XP Pro stuck on welcome screen after acronis clone disk

[katjaxmusic]

i swear, i did what you said lol!

 

[katjaxmusic]

ive put the screenshots on my facebook under pc stuff, lol

im kat jax
london if you want to have a look, at the screen shots i mean lol.

 

[LookinAround]

I think this Acer is from Germany? may be due to the character set...

 

[LookinAround]

lol

somedays, nothin is easy.. i think i found u on face book but i think it won't let me go further if i don't sign up for an account.... let me finish goin thru the original data u sent

 

[katjaxmusic]

ok thank you.
i would say, that i'd pay you to fix it, but then i realised you're in chicargo!

 

[LookinAround]

So i get this. Let's refer to the volumes by a,b.....j

• Local Disk Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (EISA Configuration) 3.34 GB 1.94 GB 58% No 0%
• Music (D) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (Active) 106.19 GB 102.85 GB 96% No 0%
• PQSERVICE Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (EISA Configuration) 13.67 GB 4.91 GB 35 % No 0% 35% No 0
• PQSERVICE Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 15.24 GB 13.18 GB 86 % No 0% 86% No 0
• S Local Disk (G) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 107.11 GB 95.85 GB 89% No 0
• S Music (S) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (Active) 103.7 101.15 97 No 0
• Vista (C ) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (System) 33.25 21.14 63% No 0%
• XP (E) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (Boot) 33.26 GB 7.61 GB 22% No 0
• XP (H) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 109.68 GB 16.68 GB 15% No 0%
• _OEMBP Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (Unknown Partition) 8.00 GB 3.70 GB 46% No 0

So where does i) XP H belong? It's on your Dell?

And what did you create when you did the clone?

 

[katjaxmusic]

h. XP E (Boot) is my dell
j. _OEMBP is my hidden vista dell files
g. Vista C is my dell vista installation

c. cloned hidden EISA acer vista installation files
i. XP cloned acer drive
b. Music D is the same drive partitioned with the ntldr file on

d, e & f, are the copied of above, but the EISA partition is empty, but i made it so i could copy files after i get it working

 

[katjaxmusic]

why dont they just give you a cd with driver support for XP?

 

[LookinAround]

The XP install CD contains the very basic set of drivers that allows you to install and then start up your computer with a minimum set of devices (e.g. hard drive, monitor/keyboard/mouse). Can you imagine how many different drivers there are for all possible devices? And how could Microsoft be responsible to provide all of them? Aside from the fact that new devices and new drivers are coming out all the time. (Not that i usually try and defend Microsoft)

The next usual step to find/install drivers would be to visit the website of computer maker (Acer, for you). Look for a link to support. Here you should be able to identify your compurer make/model along with a link indicating that you;re looking for drivers and downloads for your specific compute make/model. The comp mfr should then provide you a summary of drivers (and links to those drivers) for the different devices you can get from Acer at the time you configured/purchased your computer from them. (Typically they'll also provide with updates and other essential software for computer make/model.) Note this list is for ALL possible devices for your make/model so you need to go through the list and carefully only select those things for devices you actually have. Want more info on how your computer is configured? devices installed? Try installing/running Everest Home Edition. It's freeware. And next time if you just want a handy backup of all your installed drivers (or just a report on them) try using DriverMax.

After that it's the drivers for devices you went out and bought on your own so you'd need visit the device mfr website, look for support link and your device to get the driver.

IN ADDITION, there are pay sites (i've never used them so can't offer personal experience) where you basically subscribe to and allow them to scan your computer to identify devices on your computer and device drivers needed for those devices (see www.driverguide.com as one example)

Is 6 or 7 hours earlier here in Chicago then you (varies based on Daylight Savings Time) and i'm about to head out for lunch and misc. Will be some time before i have any further info for you.

 

[LookinAround]

So here’s what I’m thinking to do

1. We should be able to get your Acer to bootup with both the internal and external drives connected to it (just as you last left it)
   • Your external drive connected and with the cloned XP partition and
   • Your internal drive connected
2. I see two possible methods to get the Acer booted up with the internal and external drives connected. Whichever method we use doesn’t matter as long as it works! (i.e. allows us to bootup the Acer).
   • Method 1: Complete the changes which would allow the Acer to successfully boot off the external drive. (When you left it last the Acer was still trying to boot off the internal drive which no longer had a boot partition which resulted in the error)
   • Method 2: Use the Acronis Recovery CD to boot up the Acer. In this case, you don’t have an operating system running but you do have Acronis and all its functionality running
3. Once the Acer is booted (using either boot method) we should be able to have Acronis “clone” the bootable XP partition on the external back onto the internal driver (and we’re careful not to delete the bootable XP partition until we know we’re done with it.)

So of the two methods, I’d think that booting from an Acronis Recovery CD is the easiest. (And the whole purpose for Acronis providing for a recovery CD is exactly the situation where you find you can’t boot your computer but need to just so you can get to Acronis and your backup/cloned data.)
Of course, this begs the next question: Did you ever build and burn an Acronis Recovery CD after downloading/installing their product? If the answer is no, not to worry. Yet. It should still be possible to create one but you’ll have to do it on some other XP computer (have a friend’s machine you could use?)

• Download/install Acronis True Image v11 on someone’s machine
• Run Acronis. From its menu bar click Tools -> Create Bootable Rescue media
• You should be able to use their Wizard to build and burn a recovery CD
• Put the CD in the Acer and boot up. (I’m assuming you know how to have the Acer boot from CD rather than a hard drive. If not, let me know.)
• Once booted up use the clone function again (and go through the documentation this time before you do. I don’t know the particular options to select myself and would have to rely on the documentation as well. But will let you do that and carefully make sure you don’t have Acronis delete the XP partition prematurely)