FIXMBR redux

Xref: kermit microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics:226102

I don't remember what the reason was, Michael, but I tried
Ghost for a while, and I don't remember why, now, but I
didn't like it. I'm into Drive Image 7.0, specifically
for NT/2000/XP, and I'm getting to understand it and how
to work with it. And we are making progress, aren't we?
Only now I have 2 bootlogs for the experts to compare, since
it is obvious that nobody other than an MVP or Microsoft
insider could possibly know what more than a very few of
the calls in the bootlog mean.

In that regard, it occurs to me that it is just a little unfair
to try to compare the bootlog of an OS created a month ago, with
that of an almost-clone from today.

I will try to make my Master and Clone identical, tonight, and
create two new bootlogs which should be identical but which will,
of course, be different.

Bill L.

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
I haven't used it in a long time but I always thought Ghost was a great
product.



--

*Vanguard* wrote:

Vang, you sent us so much info, so very thorough you are, and
informative, that I cannot answer you until I try to absorb
it all. And lest I forget....... thank you.
W B L

William, it's difficult to compare them because #1's format is jumbled
together as opposed to the simple list of #2.

I don't really see anything in log 2 that jumped at me nor, from what I was
able to see in log 1 could I discern something that would cause this issue.

As near as I could tell, the things that did not load were the same in both.
This leads me back to the XP anti-piracy scheme. Regardless of the bootlog,
it's my guess there's enough of a change in the setup from the image to the
clone because the other hard drive was not connected when the OS was
installed that this is running up against XP's anti-piracy scheme.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael and/or Sharon:

I'm sticking to this 'subject' although we're wandering
away from it a bit. Who is to say that MBR is what needs
fixing? In any case, I have two files:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog2.txt

and

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog1.txt

These are the boot logs for cold boot of my two
hard drives, containing my working hard drive (log2)
and the supposed clone, which gives (log1) but 'hangs'.

Obviously, the 'good' one goes further and boots all
the way, successfully, while the 'bad' one stops shorter.
I'm hoping that one of you will look at the two logs and
be able to tell me what I have to do, to get the 'bad'
drive to proceed past where it now 'hangs'.

Bill Lurie

Michael, I don't know what you mean by 'format jumbled' on
#1.... their formats look the same to me. But that's neither hither
nor yon. And I won't bust your chops for several reasons, not the
least of which is that the significance escapes me. If the
instructions say it copies everything, and one of our side
commentators says it does, and does so bit-by-bit, then I expect
it to copy everything..........unless somebody has hidden something
someplace that only an internal bit-picker is allowed to acknowledge
the existence of, to another equally privileged.

I'll try to make a #3 and #4 so close in time that they have reason to
be identical, and will come back here with them.
W B L

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
William, it's difficult to compare them because #1's format is jumbled
together as opposed to the simple list of #2.

I don't really see anything in log 2 that jumped at me nor, from what I was
able to see in log 1 could I discern something that would cause this issue.

As near as I could tell, the things that did not load were the same in both.
This leads me back to the XP anti-piracy scheme. Regardless of the bootlog,
it's my guess there's enough of a change in the setup from the image to the
clone because the other hard drive was not connected when the OS was
installed that this is running up against XP's anti-piracy scheme.





--
William B. Lurie

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) said in
:
William, it's difficult to compare them because #1's format is jumbled
together as opposed to the simple list of #2.

I don't really see anything in log 2 that jumped at me nor, from what
I was able to see in log 1 could I discern something that would cause
this issue.

As near as I could tell, the things that did not load were the same
in both. This leads me back to the XP anti-piracy scheme. Regardless
of the bootlog, it's my guess there's enough of a change in the setup
from the image to the clone because the other hard drive was not
connected when the OS was installed that this is running up against
XP's anti-piracy scheme.


"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael and/or Sharon:

I'm sticking to this 'subject' although we're wandering
away from it a bit. Who is to say that MBR is what needs
fixing? In any case, I have two files:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog2.txt

and

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog1.txt

These are the boot logs for cold boot of my two
hard drives, containing my working hard drive (log2)
and the supposed clone, which gives (log1) but 'hangs'.

Obviously, the 'good' one goes further and boots all
the way, successfully, while the 'bad' one stops shorter.
I'm hoping that one of you will look at the two logs and
be able to tell me what I have to do, to get the 'bad'
drive to proceed past where it now 'hangs'.

