How to start my application when device boots?

Windows XP boots from floppy with ntldr & ntdetect.com, but not from the hd

• My goal is to clone a hard drive from computer A (with all my programs set up) to computer B. I have a corporate site license for Windows XP Pro, so this does not violate the license. I just want to avoid having to install and customize all of the apps, so I have the same look and feel on the new computer. I cloned the HD from computer A, installed it as the master in computer B. Computer B has only 1 ide card (at the moment - I have another one on the way), so I have the HD as master and CD as slave. I booted from the Windows CD, ran Windows Repair, waited the 45 minutes or so, and it worked -- sort of. It will not boot from the hd (see below for symptoms), but will boot when a floppy is inserted with ntldr & ntdetect.com, it will boot into the Windows XP on the HD. This is great, the answer to my prayers. A few of the apps (MS Office and Mathematica) will have to be reinstalled, but nearly everything works exactly as it does on computer A. I have only 1 partition on the 120GB hd. (start small & simple) Norton Disk Doctor reports no errors with the hd. From the Windows Recovery Console, I ran FIXMBR. Along the way there was the warning saying ?This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed. This could cause all the partitions on the current hd to become inaccessible." I continued to execute fixmbr. I also ran fixboot from Recovery Console. After these steps, it still boots just fine with the floppy, but not from the hd. When I try to boot from the HD, with no floppy inserted, I see the CD drive operate (it is the first boot choice), then the floppy drive operates (2nd boot choice), then the "push F10 to run setup, etc." message at the bottom of the screen appears, then the HD (3rd boot choice) flickers on for about 0.3 seconds, then the cursor is flashing in the top left corner of the monitor. Oddly, the light on the floppy drive is still on, but it doesn't seem to spin a floppy if one is inserted. So, my request is this. How can i get it to boot to the HD, without the use of the floppy. Bonus if you can give me any pointers for cloning a HD from Computer A to Computer B. Things went well after the Windows Repair, but that set the OS back to pre SP2. When I downloaded SP2, it klobbered the driver for my monitor. I ran the device manager and eventually got the drivers back, but much of the device manager window was off the screen of the monitor and not accessible with the mouse. Thanks in advance for reading through all of this and thanks even more for any help.

• Answer:

  Sure, I can certainly do that for you. In all truthfullness, I normally charge $125/hr for this type of work when I'm doing it for my day-job (and not on Google Answers). GA is a little different as I do it when I'm not doing anything else, and it's a distraction. Plus, I can pick and choose questions that I personally am interested in (rather than a client telling me he wants x, y and z done today :) ). All of which is essentially an explanation for why I answer cheaper-priced questions than what I charge for consulting work in the real world. So, first issue: The original issue really dealt with the MBR. fdisk /fixmbr or using the 'repair' function in the WinXP CD-Rom will fix that particular issue. But, the larger issue is (whether you knew it at the time that you asked the question or not) how to clone XP without causing issues with the Security ID (SID). Sysprep is the solution. As for working through your issues with sysprep, I'm more than happy to do so. However, one think is bothering me a bit.. Do you **KNOW** that second HD and/or second computer is in 100% perfect working order (i.e. the memory isn't bad, CPU isn't dead, etc.)? I'd almost want you to install XP on there clean and just see if it's working! OR, use the same imaged drive in both computers. Does it work in one and not the other? Also, do you know that the BIOS doesn't have a problem with the large hard drive? Do you have an OVERLAY (i.e. Maxblast software) that you should be REMOVING prior to imaging? Imaging the drive alone will not remove a driver overlay. You need to re-run maxtor's maxblast (or equivalent) to remove that. Sysprep is pretty easy to use for the most part.. But, obviously, if the machine isn't working well, then, that would cause a problem too. Anyways, I'm going to post this as the answer to this question. If you'd like to post a second question on sysprep, let me know and I'll be happy to answer it for you, and work with you on that one. I always hate posting an actual dollar amount for tips and/or prices, but, if you had called me up and wanted me to do the entire procedure for you, it would probably have cost you around $250-375... Now, since I'm not actually having to travel to you, and wait around while the computer actually performs some of its tasks, the amount of time I actually need to spend with the problem will be less.. Probably between 1 and 2 hours (vs 2-3 hours). Anyways, hope that helps? :) Legolas-ga