Boot problem on cloned dual-boot SSD

[amblabs]

I went and purchased a Western Digital Blue Mobile 1TB SATA HDD to do this experiment.

Using Macrium Reflex 7, I cloned my original HDD to this new HDD (I was brave, I resized both the Win7 and XP partitions to fill the disk). Then I regedit'ed the cloned XP partition's system hive to fix the DosDevices\C and DosDevices\D entries because Macrium did not do that. The cloned disk booted both Win7 and XP successfully!

I then did another experiment. I deleted the partitions on the new HDD, and cloned the (previously cloned, but with non-booting XP) SSD to it. I also had to fix the DosDevices entries here. And both Win7 and XP booted successfully on this HDD too!

So the original clone from the HDD to the SSD was completely good as far as the data goes. But somehow XP fails to boot when it's on this SSD. This narrows the problem down to the SSD itself. I am quite baffled. Win7 has no trouble booting off this SSD, only XP fails. Yet when booted XP on the HDD, the SSD works fine as an external drive. Is the SSD "too fast" as the boot drive for XP? A timing issue?

I hate to give up on this SSD, it is indeed a much faster drive and boots very quickly compared to the HDD.

 

[johnhoh]

I cloned the (previously cloned, but with non-booting XP) SSD to it. I also had to fix the DosDevices entries here. And both Win7 and XP booted successfully on this HDD too!

Cloning the unbootable SSD was a clever idea, and your success points to the topic I was bringing up the other day that xp may not like the hdd driver for the ssd. As you may know when windows does not boot after swapping motherboards with the same boot disk its most always due to the disk controller driver, and the solution is to go back and switch to the generic disk controller driver for the hard drive using the original disk, then try the swap a second time.

So knowing that gives me this idea: go back into the original setup and boot into WinXp from the hdd with the ssd installed as a second drive, then go into device manager and select the boot drive's disk controller and choose Update Driver, then select Browse my computer for drivers, then Let me choose from a list, then proceed to change the driver to the generic driver for winxp. On win7 I think its called Standard AHCI driver 1.1, something like that, not sure about xp. Then reboot into win7 and clone to the ssd again (or just clone the whole drive directly from xp. It would be funny if that ended up being the key here, cloning from xp instead of win7) Do not boot into winxp again as it may re-install the original xp controller driver and replace the generic. This is essentially the way one makes a windows hard drive able to boot from a variety of motherboards by giving windows a drive controller driver its most comfortable with. We would not think you would need to do that here because you're using the same motherboard so why on earth would we want to use a different disk controller driver, but you have been working at this for a while so why not try everything.

Obviously if that does not work, there is also the option of changing the disk driver itself as opposed to the disk controller driver, using a similar method. I have never done that and can't suggest why it would work, but its another idea.

I have not gone back to read this whole thread so I assume you have already covered the topic of partition alignment (another way an SSD is different than an HDD), but that's something else to look into if not. Macrium discusses how to override its own clone defaults here. (I wonder if macrium is not realizing there is an xp clone involved here because you've been cloning from within win7?)
Partition Alignment

 

[amblabs]

@johnhoh
Thanks, I will try what you suggest and see what happens.

As for partition alignment, In my several attempts to clone the HDD to the SSD, I have chosen both aligned and not. When I originally cloned with Acronis True Image and EaseUS Todo Backup, I made sure the XP partition was aligned to 1MB boundary. When I tried Macrium the first time, I chose to clone the HDD exactly, which resulted in an unaligned XP partition (CHS). I have also tried Macrium with an aligned XP partition (Vista/7/SSD). In all cases XP failed to boot. As I understand it, an unaligned partition will simply create a performance hit because it generates lots more disk I/O, but it shouldn't cause a boot failure.

 

[SIW2]

But somehow XP fails to boot when it's on this SSD. This narrows the problem down to the SSD itself.

I suspected that.

from what happened here

Dieter has posted some updated modded drivers for XP. I have no idea if they will help.

[Guide] Integration of Intels AHCI/RAID drivers into a Windows XP/W2k3/W2k CD

 

[amblabs]

johnhoh
I tried to do as you suggested but am not getting anywhere. This laptop is an AMD-based machine and the closest thing to a disk controller that I could find in XP's device manager is under "SCSI and RAID controllers" > "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller", as shown below:

If I right click on it and select "Update driver...", Select "No, not this time" about connecting to Windows Update, select "Install from a list ofr specific location (Advanced)", browse removable media and include D:\WINDOWS\system32, it gives me this:

SIW2
Since I have an AMD machine, not Intel, is the article you linked still relevant?