Bill Lurie

If activition because of "significant" hardware change (but I've changed
and added drives before without a problem) is the root of the problem,
wouldn't booting from the the install CD and attempting to use its
Repair end up displaying some "invalid" message? I recall reading some
posts where the users complained that after a repair that they got a
message saying their product key was invalid.

With the cloned drive as the master (and only drive) in the system (to
prevent touching the source drive), has the OP yet tried running Repair
on the cloned drive? If the Repair works, follow with the Windows
Updates to update any of the old files that came off the install CD for
the repair (i.e., reapply any additional service packs and updates after
the repair).


--
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__________________________________________________ __________

One of them looks like a continuous line stretching into an overly long
paragraph while the other is a simple list with each new item below the one
above it.

Yes, a bit by bit copy does precisely that and the significance of what I've
said is, since the second hard drive was not connected to the system when
the OS was installed, it was never identified by the OS during setup. I've
been saying for quite some time now, it appears the OS thinks it's on a
different computer when it is cloned, imaged or otherwise copied to the
second hard drive and that is responsible for the error. The OS is finding
something amiss in the hardware setup, something different that is not
referenced in the original setup and this takes us back to the XP
anti-piracy scheme, something I've been saying right along. It's the only
explanation I can think of for this.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael, I don't know what you mean by 'format jumbled' on
#1.... their formats look the same to me. But that's neither hither
nor yon. And I won't bust your chops for several reasons, not the
least of which is that the significance escapes me. If the
instructions say it copies everything, and one of our side
commentators says it does, and does so bit-by-bit, then I expect
it to copy everything..........unless somebody has hidden something
someplace that only an internal bit-picker is allowed to acknowledge
the existence of, to another equally privileged.

I'll try to make a #3 and #4 so close in time that they have reason to
be identical, and will come back here with them.
W B L

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
William, it's difficult to compare them because #1's format is jumbled
together as opposed to the simple list of #2.

I don't really see anything in log 2 that jumped at me nor, from what I
was able to see in log 1 could I discern something that would cause this
issue.

As near as I could tell, the things that did not load were the same in
both. This leads me back to the XP anti-piracy scheme. Regardless of the
bootlog, it's my guess there's enough of a change in the setup from the
image to the clone because the other hard drive was not connected when
the OS was installed that this is running up against XP's anti-piracy
scheme.





--
William B. Lurie

In my case, I liked the Drive Image interface better than Ghost and it
appeared to give me more options, it also felt more intuitive to me.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
I don't remember what the reason was, Michael, but I tried
Ghost for a while, and I don't remember why, now, but I
didn't like it. I'm into Drive Image 7.0, specifically
for NT/2000/XP, and I'm getting to understand it and how
to work with it. And we are making progress, aren't we?
Only now I have 2 bootlogs for the experts to compare, since
it is obvious that nobody other than an MVP or Microsoft
insider could possibly know what more than a very few of
the calls in the bootlog mean.

In that regard, it occurs to me that it is just a little unfair
to try to compare the bootlog of an OS created a month ago, with
that of an almost-clone from today.

I will try to make my Master and Clone identical, tonight, and
create two new bootlogs which should be identical but which will,
of course, be different.

Bill L.

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
I haven't used it in a long time but I always thought Ghost was a great
product.



--

Michael and Sharon,

Here are two new bootlogs, as contemporary as I
could make them. I hope they are both tabular....

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie.ntbtlog3.txt

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie.ntbtlog4.txt

Perhaps you can see why the good master (#3) ran,
and the clone (#4) hung.

I seem to recall that Ghost had too few options,
and, in the typical Symantec way, they were very
difficult to get help from. But that's another
story.

William B. Lurie

Michael and Sharon,

Sorry about links in message just sent. Cockpit error.
I hope these work.

Here are two new bootlogs, as contemporary as I
could make them. I hope they are both tabular....

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog3.txt

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog4.txt

Perhaps you can see why the good master (#3) ran,
and the clone (#4) hung.

I seem to recall that Ghost had too few options,
and, in the typical Symantec way, they were very
difficult to get help from. But that's another
story.
--
William B. Lurie

Yes, a repair install is the course to follow under those conditions and
actually, if William does it, it should correct the issue. However, if he
were to blank the secondary drive again and restore the same image, he'd
have to do it again because it would be the same unrecognized hardware with
the same image he's using now.

