After moving to a new harddisk (in the same pc), Grub can boot Ubuntu, but can not boot Windows XP (which I need for things like my Linux-unsupported scanner).

Ubuntu boots fine. When I select Windows from the boot menu, it says "Starting up ...", and then nothing happens.
When I boot Ubuntu, I can mount the Windows (NTFS) partition and read the files.
Where is the problem? Is it Grub, or is it Windows? Did dd not copy everything Windows needs?

This is what I did to perform the move:

1. install the new disk in the computer;
2. boot from Ubuntu live cd;
3. use fdisk to create partitions on the new disk (with the Windows NTFS partitions having the exact same size);
4. use mkfs to create filesystems in the Linux partitions;
5. use cp -a to copy files from the old disk to the new disk;
6. edit fstab and Grub's menu.lst to include the new partition UUID's;
7. copied the Windows partition using dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1;
8. reinstalled Grub;
9. remove the old disk.

Windows doesn't like to be moved, and dd isn't a great cloner if you use the defaults - as it seems you have. There's a huge dd thread here.
I've just noticed clonezilla on sourceforge - looks good; maybe try that.

Hi gewe,

The best way I found to copy complete harddisks is using a RIP-Linux CD and use gparted for copying all partitions.

You find RIP Linux here: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-r...looplinux/rip/

I retried the dd copy, this time adding bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror. Same result however.
Booted from a Windows XP cd, and in the recovery console did a fixmbr. Booting has the same result as booting the Windows partition from Grub.

Just to check: a harddisk has a partition table, a MBR and partitions (with each a boot record). I created the partitions manually, and after copying the partition data, installed grub in the MBR. That should cover every disk area? By copying the Windows partition with dd every single byte should be copied? What am I missing here?

As for "moving Windows": the Windows partition on both the old and the new disk is the first primary partition, with exactly the same size. So, as far as Windows could tell there has been no move. Am I right?

Guess I should look on Windows forums for an answer, as the Linux part of my system just works like it did on the old disk. First I will try another way of cloning.

Thanks for your replies.

Just solved the problem, thanks to http://www.dominok.net/en/it/en.it.c....html#modboots. The partition on the new disk started at another sector than on the old disk, and apparantly Windows XP needs to know that.

Interesting link - thanks.
Wonder if fixboot (from XP Recovery Console) would have corrected that.