Ghost image backup won't boot.

[Guest Matty Anderson]

I restored my boot partition from a Ghost image, and when booting, the

computer gets past the first XP screen, then hangs at the welcome screen. I

see the mouse and the welcome screen, but no login choices. This is the

first time I've tried this, and the restoration itself seemed to go

smoothly. I was sure to check the box to set the partition active.

 

BTW, this is a Gateway laptop w/ Turion, 1Gb ram, 120gb HD with XP Media

Center. I'm trying to avoid doing a full reinstall. That's why I made the

ghost image. In case I need to, though, I no longer have the disks that

came with the computer, but the XP sticker is still on the bottom. Will

that serial work with a non Media Center and non-OEM version of XP? That

is, could I borrow someone's XP disk and use my legit XP serial (since I

bought the laptop with XP installed)?

 

Thanks y'all.

 

Matty

[Guest Patrick Keenan]

Re: Ghost image backup won't boot.

 

 

"Matty Anderson" <mattya25@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:6ijcc7FqmophU1@mid.individual.net...

>I restored my boot partition from a Ghost image, and when booting, the

>computer gets past the first XP screen, then hangs at the welcome screen.

>I see the mouse and the welcome screen, but no login choices. This is the

>first time I've tried this, and the restoration itself seemed to go

>smoothly. I was sure to check the box to set the partition active.

 

What version of Ghost? What does their support say?

>

> BTW, this is a Gateway laptop w/ Turion, 1Gb ram, 120gb HD with XP Media

> Center. I'm trying to avoid doing a full reinstall. That's why I made

> the ghost image. In case I need to, though, I no longer have the disks

> that came with the computer, but the XP sticker is still on the bottom.

> Will that serial work with a non Media Center and non-OEM version of XP?

> That is, could I borrow someone's XP disk and use my legit XP serial

> (since I bought the laptop with XP installed)?

 

No, sorry, that won't work. Your serial number will require an MCE (and

thus OEM) install CD. It won't work with, for example, Home or Pro, retail

OEM or VL.

>

> Thanks y'all.

>

> Matty

>

>

[Guest Anteaus]

RE: Ghost image backup won't boot.

 

 

If it gets to Welcome, the problem is not with the boot process which would

have failed much earlier. At this stage the computer is running

winlogon.exe, which is only a couple of steps aways from showing the desktop.

The issue here might be with inability to access the useraccounbts in the

registry SAM database.

 

I'm wondering if your original problem might be with hardware, for example a

failing disk. I would check this possibility out first. Do a full disk

verification with the likes of Ranish Partition Manager.

 

If not the reason, you should be able to do a Repair Install with a borrowed

CD, provided it's the same type (OEM/Retail) and same service-pack level as

the original.

 

"Matty Anderson" wrote:

> I restored my boot partition from a Ghost image, and when booting, the

> computer gets past the first XP screen, then hangs at the welcome screen. I

> see the mouse and the welcome screen, but no login choices. This is the

> first time I've tried this, and the restoration itself seemed to go

> smoothly. I was sure to check the box to set the partition active.

>

> BTW, this is a Gateway laptop w/ Turion, 1Gb ram, 120gb HD with XP Media

> Center. I'm trying to avoid doing a full reinstall. That's why I made the

> ghost image. In case I need to, though, I no longer have the disks that

> came with the computer, but the XP sticker is still on the bottom. Will

> that serial work with a non Media Center and non-OEM version of XP? That

> is, could I borrow someone's XP disk and use my legit XP serial (since I

> bought the laptop with XP installed)?

>

> Thanks y'all.

>

> Matty

>

>

>

[Guest msnews.microsoft.com]

Re: Ghost image backup won't boot.

 

>> BTW, this is a Gateway laptop w/ Turion, 1Gb ram, 120gb HD with XP Media

>> Center. I'm trying to avoid doing a full reinstall. That's why I made

>> the ghost image. In case I need to, though, I no longer have the disks

>> that came with the computer, but the XP sticker is still on the bottom.

>> Will that serial work with a non Media Center and non-OEM version of XP?

>> That is, could I borrow someone's XP disk and use my legit XP serial

>> (since I bought the laptop with XP installed)?

>

> No, sorry, that won't work. Your serial number will require an MCE (and

> thus OEM) install CD. It won't work with, for example, Home or Pro,

> retail OEM or VL.

>

Ok, so I found my Gateway disk, but unfortunately it's a restore disk, and

only gives options to restore the original factory configuration. Is there

any way to access the MCE files directly? Also, I tried a friend's

(admittedly downloaded) MCE disk, but my serial was found to be invalid. I

was actually a little surprised, since I thought all MCE editions were OEM.

Anyway, any ideas on getting further with the Gateway disk?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

>>

>> Thanks y'all.

>>

>> Matty

>>

>>

>

[Guest msnews.microsoft.com]

Re: Ghost image backup won't boot.

 

 

"Anteaus" <Anteaus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:4F216B2D-1A25-4BC0-BA4A-52005F88F1AD@microsoft.com...

>

> If it gets to Welcome, the problem is not with the boot process which

> would

> have failed much earlier. At this stage the computer is running

> winlogon.exe, which is only a couple of steps aways from showing the

> desktop.

> The issue here might be with inability to access the useraccounbts in the

> registry SAM database.

Is there any way to work through or around that? I ctrl+alt+deleted, but

didn't get anything. Can you tell me more about the SAM database?

>

> I'm wondering if your original problem might be with hardware, for example

> a

> failing disk. I would check this possibility out first. Do a full disk

> verification with the likes of Ranish Partition Manager.

Interesting you should say. The reason I was trying to restore in the first

place was because I was noticing that my 12gb of files seemed to be taking

up 19.5gb of space on my 20gb boot partition. Furthermore, I had been

unable to access System Restore, since the program kept crashing. Something

was eating up HD space, and I couldn't find a culprit or delete any restore

points. I may have taken things too far...

I'll try the Ranish Partition Mgr to check the hardware.

thanks.