Copying from HD1 to HD2 , gives "error loading oprating system"

[Pirate]

This is weird ! I bought 200GB Western Digital HD last week , since then I was trying to copy some files from my old HD 120GB same brand , it copys but when I copy files to the last partition of my new HD after about 16GB or so , it reboots and XP won't boot up again showing this message "Error loading operation system" . So I had to reinstall XP again (for more than 10 times now I swear) , both are NTFS , no problem with the partitions , it's confusing . I had the BIOS set to LAB , I googled it but came up with absolutely no solution . Has anyone ever got this problem before?

any hints ? Thanks .

[dglienna]

what are you using to copy the files? you could try xcopy.
Are you booting off of the new drive?

[Pirate]

the old one is set as master , the new one is slave .

I partitioned it like this :
C: 24 GB
D: 30 GB
E: 33GB
G:22GB
H: 80 GB

I'm copying to the last par. , could be the huge size or anything of this sort ?

[dglienna]

Originally posted by Pirate
the old one is set as master , the new one is slave .

I partitioned it like this :
C: 24 GB
D: 30 GB
E: 33GB
G:22GB
H: 80 GB

I'm copying to the last par. , could be the huge size or anything of this sort ?

So this is the new drive, and H: is empty. Is it formatted? You should have no problem copying 16G to a 80G drive. Are you using XCOPY?

I assume that you are running off of the master drive. You didn't say if you wanted to keep both disks in the system or not. Do You? I've copied 5G from one machine to another just by using copy/paste with no problems, over a LAN.

[Pirate]

I googled it and found a lot of problems regarding HD over 137Gb. This is the case . Finally , I use Data Life Guard that copys from partition to partiton under DOS . Still working on it .

[dglienna]

My buddy has a 200 G drive, and we put 3 partitions on it, and over 60 G of info when his old drive crashed. Didn't have any problems doing it.

[Ideas Man]

Make sure you have Windows XP SP1 or greater (SP2 recommended). There is an issue with large HDDs that was fixed in SP1, that may be your problem.

[Pirate]

Originally posted by dglienna
My buddy has a 200 G drive, and we put 3 partitions on it, and over 60 G of info when his old drive crashed. Didn't have any problems doing it.

umm, did you use Partition Magic or Fdisk ? I think my problem is with the partitioning .

They get deleted after the first restart after copying files . I don't have any SPs btw. I deleted all the partitions now and repartitioned them . I'll see what happens .

Thanks guys .

[dglienna]

we used FDISK only.

[Ideas Man]

If this is the secondary drive (Which it sounds like it is), use the Disk Management snapin in Windows XP and Windows 2000, it allows you to create partitions with ease directly within Windows and format them w/ NTFS, much better than FDISK.

[Pirate]

I tried both ways , still the same problem .The partitions get deleted for some reason . It's driving me nuts . I'm still trying till early morning ....

[dglienna]

Did you remember to re-boot BEFORE you copied files??

[Pirate]

Originally posted by dglienna
Did you remember to re-boot BEFORE you copied files??

Would that make any difference ? I don't think so . I took a step further and updated my M/B BIOS just now . It seems it's working so far . but I still can't trust it . I might lose all the partitions anytime.

[dglienna]

I know that you had to reboot using FDISK. Not positive about XP, but the installation program re-boots anyways before it installs things. If you can re-boot and not lose info, you should be good to go.

[Pirate]

I can't believe this . Win98 boot disk almost fixed it . I used Win98 Fdisk version , did the partitions (although the entire size didn't show up) , did the rest with Partition magic . I lost the primary partition at first but the rest still there ... . I'm happy with this . I'm still working on it . I'll tell you how far this go .

[Ideas Man]

Originally posted by dglienna
I know that you had to reboot using FDISK. Not positive about XP, but the installation program re-boots anyways before it installs things. If you can re-boot and not lose info, you should be good to go.

Nope, with the XP one, after you partition it and format it, it's good to go straight away.

[plenderj]

Boot with the Windows XP installation disk and enter the recovery console. Use the fixboot and fixmbr commands

[Pirate]

Originally posted by plenderj
Boot with the Windows XP installation disk and enter the recovery console. Use the fixboot and fixmbr commands

It didn't work . You know what , after I do all the partitions , I finish my backup , before I log off , copying error throws out and system shuts down , my partitons screwed . As if the first partition doesn't remember anything in the partitions table about other partitions . This sucks .I'll keep trying , if anything goes wrong , I'll bring it back to where I bought it from and pretened nothing happened ......

[dglienna]

after I do all the partitions , I finish my backup

Do you mean restore? Re-boot after making the partitions.

[Pirate]

Originally posted by dglienna
Do you mean restore? Re-boot after making the partitions.

After I partitioned them , I rebooted then I copied the files .

[Ideas Man]

After reading this, I'd strongly recommend taking it back. It begins to sound more like a fault with the drive like it's not remembering the state of the little particles. Take it back and get them to test it, or get it replaced, if this keeps up, it's not worth having because your data's security will be in jepoady.

[Pirate]

I think it's working fine now . I can't take any risk and do defragmentation on any partition ... If anything goes wrong ,I'll tell you .

Thanks all guys .