I don't know if he has tried running the repair but if he wants the
convenience he mentioned at the outset, he'd really need to start over,
install XP to the primary drive while the secondary drive is connected to
the system.

If that doesn't work, I'm looking for a very dark place to hide!:-)

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"*Vanguard*"
wrote in message ...
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) said in
:
William, it's difficult to compare them because #1's format is jumbled
together as opposed to the simple list of #2.

I don't really see anything in log 2 that jumped at me nor, from what
I was able to see in log 1 could I discern something that would cause
this issue.

As near as I could tell, the things that did not load were the same
in both. This leads me back to the XP anti-piracy scheme. Regardless
of the bootlog, it's my guess there's enough of a change in the setup
from the image to the clone because the other hard drive was not
connected when the OS was installed that this is running up against
XP's anti-piracy scheme.


"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael and/or Sharon:

I'm sticking to this 'subject' although we're wandering
away from it a bit. Who is to say that MBR is what needs
fixing? In any case, I have two files:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog2.txt

and

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog1.txt

These are the boot logs for cold boot of my two
hard drives, containing my working hard drive (log2)
and the supposed clone, which gives (log1) but 'hangs'.

Obviously, the 'good' one goes further and boots all
the way, successfully, while the 'bad' one stops shorter.
I'm hoping that one of you will look at the two logs and
be able to tell me what I have to do, to get the 'bad'
drive to proceed past where it now 'hangs'.

Bill Lurie

If activition because of "significant" hardware change (but I've changed
and added drives before without a problem) is the root of the problem,
wouldn't booting from the the install CD and attempting to use its
Repair end up displaying some "invalid" message? I recall reading some
posts where the users complained that after a repair that they got a
message saying their product key was invalid.

With the cloned drive as the master (and only drive) in the system (to
prevent touching the source drive), has the OP yet tried running Repair
on the cloned drive? If the Repair works, follow with the Windows
Updates to update any of the old files that came off the install CD for
the repair (i.e., reapply any additional service packs and updates after
the repair).


--
__________________________________________________ __________
*** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others.
*** Email domain = ".com" *AND* append "=NEWS=" to Subject.
__________________________________________________ __________

Nothing stands out. The "did not loads" are the same or close in both and
if they didn't stop the boot on one, they aren't likely to be the culprit on
the other.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael and Sharon,

Sorry about links in message just sent. Cockpit error.
I hope these work.

Here are two new bootlogs, as contemporary as I
could make them. I hope they are both tabular....

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog3.txt

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/i/billurie/ntbtlog4.txt

Perhaps you can see why the good master (#3) ran,
and the clone (#4) hung.

I seem to recall that Ghost had too few options,
and, in the typical Symantec way, they were very
difficult to get help from. But that's another
story.
--
William B. Lurie

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

Nothing stands out. The "did not loads" are the same or close in both and
if they didn't stop the boot on one, they aren't likely to be the culprit on
the other.

Ah yes, quite logical. But I've been studying it, the past few hours,
and a few things do suggest themselves. Noted that almost all the loads
and didn't loads are same or close, but most of the differences
are involved with Symantec/Norton software. Now, Norton System Works
and their own activation control, quite similar to the Microsoft XP
controls, are stringent and overbearing. It would be awfully nice
to repeat this bootlog experiment with all Norton software deactivated,
as a first step. As a second step, I could repeat it with NSW out,
uninstalled, but that, unfortunately, is an unfortunate thought,
because it is virtually impossible to uninstall. But taking it out
of the startup menu might make it harmless, and not load, and maybe
not stand in the way.

BTW, Michael, I understand your "have both drives alive when you
install XP" suggestion, but that is probably two orders of magnitude
more impractical than the NSW uninstall. I'd do it in a minute
(well, really in an hour)...if it were possible to put my 4 GB of
application software, buried in Program Files and Registry, back in
place. Remember, that fact is the Numero Uno reason why I want a
clone.

Back to bootlogs. Note that the halt occurred at a particular place
in the "good system" loading sequence, specifically, after it "Did
not load xxxxx\afd.sys", when it was about to try to load "DRIVERS\
rdbss.sys" ...... Something caused it to halt there. Not before
there. This is a piece of evidence, but I am not well enough
informed to know what to do with it. Or even if it means anything.

