100GB HDD Upgrade for T20 w/ Win2000: "NTLDR is missing

[riccume]

My 60GB HDD (upgraded from 20GB one year ago) was dying so I decided to go for Seagate Momentus 5400.2 100GB HDD. I imaged the old HDD into the new one using PowerQuest Drive Image 2002, but once I tried to boot up using the new HDD I got the message "NTLDR is missing - Press any key to continue". Nevertheless if I use the new HDD as a secondary it works perfectly, and all files and folders have been imaged correctly.

That was 10 days ago. Since then I've tried plenty: using Norton Ghost 9.0, fully zero-ing the new HDD and re-imaging without any formatting, formatting with Seagate DiskWizard, upgrading the T20 BIOS, checking the HDD for problems with SeaTools Desktop (it passes all tests). Norton customer support says that it might be a BIOS problem, Seagate customer support says that it should work, IBM customer support says that the T20 supports only up to 80GB HDD.

I'm running out of hope - do you guys have any suggestions?? And I should add simple suggestions: although I've learnt a lot in the last two weeks, I'm not an expert...

Final question: if there is nothing to do, will I be able to use my 100GB HDD in a new T42 by imaging the HDD it comes with?

THANK YOU!!!

[none]

It's not uncommon for NTLDR to be corrupted on a copied drive.. Have a look at this page on Microsoft's site, it may solve your problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... =win2000#7

In perticular, I would try the Recovery Console (Method 2), and Repair Install (Method 3)... If you can't get a Win2K CD, find a way to boot into DOS (UltraBay floppy maybe?) and run setup.exe from the c:\i386 directory. If you have an IBM Windows install, that directory should be on your drive..

If those don't solve your problem, it may be the T20 BIOS. Hope you find this helpful!

[riccume]

Thanks for your suggestion! Unfortunately I don't have a Windows 2000 CD (only the IBM Recovery CD), and I have no setup.exe file in c:\i386. There is a setup.ex_ file but it doesn't work, even when I try to rename it. Anyway I'll try to find the Win 2K CD.

I have also tried to manually copying NTLDR, Boot.ini and NTDETECT.COM from the old HDD to the new HDD but to no result.

Mistery to me!

[NathanA]

If a file's extension ends with an underscore (_), in the Microsoft world, that means the file is compressed. You should be able to decompress it with Microsoft's EXPAND utility (EXPAND can also read CAB files like EXTRACT can).

EXPAND should already be on your computer; just type "expand" at a Command Prompt.

-- Nathan

[riccume]

Thank you Nathan - you guys are teaching me plenty!

I managed to expand the file; unfortunately now when I boot into DOS (UltraBay floppy) and run setup.exe from the c:\i386 directory I get the message "This program cannot be run in DOS mode". I then tried from Windows but I get a warning message saying to make changes in the Control Panel and nothing else happens. Am I missing something?

Thank you.

[slagmi]

perhaps you're needing winnt.exe rather than setup.exe...

[JHEM]

perhaps you're needing winnt.exe rather than setup.exe...

Yep, that's the DOS installer.

Regards,

James

[riccume]

Thank you guys.

I've tried with winnt.exe from a bootable diskette. First I get the message "Setup did not detect SmartDrive on your computer [etc.]" but I am allowed to continue. Then I get the message: "Setup was unable to install Windows Boot Loader - Ensure that your C: drive is formatted and that the drive is not damaged. - Setup cannot continue. Press ENTER to exit.". This happens both with the new HDD and with the old one (both formatted)...

I've also tried to run winnt32.exe from Windows, it works but it doesn't give me the option to repair the Win2K installation. I am only allowed to fully reinstall Win2k.

[JHEM]

When you ran FDISK on the drive you DID set the primary partition as Active, right?

If not, do so now from a BOOT disk.

Regards,

James

[riccume]

I never ran FDISK on these HDD - I don't have the file. But when I ghosted the old HDD into the new one, I set the partition as active. And I get the problem with winnt.exe also when I run it on the old HDD (I'm becoming a pro in switching primary HDD on my T20!), which otherwise boots up fine.

[BillMorrow]

in the FWIW column..

I have a new X40 here and wanted to experiment with cloning the 1.8 inch HDD to a 2.5 inch HDD and the use the 2.5 inch HDD in the X40..
(yes, you can put the 2.5 inch HDD in the X40, it just sticks out the front a bit)

so, like you, it does not find the OS on the 2.,5 inch cloned HDD even though everything is there..

but the X40 will only boot from the 1.8 inch HDD..

[riccume]

As a temporary solution, is there a way to boot on a diskette and then manually "launch" Win2K on the HDD? Thank you!

[slagmi]

If you can't start Windows setup by booting from CD standard procedure would be to run Makeboot from the CD and create the Setup floppies.

Disk partitoning on large drives is best done with the Windows setup program. Standard procedure would be to delete existing partitons, create your system(usually C: ) partiton, 20gb or 40gb or whatever you want, then deal with the rest of the drive later with Windows Disk Administrator.

I understand you want to preserve your data. but at this point you're just trying to see if the drive will work at all - and you still have the Windows load and data on the origional drive, right?

[riccume]

Thanks slagmi. I don't have the Win2K CD (I only have the recovery CD that came with the T20) so I cannot run either Win Setup or Makeboot.

Why do you suggest partitioning? Do you think the problem might be solved if I partition the new HDD in smaller parts and then ghost the old HDD in one of them?

You're right, I have the data in the old HDD plus in a Ghost image file so I can erase the new HDD.

