My PC won't boot

My PC is a Lenovo 3000J series Desktop running Windows XP Home +SP3 (and every update offered up to EOL)

I want to change my existing 80GB drive (Hitachi HDS728080PLA380) for a 250GB (Seagate Barracuda 7200.10)
 which at first didn't seem to be much of a problem  so :-

I saved a new disk image with Macrium Reflect to my external hard drive.
I swapped the two drives over and invoked the Macrium Restore Wizard and made an image on the new drive
Then came the problem - on rebooting I got a black screen "Verifying DMI Pool Data………." and that's where it stayed.

I reconnected my original drive and booted as normal - all ok

I installed the new drive in a spare docking slot and used a second set of cables to connect it but Explorer doesn't show the drive, neither does Disk Manager, but the BIOS does.

To try and eliminate any sources of error I swapped the cables to the two drives and the whilst BIOS shows the alteration I get the same result as the previous paragraph (In swapping the cables I did note that the 80GB drive power plug is the old white polythene one with Red Black Black Yellow cables but the power plug for the 250GB drive is a flat with Orange Black Red Black Yellow cables - obviously I couldn't swap these over. This latter plug was in use when I restored the image to the drive, so it does appear to work)

If I install the new drive in an external caddy and boot from my original drive - hey presto Explorer and Disk Manager both show the drive and I can save to and read from it just like my external backup drive. Incidentally at this stage the files on the new drive appear to be identical in every way as those on the C drive and the spare capacity is labelled as unallocated (I want to install Linux on to part of it).

I'm obviously doing something wrong (Its the first time I've tried to use a backup image even though I make a new image at least once a month).

I've re-run the Macrium Restore Wizard several times choosing different options for Active/Primary; Yes/No to verify the image; the 3 options for the Boot Record and the options for verify on reboot. All to no avail - I continue to get the dreaded "Verifying DMI Pool Data"

The original installation (using the 80GB drive) is back in use and runs without problems, bu there isn't room on it to install Linux (which I want to run some programs which apparently run best under Linux)

so in a nut shell ——-help please

Hi retiree and welcome to our forums

Sorry to hear about the problem with Macrium etc.

Here's a suggested plan of campaign for you:

1 Ensure that only your new hard drive is installed in the computer( remove the old one, but connect it in exactly the same position and to the same connectors as the original hard drive)

2 Connect your external hard drive (that contains your original drive image) to a USB port on the back of the computer

3 Boot from the Macrium emergency boot disc that you made when first creating the drive image( if for any reason you didn't create one then do it now but of course you will need to have the original hard drive in place to do this, …remove it again and replace with the new hard drive when the bootabledisc has been created)

4 Most computers will try and boot from the CD with the Macrium bootable information on it that will allow you to access the external hard drive and reimage your new hard drive with the image kept on your external hard drive that you made when the old hard drive was in place! ( hope all this makes sense, fortunately its a lot easier to do than it looks!)

5 If for any reason your computer doesn't want to boot from the CD then enter the BIOS and alter the boot priority to:

Priority 1…….  internal optical drive ( CD/DVD)

Priority 2………internal hard drive

the others in the list don't really matter so just exit saving the changes to the BIOS and with the CD in the tray your computer should boot into the Macrium boot disc and allow you to reimage your new hard drive with a copy of the old hard drive.

When it comes to the power connectors for your hard drive just connect the ones that fit!

I would suggest that maybe where you have gone wrong is saving the disc image to your new hard drive( it should be saved to your external hard drive…) you then access the image on the external hard drive through the Macrium bootable disc, and its that image that is used to reimage your new hard drive.

Finally as win XP is now old and no longer supported by Microsoft and unsuitable for modern use unless the computer is totally isolated from other sources of data and that of course included no connection to the Internet, it may be wise to consider moving to a more modern version of Windows or Linux. Don't forget that it is perfectly possible to run Linux as a "Live" distribution where no hard drive space is required for it to run….. you can run it perfectly happily within RAM and it wont write anything at all to your hard drive( unless you ask it to!) so no space at all needed!

Good luck and let us know how you get on

Regards

paws

 

I installed the new drive in a spare docking slot and used a second set of cables to connect it but Explorer doesn't show the drive, neither does Disk Manager, but the BIOS does.

i believe the drive has problems with it's file system for some reason, that's the sort of thing i'd expect for a raw drive. so i think when you made the image you never included the mbr of the drive and just imaged the windows partition.

personally what i'd do is forget about using the created image and just clone the old drive directly to the new drive, then remove old drive and you should find the new drive boots up and works.

this video is a bit long winded but the important parts are from about the 5.30min mark to 8.30 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAdY–RpalM

Hi Paws,

Your instruction set appear to be exactly the same as how I proceeded, ie:-

Made a Macrium image from the original drive to my external drive (USB back of PC)

Changed the original drive for the new one (except for the power cable) (original now disconnected)

Using the Macrium boot disc copied the image onto the new drive

Removed the CD and rebooted the PC.

Black screen   ——                  Verifying DMI Pool Data ……….

Hi Terry,

I tried your suggestion yesterday and got the same result

Black screen   ——                  Verifying DMI Pool Data ……….

I realise that XP is now defunct but I have a number of programs which do not run under Windows 10 on my new machine. I do not want to spend any money just to get what I already have, and what works perfectly for what I do. Internet connection is almost always via my W10 machine. The XP machine is only connected to the router when I need to transfer a file. Both machine have uptodate Virus and Firewall programmes.

did you try booting with only the ssd installed and nothing else connected including your external usb drive?

try going into bios and setting it to defaults when you only have the ssd connected, and see if it will now boot.