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alriclam
New Member
USA
78 Posts |
 Posted - 11/14/2004 : 23:17:03
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I know a few other people have posted their experiences, but I figured I'd report on a few things that I tried, that were unsucessful in the end unfortunately. Maybe it will save you some time. Basically, my problem was that I wanted to keep my original HD as is, but install XP Pro onto the new HD. I didnt know it would be this hard....
I recieved my first 7k60 off Ebay, but i found that it didnt work. It took me a while to figure it out, but finally running a test on it using Hitachi's Drive Fitness test program showed me that I could not write on the partition table. I got an RMA off hitachi's website and after about a week, i got a refurb in the mail. I went about installing it yesterday, very easy to install. Two screws, pop out the old drive, and hook up the new one. I bought a Bytecc 2.5" firewire/usb enclosure off Newegg.com that now the old drive resides in (Note:, I've found that the firewire connection on the enclosure seems to stall out after a little while, using it with my p1120 and a firewire PC card. Not sure if the problem is the enclosure, the drive, or the PC card. The enclosure's USB 2.0 connection defaults to 1.1 when used with the P, but it does work via two USB connectors for power). Now, the OS installation was the tricky and time consuming part.
I have a new P1120 that I believe has the newest Bios to let me boot off a USB CD-rom. Unfortunately, even though i activated this in my bios setting and everything, I could not get the p to boot off a USB enclosure that had a CD-ROM in it. next thing I tried was the floppy disk install that you can find off Microsoft's website. The P would load all 6 disks via the usb floppy drive, and then give me a BSOD. Says something about shutting down because there was an error that could cause serious problems. Tried it with the drive fresh, partitioned to Fat32 using Fdisk, and also after formatted for NTFS.
Next, I tried putting back the old drive, and then connecting the new drive via the enclosure I had bought. I was thinking I would try to install XP Pro installation files onto the new disk by choosing to upgrade from the XP home install on the old drive, but choosing the new drive as the destination for the install files. Still, no luck, because I have SP2 installed on the old drive, and it will not let me install an older version if a newer version of XP exists. I then tried to copy the i386 folder from the XP Pro CD to the new disk, and then install the new HD into the computer. Still no luck, upon booting up on the new disk I got an error message saying the file NTDLR was missing.
Finally, I broke down and bought MigrateEasy for $40 from Acronis's website (they automatically peg on an extra charge for 5.99 for "Extended Download Services", just delete this from the shopping cart if you dont want it) I used it to change the partition sizes I wanted on the 7k60 (I kept the same size for the original disk image from the old drive, while using the extra space for the main partition). I then made an exact copy using the program from the original P drive to the new 7k60. Then I installed the new HD to the P, and confirmed that it worked by booting up. I then used DISE to reinstall the original factory image on the new drive. Then I installed via the XP Pro CD while booted into the original XP Home, choosing to copy all the install files first, so I wouldnt have to boot from the CD. Now I have a clean install of XP Pro on the main partition, while having the original XP Home image and XP Pro installation files still on the second partition.
Basically, what did I learn? Just get Migrate Easy if you dont want to spend alot of time on this task. The 7k60 is well worth it though, things are significantly faster. |
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jgartin
Junior Member
398 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 06:32:49
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The way I did it was this:
1) Boot from original HD
2) Plug in new HD (in USB enclosure)
3) Copy the entire Windows CD to the new HD
4) Shutdown
5) Install new HD
6) Install OS from new HD
It's also faster than installing from a CD. |
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alriclam
New Member
USA
78 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 10:39:07
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| Hmm, I did also try this (after trying just the i386 folder), but I got that missing file error message again. Not sure what I was doing wrong, I thought that would work. |
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NuovoTech
Senior Member Member
USA
1267 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2004 : 11:47:22
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quote:
I did also try this (after trying just the i386 folder), but I got that missing file error message again. Not sure what I was doing wrong, I thought that would work.
The file your missing(NTDLR) does not reside in the i386 folder, it's a XP system file that's that resides in the root directory. After copying the i386 folder to your HDD, also copy all the system files from root directory of install CD to main directory your putting the i386 folder in. Then go into i386 folder & click on "setup.exe".
I don't have a install CD handy, but I believe NTDLR(& NTDetect.com) files are in it's root directory. If not get those 2 files from root directory of an installed XP system, you'll have to "unhide all system files" first. 
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alriclam
New Member
USA
78 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2004 : 19:11:20
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| Darn, thats where I went wrong. Thanks for the heads up. |
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