New Hard Drive

I have an HP desktop that has had the hard drive crash on it. I had already prepared a complete hard drive image using Acronis True Image to an external hard drive. I have now purchased a new WD 500 G hard drive and formatted it and restored the backup image. Problem, my system will not boot up. What have I done incorrectly?

 

Yes, my previous hard drive was a 500 G WD.

 

are you sure your backup isn't corrupted? have you tried formatting your new h/d and trying again? what is your os? what did you format your h/d as? - sos

 

I am going to do that now. I am formatting the hard drive (removing everything that was there) and then I will (using WD tools) format the hard drive as a large hard drive and restore the image again. The image is fine. Are you meaning something else?

 

yes, i was asking if your backup (image) was corrupted (but you say it's fine). what is your os (operating system)? what did you format your h/d as (ie - fat 32 or ntfs), i'm sure ntfs? - sos

 

I have XP Home. NTFS.

 

I have reformated the new hard drive using WD tools and then restored my image using acronis true image and get the following message when it boots up. I am at a total loss. I need help. Someone please help me. Direct me to what I need to do to correct all of this mess.

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

 

I have reformated the new hard drive using WD tools and then restored my image using acronis true image and get the following message when it boots up. I am at a total loss. I need help. Someone please help me. Direct me to what I need to do to correct all of this mess.

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

 

Is the new hard drive an IDE/ATA type drive or a SATA hard drive? If it's the older design (IDE/ATA) then you may need to check the jumper setting and make sure 1) the jumper is set to "Master" position; 2) the very end of the data cable is plugged into the hard drive (not the connector that is 5 or 6 inches from the end of the cable) and 3) don't plug in a CD/DVD drive with the other connector on the same IDE/ATA data cable. Plug your CD/DVD drives into a separate data cable plugged into a different ATA/IDE drive controller on your motherboard. If you plug a hard drive into a connector on the same IDE/ATA data cable that you've also connected to a CD/DVD drive I don't think it would make the hard drive unbootable, but it would make the hard drive run much more slowly (effectively at the same speed as the CD/DVD drive on the same cable).

How do you know your Acronis backup is uncorrupted? And have you ever restored an Acronis backup before? What kind of backup was it? A clone of your boot drive? A full image backup? A full image with additional incremental backups? Or a full image and a differential backup?