 

[SIW2]

[Guide] Integration of AMD's AHCI/RAID drivers into a WinXP/W2k3 CD

 

[johnhoh]

@johnhoh
I tried to do as you suggested but am not getting anywhere. This laptop is an AMD-based machine and the closest thing to a disk controller that I could find in XP's device manager is under "SCSI and RAID controllers" > "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller", as shown below:

A key point on the page shown by SIW2 is that you want to run in ahci mode, not raid. I'm assuming you are not running raid but the fact that your amd driver says raid in the title while not saying ahci in the title is kind of weird. I looked at MSI's support page for your board and there are two chipset drivers, the one you have which says raid and the one below which says ahci. I would install the one below and see if it installs and if so does it produce a bootable clone. No idea if this will work, we're just trying everything here. If it does not install you may need to uninstall the current raid driver and then manually navigate to the location on your board that contains the driver in the link below.

Download MSI CR630 Notebook ATI RS880M Chipset/VGA Driver 8.720 for Windows 7, Windows 7 64 bit

As I mentioned in my earlier post, you might also try installing macrium within winxp and then cloning from winxp, as another thing to try

 

[amblabs]

A key point on the page shown by SIW2 is that you want to run in ahci mode, not raid. I'm assuming you are not running raid but the fact that your amd driver says raid in the title while not saying ahci in the title is kind of weird.

I am running in AHCI mode. The BIOS only provides two choices - "AHCI" or "IDE".
The XP driver is called "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID driver". It does say AHCI and RAID, but I think "RAID" is irrelevant here.

I looked at MSI's support page for your board and there are two chipset drivers, the one you have which says raid and the one below which says ahci. I would install the one below and see if it installs and if so does it produce a bootable clone. No idea if this will work, we're just trying everything here. If it does not install you may need to uninstall the current raid driver and then manually navigate to the location on your board that contains the driver in the link below.

Download MSI CR630 Notebook ATI RS880M Chipset/VGA Driver 8.720 for Windows 7, Windows 7 64 bit

That's a Win7 driver, not for XP... ???

As I mentioned in my earlier post, you might also try installing macrium within winxp and then cloning from winxp, as another thing to try

OK, maybe worth a try.

 

[johnhoh]

That's a Win7 driver, not for XP... ???

its the same driver that's on the MSI site for XP. Perhaps it contains both versions and detects your OS to see which one to install. In any case, here the MSI XP link. Its the second driver under chipset.

Support For CR630 | Laptops - The best gaming laptop provider | MSI Global

 

[johnhoh]

Note sure if you have seen this, it has some xp ssd driver downloads plus tips for installing xp on an ssd
Installing Windows Xp on SSD disk - WindowsPRO.eu

 

[amblabs]

its the same driver that's on the MSI site for XP. Perhaps it contains both versions and detects your OS to see which one to install. In any case, here the MSI XP link. Its the second driver under chipset.

Support For CR630 | Laptops - The best gaming laptop provider | MSI Global

I downloaded this and tried to install it. It contains a bunch of drivers (graphics, SMbus, AHCI, etc.) but it says that my system is already up to date with all of them. I checked the Device Manager and indeed the versions are the same.

Note sure if you have seen this, it has some xp ssd driver downloads plus tips for installing xp on an ssd
Installing Windows Xp on SSD disk - WindowsPRO.eu

No, but I just looked at it and basically it's the same stuff as what @SIW2 linked to -- a way to install XP by slipstreaming an AHCI driver into Windows Setup. But I am not trying to install XP, just trying to make an existing XP installation work on a new SSD. And I don't want to do a new install, because it will most likely undo all the updates.

 

[johnhoh]

No, but I just looked at it and basically it's the same stuff as what @SIW2 linked to -- a way to install XP by slipstreaming an AHCI driver into Windows Setup. But I am not trying to install XP, just trying to make an existing XP installation work on a new SSD. And I don't want to do a new install, because it will most likely undo all the updates.

