Member Avatar for Agita

I post this question in XP because I'm trying to get a Hard drive to go back to XP on two PCs I would like to think of myself as a intelligent person but this makes me feel stupid.


I have a HDD that was formated and loaded with vista. Now nothing else has been able to touch it. Partition commander, paragon partition manager. active kill disk. I've Tried everything 30 or so programs. XP will format and install fine but not boot.

Any help would be appreciated.

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As discovered, the one clue that matters is this: cloning a working XP disk onto the problematic drive made it boot. That strongly points to a low-level difference (the disk's boot metadata or firmware-exposed area) rather than missing OS files. The XP setup wrote the Windows files, but the BIOS/boot path still did not find a valid boot record or bootable partition on that drive.

Likely culprits (not already covered in the thread)

  • A nonstandard or protective partition structure left behind by Vista (an EFI/GPT protective layout or a small "system" partition that holds the boot code).
  • Vendor/firmware-level features such as Host Protected Area (HPA) or a hidden vendor partition that changes reported geometry.
  • Logical Disk Manager (dynamic disk) metadata or an LDM/volume layout that the target machine will not boot from.
  • BIOS vs SATA mode mismatch (IDE/AHCI/RAID) so the drive is not accessible the same way at boot.
  • Corrupt or nonstandard MBR/partition boot sector or a missing/incorrectly marked active/system partition.

Practical diagnostic workflow

  • From a working OS, inspect the disk with a partition editor that can show raw sector 0 and the partition table (look for GPT headers, protective partitions, or odd partition type codes). Also check whether the disk is Basic or Dynamic and whether a small system partition exists.
  • Check BIOS settings and the drive list: ensure the drive is seen, set as first boot device, and that SATA mode matches the mode used during install.
  • Run the drive vendor diagnostics (full SMART and advanced tests) and check for HPA options; vendor tools can remove HPA or perform a secure erase if necessary (this is destructive).
  • If the diagnostics are clean and you need a reproducible fix, copy the disk signature/MBR and partition table from a known-good disk or perform a sector-by-sector restore (that is what cloning did successfully). Be aware these operations overwrite data.

Cautions and notes

  • Zero-filling or secure erase will destroy data; back up first. Cloning masked the root cause but is a valid practical repair. On modern hardware consider UEFI/GPT/legacy-boot differences: XP predates native GPT/UEFI boot support, so ensure firmware is in legacy mode if attempting to boot XP. For persistent uncertainty, capture the disk's sector 0 and have a technician inspect it before destructive operations.

Thanks to , and for the troubleshooting leads already tried; the clone result is the key diagnostic signal.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for Suspishio

There should be no problem booting from your Windows XP CD in recovery mode and using FDISK to reset your partitions etc.

ANd then move forward. Or is that what you did? FDISK is important to be rid of Vista.

Member Avatar for Agita

Say we delete the partitions and format. I stick it in a computer and load XP. After installing the os and on the desktop, I go to re-boot.
"No OS found"

Look at it with another computer the system is there just fine. Fdisk does not fix. Inserting the Xp cd and Fdisk does not fix. Do an overlay and it does not fix it. lol

Could it be that when It had Vista on it the partitions on the drive were GTP and not MBR?

Member Avatar for Suspishio

The sequence I was recommending was to use the FDISK off the XP CD.


On the second PC you could low level format the HDD with the utility downloaded from the manufacturer's support site. Then FDISK, then Format then take it to the first PC and set Windows up.

If that doesn't work I'm stumped.

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

under vista what is the file sysem on the hdd,

Member Avatar for Agita

- its NTFS man.


- I used the F-disk off the disk and off the other computer ( which is vista )

A system with Xp will not recognize the disk as a formatted drive and will not let me format.


Ill try everything again. Just an attempt to save a friend from buying another HDD.

Thanks -----------------------(by the way I used the command prompt to try to convert
from GPT to MBR and the system claimed
that it was already MBR)

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

run the hddd manufacturer cd utility on the hdd, write zero's if u have to but start there make sure that the drive is setup to hold an opearting system then run fdisk then format. am ensure the jumper match the hdd config, master, master with slave and so on.

Member Avatar for Agita

OK it won't recognize the disk wtf.

I knew other boot utilities wouldn't touch the drive but I kind of expected The WD utility to. killing the disk now with active kill disk. It finally recognized it.

13 hours left just to delete the partition. lol

Lets see if this works???!! lol

Member Avatar for Ubuntu

Try this :
Boot From Windows XP CD and then go to recovery mode by pressing "R" when asked you .

in recovery mode type these commands :

1 . fixboot
2 . fixmbr

Member Avatar for Agita

Killing the disk still didn't work. I tried fixboot and fixmbr, both seemed to do something. After that I could install xp but it would not reboot.(OS not found on screen)

Out of pure frustration I used another HDD and loaded XP, Then I Cloned the fresh working install to the old HDD. Works fine for now, I hope it stays up. lol. Even tough the problem is simi fixed I would still like to know why this happened. This is the third time that I know of that this happened. I know that they messed around with the partition tables, but shouldn't be nothing major just adding a partition or taking one away. I don't know what could of happened.

Thanks for the help guys. If you hear anything similar or find out what may have caused it please let me know

---thanks

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