-=PCTechTalk=- Re: XP Musical boot failure

- - - See below:



Gman wrote:
> See below:
>
>   
>>
>>
>> The XP install was first.  Then Vista.  Then XP was imaged followed by
>> Vista and the Data Drive.
>>     
>
>
> This changes my initial guess, although I'm not yet sure where it sends it.
>
> - - - I don't know either as I thought that was the sequence I included in my 
> original message.
>   
>> Data drive was moved and moved back by Vista.  XP became screwed up.
>>     
>
>
> Was XP fired up at any time while the data drive was not where XP expected 
>   
> it to be?
- - - No, not that I can remember.


> Restored Data drive.  Restored XP.  Rewrote the Vista MBR using EasyBCD.
>
> XP was already messed up by this point, so the proverbial "if" is likely to 
> be found within an action (or inaction) prior to this exercise.
>
> - - - I agree, restoring happened after the problem.  Question is why didn't 
> it fix the problem.  To answer that we need to know what caused the problem.  
>   
>> ***** If Vista hijacked permissions, I suspect I would need to restore
>> Vista to release the hostages.  But, since the restored XP had those
>> permissions, why didn't restoring it fix it?  Could something have made
>> changes to ntldr that would cause the problem?
>>     
>
>
> The rest of these questions appear to focus specifically on my suggestion of 
> 'Permissions'.  Never lose track of the fact that this entire suggestion is 
> only a guess.  "IF" a serious inquiry were to be brought into this mystery, 
> it could very well turn out to be something else entirely.
>   
> - - - What else might be the culprit?
>   

> Under NTFS, permissions are written directly to the drive holding the 
> 'permissioned' items.  A restore of the Vista &/or XP volumes would do 
> nothing to modify the permissions physically stored on the NTFS formatted 
> Data drive.  Only a restore of the Data drive could do that.
>
> - - - This suggests that the data drive restore "should" have fixed the 
> problem UNLESS the "permissions" are contained in an area that was not 
> included in the image.  Perhaps the FAT?
>   
>> What might have had permissions hijacked that would cause the hang at
>> the point where it hangs?
>>     
>
>
> An important XP system file needed at XP's boot that did not give XP 
> permission to engage it when it was called from the XP registry during 
> bootup.
>
> - - - Is there a way to determine what might be the culprit?
>   
>> If XP doesn't see the my documents folder, it simply creates a new one
>> where it expects to find it.
>>     
>
>
> True.
>
>
>   
>> AVG Suite, MS Office 2007, MS Plus Digital Media Edition and Vispics
>> were the only programs installed in XP and they were installed with the
>> Program Files folder on the data drive.
>>     
>
>
> Noted.
>
>
>   
>> ***** It would seem to me the "missing" program files folder would
>> simply create error messages during boot and start up rather than hang
>> the boot itself since (I assume) startup programs don't start until
>> Windows is loaded.
>>     
>
>
> If the registry had been told to use a separate volume for its Program Files 
> folder, all already existing Program Files files & folders need to be Copied 
> over to that volume.  If this is not done, Windows is likely to go looking 
> in the wrong location for the files added to this system folder during the 
> install.  In other words, it will look for most (but not all) of them in the 
> new location.  If they are not where they are expected to be, unexpected 
> results can be expected instead.  As a precaution against this, I Copy the 
> original to the new location, make the necessary changes to the registry to 
> tell Windows to use the new location for both 'Program Files' & 'Common 
> Files' and then leave the old ones right where they are.                      
>                                                                               
>                                                                               
>                                                             
>                                                                               
>                                                                               
>                                 - - - During installation some programs do 
> not give option to select where to install.  I assume at least some of those 
> would look to the registry to find the default program files folder.  I would 
> not be surprised to learn that some do not and instead automatically install 
> to C:\Program Files.  If something like that was installed could/would it be 
> a contibuting factor?  If a program that does not use the registry default 
> but did give the option where to install and I oooopsed and failed to select 
> the data drive, would/could that be a factor?   
>   
>> ***** At any rate I will simply reinstall both systems and start over.
>> And everything is going to go where the OS wants it to be.  And then I
>> may try relocating the "My Documents" and "Documents folders to the Data
>> Drive (or maybe an external) and point XP and Vista (respectively) to
>> them.   I'm thinking that using the internal data drive will be best and
>> just "sync" it to an external when I need to go portable.
>>     
>
>
> Fair enough.  Although you are choosing to use much less than you have 
> learned here, the fact remains that you now know a heck of a lot more than 
> you did before you started these experiments.  Perhaps it's time to drop the 
> 'reckless' part from your name.       ;) 

> - - -  I have not yet done the reinstall of anything.  Since I have access to 
> everything I need to do in Vista (Thank goodness for portable applications on 
> an external drive) I am in no hurry to do so as long as it might be useful to 
> keep the problem around in order to do troubleshooting or just poking around 
> looking at things.   I have a feeling that some of the "reckless" remains so 
> I won't be in a hurry to change that either.  :-))

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