Yes, I know its a page for slipstreaming, and I know that you are not installing xp fresh. Its just that any page with the title "Do this or else you can't install winxp on an ssd" might as well have the title "Do this or your xp clone of an hdd won't boot on an ssd." That's why I referred you to the page. No idea if the page will help, but that is exactly the type of page we are looking for for guidance.

By the way, have you run the XP SP4 update on your system?

Download Windows XP Service Pack 4 Unofficial - MajorGeeks

 

[amblabs]

@johnhoh

I guess I must have done this slipstream thing when I first installed XP. The machine came installed with Vista on it, and I updated it to Win7. I shrank the C: partition to make room for the D: partition for XP. It's been so long I don't remember what I did exactly.

I am at XP SP3. I didn't know there was an SP4 available. Ah, it's "unofficial". OK, I'll look into it.

 

[amblabs]

I downloaded and installed the Windows XP SP4 unofficial update while booted XP on my HDD. I test booted XP on the HDD and it worked fine, so I cloned it to the SSD. However XP still fails to boot (same symptom) on the SSD. Can't say that I'm surprised, even though I had some hope for a miracle.

Back to the drawing board. Any more ideas?

 

[amblabs]

Update: I went back to the HDD, booted XP, and turned off the "Automatic restart after system failure" option. Interestingly, a bunch of automatic windows updates came in, probably related to the Service Pack 4 that I previously installed. They all seem to be fixes for Microsoft .Net Framework. I let all of them install, even though some of them failed. I then installed Macrium Reflect 7, and proceeded to clone the whole disk to the SSD while running XP.

This time, Macrium fixed the MountedDevices\DosDevices* entries in XP's registry system hive, but left the Win7 one untouched, so I had to manually edit the Win7 one. It appears Macrium will only "fix" the partition on which the system is booted on.

Anyway, after all that, Win7 booted fine on the SSD, but XP failed again. However, instead of just resetting to POST, it got a BSOD "STOP: 0x00007B (0xBA4CF524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)". This is identical to the screenshot I posted earlier. I think this is because I turned off the automatic restart after system crash.

So, can anyone deduce anything from this particular STOP code?

 

[starvinmarvin]

Just a thought about dual-booting Windows. A Microsoft guy told me years ago that you should install the newer version of Windows as the second operating system, not as the first one. I see you have done it the other way 'round.

 

[amblabs]

starvinmarvin
The laptop came pre-installed originally with Windows Vista, which I then updated to Windows 7. I then later shrank the C: drive to make room for another partition for Windows XP as D: drive. It worked fine on the original HDD, and also on a cloned HDD, including a second-generation clone HDD-SSD-HDD. The partition order is identical in all clones. The result was that it always works (Win7 and XP both boot fine) when it's on the HDD, but fails (XP won't boot) when it's on the SSD. So the install order of the OS is irrelevant.

 

[SIW2]

I just checked a crucial ssd using fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo d: and it reports 4096 bytes per cluster.

Earlier you ran fdisk with the SSD (/dev/sdb) as an external drive. What does fsutil report when it is an internal disk?

 

[johnhoh]

it got a BSOD "STOP: 0x00007B (0xBA4CF524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)".

I'm still on the thought that xp is unable to address the ssd due to a driver issue, but have nothing to add other than my previous posts. Here's two posts with symptoms like yours that may be instructive.

How to Fix STOP 0x0000007B BSOD Errors

Blue screen with error message, STOP 0x0000007B (0xBA4CF524, - Microsoft Community

 

[amblabs]

I just checked a crucial ssd using fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo d: and it reports 4096 bytes per cluster.

Earlier you ran fdisk with the SSD (/dev/sdb) as an external drive. What does fsutil report when it is an internal disk?

The "bytes per cluster" as reported by fsutil is 4096 in all cases, whether it's the SSD or the HDD, Win7 or XP. Here is a screenshot (D: is the HDD's XP partition, G: is the SSD's as an external disk, but the result is the same if I swap them around):

I think you're probably more interested in bytes per sector? fsutil reports 512 bytes in all cases, as does fdisk. The interesting difference between the HDD and the SSD is in the fsutil output, the "bytes per physical sector" is shown to be 4096 for the HDD (which is strange), but as "<Not Supported>" for the SSD.

EDIT: The "bytes per physical sector" shows as "<Not Supported>" only when the SSD is connected as an external drive via the SATA-USB adapter. When booted on the SSD, this field reports as 512.