Off topic I realize, but I thought the expertise was here to answer.

I'm swapping out and upgrading the hard drive in my XP PC using Norton Ghost
on my Vista PC.

I disconnected the origins IDE XP disk and connected to Vista via a
USB/IDE controller.
I backed up the two partitions ("System" and "Files") on the disk to the
Vista PC with Ghost.
I disconnected the original IDE XP disk
I connected the new IDE XP disk to the Vista PC
I restored both partitions to the new disk (System is Primary and
active.)
Disconnected new IDE XP from Vista
Connected new IDE XP to XP PC
Boot attempt gives me "Missing NTLDR"

I know "Missing NTLDR" can mean several things, but considering what I'm
trying to do here specifically, why won't the second disk boot? Is it the
MBR? Do I go to the recovery console and try a fixmbr?

Thanks

"Sam" <sam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ZZ7Qi.1568$5c.234@bignews1.bellsouth.net...[color=blue]
> Off topic I realize, but I thought the expertise was here to answer.
>
> I'm swapping out and upgrading the hard drive in my XP PC using Norton
> Ghost on my Vista PC.
>
> I disconnected the origins IDE XP disk and connected to Vista via a
> USB/IDE controller.
> I backed up the two partitions ("System" and "Files") on the disk to
> the Vista PC with Ghost.
> I disconnected the original IDE XP disk
> I connected the new IDE XP disk to the Vista PC
> I restored both partitions to the new disk (System is Primary and
> active.)
> Disconnected new IDE XP from Vista
> Connected new IDE XP to XP PC
> Boot attempt gives me "Missing NTLDR"
>
> I know "Missing NTLDR" can mean several things, but considering what I'm
> trying to do here specifically, why won't the second disk boot? Is it the
> MBR? Do I go to the recovery console and try a fixmbr?
>
> Thanks[/color]

Just to add, i find this particularly distutbing because this is not that
different from what I would do in case I needed to recover the Vista PC in
case of a hard drive failure...

Disconnect dead drive
Attach new drive
Restore system partition
Boot (hopefully)

I did try a test back when I was using Acronis of just this and the only way
I could get it to boot Windows was using the repair option on a recovery
disk. I can't believe Norton and Acronis would behave like this so I'm
assuming I'm missing something.

This never used to be a problem with my old DOS Norton boot disk.