Ok here is the situation ...
I have transferred my old SATA hard drive into a new system with a different chipset motherboard so in order to retain user settings and configurations, I should just have to run the XP repair option in theory. I have done this. It removes all system files and puts them back in again. At which point the pc reboots to continue the installation. Only it doesnt continue the installation. It hangs after giving me the option to boot from cd.
The only reason I can think for this happening is something to do with the fact that the SATA drive came out of a HP machine and it has the hidden partition for system recovery. I think this or the boot settings of the partition(s) is creating problems when trying to complete the XP repair. I have put the SATA back in the HP machine and it boots to Windows with no problem but gives me the F10 option to run system recovery. I noticed this is absent when the hard drive is in the new machine.
I thought maybe if I could delete the hidden partition it might prevent the system from hanging after copying the xp system files but I was wrong and now I dont know what to do! I get the impression there is still something in the booting sequence that contains the old HP recovery partition and somehow it is preventing my XP repair from completing.
Anyone got any ideas or suggestions as to what I can do. Formatting the drive is absolutely out of the question! Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
May the NFOrce be with you always.
