-Pro Distribution Media
Choose (R) Repair

    Check the Partition 1 for errors - none found.
    Rewrite the Boot Partition of Partition 1 - OK.
    Rewrite the MBR Master Boot Record on the disk - OK.

Reboot - Fails to load the Microsoft XP from Partition 1.
It makes no difference whether the MBR has the active partition
as 1 (direct to NTFS) or 2 (chain via grub).

I even tried a 7.5 GB partition for C: and a 32 GB partition for
D: data.  This also failed to boot on the ETower - but the 20GB
drive works OK.  I need more than the 7.5 GB in order to use
XP Pro - SP3, but is marginal for a few months with XP Pro - SP2.

BIOS upgrade for ETower motherboards is not available.

Can anyone provide insight as to boot Windows XP on the ETower
system using an 80 GB disk drive?

As a last resort, I may need to copy the NTFS from the 20 GB
drive to the 80 GB or 160 GB drive - then rebuild all partitions
on the 20 GB drive and its associated operating systems in order
to give Windows XP-Pro a larger partition for a C: drive. (UGH!!!_)

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Good systems are supportable

Answer 1

Steve,

This "Hardware and Configuration Troubleshooting" forum is for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio.  You probably want to move your question to a different forum.

Good luck,
Dogulas

Answer 2

Can you suggest another forum?

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Good systems are supportable

Answer 3

This answer may also apply to ROBOTICS hardware.

It appears the ability to bootstrap the operating system is a
motherboard compatibility issue.

The Windows Boot Loader is configured to work with the hardware
to which the operating system is installed.  If the disk drive
is moved to a different make or model of motherboard, the ability
to boot the operating system will most probably be broken.

The partition layout and CHS or LBA addressing of the drive
is not the only motherboard dependency regarding the ability
to boot the operating system.  Other dependencies would be the
model of disk controller, the hardware for display, the keyboard
controller, the mouse controller, and possibly other controllers.

 

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Good systems are supportable