[slagmi]

Partitioning's a preference, really. I doubt it but no harm in trying. I've fixed enough computers that I've seen stranger things. Like the origional iMac that won't boot osX unless the 1st partiton is entirely within the first 8GB.

Does your 100GB drive have a jumper that's labled 'size limit' or 'cylinder limit' or '<32' or similar? I figure if there truly is a BIOS drive geometry barrier it would probabally already be known by this forum.

Have you tried just booting off the Recovery CD & letting it 'do it's thing' as if you're starting from scratch?

[riccume]

Sorry for taking so long to reply - job got on the way! So finally the problem is fixed and my T20 is running with the 100GB HDD.

How I got there: first I tried to fix the ghosted HDD using the Windows 2000 Setup CD, but it didn't work. So, as a last resort, I used the T20 Recovery CD (which came with it at purchase) and reinstalled the initial configuration. And it worked! I then had to spend some time reinstalling all of the programs (nearly done), but of course the upside is that I got rid of the legacy of 4 years of installing/unistalling programs!

Thanks a lot for your help guys. Great bunch in this forum!!

[Leon]

Glad it worked out! Thanks for posting results. Welcome to our Forum!

[BurnedIn]

In my opinion, it did NOT work out. He had to reinstall everything.

I'm posting how I [finally] managed to clone my drive in the same situation.

SCENARIO:
WinXPSP2 on Thinkpad T42, using the factory load for the install.
This means a hidden partition for the 'rapid recovery' stuff is on the drive.
See the appendix note about IBM partition table.

OBJECTIVE:
Somehow clone the current install of XP onto a larger (Seagate Momentus) hard drive.

WHAT WORKED:
Hitachi 2.0 USB enclosure for 2.5" notebook was used as 'destination' drive
Trial version of Acronis True Image [trueimage9.0_d_en.exe] was d/l'd and installed in windows
In Acronis, I chose 'disk clone'
Use the manual / advanced mode
I chose to 'leave the partitions as-is'
Let the clone run...be glad that I'm using a usb 2.0 enclosure now.
Shut down and swap the drive from usb enclosure into laptop
Restart laptop
vici!
The drive boots.
In drive storage applet, I can see that I still have the 4gb hidden partition.
I install partition magic 8.0 for windows
I use PM to move the 4gb ibm_service partition to the end of the drive, and to resize the C partition to fill the drive.
Changes don't require a reboot.
At this point...success.
The clone boots. The system partition is intact. I'm leaving the system partition because I don't want to press my luck. If I had more time I would delete it (using Pmagic from windows).




WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
Several image attempts, several drive clone attempts. I'll list most of them, because it REALLY SUCKED to go through this. Thanks IBM, for the nonstandard partitioning.

Note that it's better w/NT based systems to use ghost to make an image and restore the image. Disc to disc has high failure rate.

I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the partition' and then restore the image to another drive. Yes, I tried all three.

I tried to use Ghost 8.0, 9.0, and 2003 boot disk to make an image of 'the drive' and then restore the image to another drive. That's right, SIX image attempts. At least. With a usb 1.1 enclosure.

All imaged clones failed to boot. I had the 'NTLDR.DLL is missing' error message in all scenarios.

I tried sys'ing C and then running fixmbr and fixboot from the XP recovery CD, per this post
http://archive.midrange.com/pctech/200409/msg00046.html
That didn't work

I booted with an XP full install (not upgrade install) CD and chose ENTER for setup (not R for recovery console) and then chose the REPAIR install option (you can often get this from an xp full install disk). The repair didn't fix anything.

Using the three magic files to boot from floppy doesn't work with XP, so I couldn't try this guy's "use disk investigator to make lots of copies of files that are in too high of a sector" trick.
http://www.mcse.ms/message1263055.html
I did try using a 2k boot disk...after which the drive could show me 'starting win2k' bootloader before a gloriuos BSOD

Using Ghost 10.0 from windows (note that it doesn't have a bootable disk anymore) to "copy the drive to another" didn't work. I still got the NTLDLR is missing error.
Interesting... G10.0 set the IBM_Service partition drive 'active' and c:on the destination. Maybe the other attempts did the same; i never noticed.
I THINK that editing boot.ini to use the secodn partition would have let me boot this way...but then I'm stuck with booting to drive D and all my proggies fail. Sure there are ways around this...I didn't explore them. I booted from the source disk and removed th the IBM service partition from the destination disk. The destination disk now gives 'blinking cursor in top left' when I tried to boot. Editing boot.ini probably would have been smarter.


At this point I have acquired a USB 2.0 enclosure which came with a drive and "hitachi travelstar hard drive upgrade CD"
THis is a bootable cd. I try to CLONE DISK.
I use 'automatic' setting. That fails.
I try again and use 'manual' setting and let it 'expand partions' even though this means an 11gb Ibm_service partition.
Again, the ntldr.dll is missing message.

At this point I decided to try the 15day trial of acronis. The hitachi drive software is obviously an OEM product based on acronis. THe hitachi drive didn't have the option to 'leave as is' or maybe I didn't see it. That apparently was the important part.


APPENDIX I: IBM Partition Table whackiness

Note that PartitionMagic Boot disk thinks that an IBM with factory load is "bad partition table' and can't perform operations. Apparently IBM uses 255 heads when everyone else uses 240? Whatever the reason...you can't use PMagic8 boot on an IBM T series w/factory load. This is observed on a T21, T30, T42, T43, and T43p.