Over to you.

WBL

--
William B. Lurie

"BTW, Michael, I understand your "have both drives alive when you
install XP" suggestion, but that is probably two orders of magnitude
more impractical than the NSW uninstall."

LOL, yes, I know you've been trying to avoid the start from scratch
scenario. On the other hand, if you consider the time you've invested here,
you just about could have started from scratch.

Yes, I'd have to agree about Norton and there is a possibility the whole
thing is choking on that.

Okay, here's an KB article about afd.sys:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;174465

Take it with a grain of salt. The fact is the system stops in the midst of
loading hardware drivers and that puts me back at the anti-piracy scenario.
That article makes reference to bad SAP packets being sent over the network.

Here's the KB on the other item:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=329175

Problem is, I seem to recall these failures in both bootlogs so they may not
be relevant.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

Nothing stands out. The "did not loads" are the same or close in both
and if they didn't stop the boot on one, they aren't likely to be the
culprit on the other.

Ah yes, quite logical. But I've been studying it, the past few hours,
and a few things do suggest themselves. Noted that almost all the loads
and didn't loads are same or close, but most of the differences
are involved with Symantec/Norton software. Now, Norton System Works
and their own activation control, quite similar to the Microsoft XP
controls, are stringent and overbearing. It would be awfully nice
to repeat this bootlog experiment with all Norton software deactivated,
as a first step. As a second step, I could repeat it with NSW out,
uninstalled, but that, unfortunately, is an unfortunate thought,
because it is virtually impossible to uninstall. But taking it out
of the startup menu might make it harmless, and not load, and maybe
not stand in the way.

BTW, Michael, I understand your "have both drives alive when you
install XP" suggestion, but that is probably two orders of magnitude
more impractical than the NSW uninstall. I'd do it in a minute
(well, really in an hour)...if it were possible to put my 4 GB of
application software, buried in Program Files and Registry, back in
place. Remember, that fact is the Numero Uno reason why I want a
clone.

Back to bootlogs. Note that the halt occurred at a particular place
in the "good system" loading sequence, specifically, after it "Did
not load xxxxx\afd.sys", when it was about to try to load "DRIVERS\
rdbss.sys" ...... Something caused it to halt there. Not before
there. This is a piece of evidence, but I am not well enough
informed to know what to do with it. Or even if it means anything.

Over to you.

WBL

--
William B. Lurie

Xref: kermit microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics:226168

William B. Lurie said in :
snip
It would be awfully nice
to repeat this bootlog experiment with all Norton software
deactivated, as a first step. As a second step, I could repeat it
with NSW out, uninstalled, but that, unfortunately, is an unfortunate
thought, because it is virtually impossible to uninstall. But taking
it out
of the startup menu might make it harmless, and not load, and maybe
not stand in the way.

Disabling the services that startup was one of my earlier suggestions
but you'll need to install the Recovery Console to do so. See my
message at . Just do that
when you have the clone drive as the master and only drive in the host
(so you are modifying the configuration of its NT services and not of
your master drive). That way you can see if configuring the Norton
service to be disabled so they don't startup fixes your hang problem.

--
__________________________________________________ __________
*** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others.
*** Email domain = ".com" *AND* append "=NEWS=" to Subject.
__________________________________________________ __________

*Vanguard* wrote:
William B. Lurie said in :
snip

It would be awfully nice
to repeat this bootlog experiment with all Norton software
deactivated, as a first step. As a second step, I could repeat it
with NSW out, uninstalled, but that, unfortunately, is an unfortunate
thought, because it is virtually impossible to uninstall. But taking
it out
of the startup menu might make it harmless, and not load, and maybe
not stand in the way.


Disabling the services that startup was one of my earlier suggestions
but you'll need to install the Recovery Console to do so. See my
message at . Just do that
when you have the clone drive as the master and only drive in the host
(so you are modifying the configuration of its NT services and not of
your master drive). That way you can see if configuring the Norton
service to be disabled so they don't startup fixes your hang problem.

But I am not able to get the clone to load fully as Master. And I
don't think I can make RC load with Clone as Master (I get a DOS
message like xxxxx.dll not found or something like that. I
think I can take NSW out of the start-up menu, and pull
my ISP connection, make a new bootlog and then a new clone and see
if maybe the new clone will load. I can try that later today. And
thanks again for stepping in.

--
William B. Lurie