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Thanks all! The good news is that the Compaq 6220 is now booting on its own . I followed RaniyShadow's instructions to use BOOTICE. It took two tries. The first time I used the NTLDR option under "Process PBR". It did not work. Same results as before i.e. black screen w/flashing cursor. Next I tried "Process PBR" with the BOOTMGR option. Bang! Windows XP is now booting! (I tried using Muti Quote but I must be doing something wrong as I could not get it work). For the record here are the answers to the questions that were asked: dencorso "What was the source computer?": It was a home built desktop. ASUS P5QL Pro socket 775 mobo Q9650 3.0GHz CPU 16 GB RAM. Vistapocalypse "What security software is installed?" None. The source desktop's AV was removed before the installation was cloned. jaclaz "For the record, the flashing cursor (top left, white on black) is often connected to an issue between CHS and LBA entries in the MBR partition table (and/or in the PBR geometry data). This often happens when a not entirely "proper" tool i used to do the partitioning or (this used to be a common case some years ago) when you transplant a disk from one PC to another (particularly laptops there were a lot of BIOSes around that used 240 heads geometry instead of 255)." Since the transplanted XP installation DOES boot with Hiren's CD, CHS/LBA & head geometry is not an issue. "Was it really-really BOOTMGR.EXE or more simply BOOTMGR?" It was BOOTMGR.EXE. "WHO told you that it was unneeded?" After I removed Win 8.1 from the source computer, it booted to XP with no issues. Then when I had the issues with the nc6220 laptop, I researched both XP & 8.1 boot processes. I deleted BOOTMGR.EXE from the desktop source XP installation. It still booted (and still does) XP just fine. So I also deleted it from the laptop. Here's my source on the boot process for XP & Vista and above : https://neosmart.net/wiki/windows-xp-boot-process/ Thanks for the info on GRUB4DOS. I normally use System Commander to dual boot Win XP & below. When I installed Win 8.1 I used it's dual boot feature which was - horrible. I will use it on another system that has Win XP and Win 7 on it. dencorso "But... where is the OP? Has he/she gone put out the trash and got hit by a 10-ton meteorite?" No, it was only a 1.657 ton rock as I took out our garbage/recycle bins last night and I was able to side-step it "Did he/she take out the Velostat cap to wash his/her hair and then aliens took the opportunity to abduct him/her?" No, I just send them a coded Morse code radio message and they pick me up take me where I want to go. But I stayed home last night and - slept "Or maybe the Compaq nc6220 laptop just disappeared in a puff of purple smoke as some old Compaqs are wont to do?" Not yet but I am also working on a Compaq LTE 5380 and while it was on life support it is now working and loving the Windows 98SE OS on it. It is a crucial computer in my recording studio and is un-replaceable. "So many questions... and no answers yet... it's sort of depressing, isn't it?" Not at all!!! Now that it's booting I'm happy as a clam POP QUIZ: Why would a 1997ish 133MHz Pentium with 80MB of RAM Compaq LTE 5380 running Windows 98SE be so important in a recording studio? HINT: It deals with the PCMCIA slot......

@jaclaz @Tripredacus Holy squat! Someone doesn't like Mr. Dvorak. Click on that medium link. "410: Account under investigation or was found in violation of medium rules." Sounds a lot like Twitter: "Shut up about that."/"How DARE you try to correct as blue check person! Suspended!" <crazy-googlie-eye-emoticon> (Side note: Yep! His account is suspended - the link is in the oldest Wayback...) BTW, Still kicking. Glad to see some of you still around.

The update.exe module in the WhatsApp x64 installer is still 32bit. And I noticed they only support Windows 8 and above. Though it probably works on Windows 7 too since all Windows 8+ functions are currently in a broken state in my kernel. But I noticed that the application itself is stored in X:\Users\User\AppData\Local\SquirrelTemp\WhatsApp-2.2027.10-full.nupkg\. I extracted it from that package with 7zip and it ran.

That is the intention. I do believe that the logon init problems are connected to the random services/explorer having trouble starting. Though windbg hasn't helped at all. Sticking onto a VM with my file causes it to freeze when the boot screen is running. But I've noticed that BSODs ceased after making the wildcard import call RtlGetFileMUIPath, though it still causes automatic reboots. Others to try are: LdrGetDllHandleEx and RtlDetermineDosPathNameType_U, I also noticed that the Vista x64 implementation of LoadLibraryExW was very similar to the one in XP x64 (except for not calling SRWLock functions and some other minor differences), which doesn't have the same problem. Though I'm not sure if NT 5 versions of functions would be a good fit for an NT 6 kernel. Then I looked at the One-Core-API version of the function, where an auxiliary LoadLibraryExW is called in its kernelbase.dll, which leads back to the original one in kernel32.dll. Maybe I could use something like that. In the meantime I added K32GetModuleBaseNameW, K32GetModuleBaseNameA and SetThreadGroupAffinity. This will allow Logitech Gaming Software 9.02 and .NET 4.8 to work.

The jury is out on whether we can even do anything to stop or change the path of the climate, however it is more important that we can agree that pollution of any sort is bad and we can always do more to cut down on that and make our environment better for each other. E-waste is primarily caused by many things, of which I can think, but these may be limited to the US. - manufacturers creating products with planned obsolescene and/or not following standards, resulting in short lifespans. - manufacturers using designs that are not publicly documented, or keep documentation behind paywalls or subscription plans. - manufacturers that replace whole parts (such as boards) instead of fixing or replacing individual components. - manufacturers that sue repair shops - trades (in general) not seen as important and not taught in schools, especially electronics Going back to the 1990s, there were repair shops all over the place. You could take you electronic gadget to get fixed and it was an actual fix and not just a PCB replacement. Or you could get the service manual and do the work yourself. Even to this day, if you buy some older electronic device, you can find the service manual online and be able to do a repair yourself. With new products, that isn't an option. As things changed, the removal of electronic repair shops, the disappearing of stores to buy components (although most can be found online), the ceasing of schools teaching trades like electronics/repair and likely the fact that costs have come way down on products has made it so people do not have the same attachment to something they once had. It is cheaper to just "buy a new one" instead of trying to find someone to repair it. Companies do replace products if they are under warranty, but they are doing wholesale changes and does not solve the e-waste issue. It is cheaper for a company to just replace a PCB and sell the "bad" one to a recycler than to spend time to diagnose and repair a problem. So in the current day, there is too few options for what to do with broken or unwanted electronics. Pay a recycler to take the thing? Put it out into the garbage? Throw it into the woods or the ocean? We had a ton of electronics years ago and didn't have this waste problem because the products lasted longer and they could be fixed. And fixing something was cheaper than buying a replacement, or cheap enough to make waiting for a repair a better option than buying a new one.

Just in case anyone else has the issue, those DLL's cannot be change because they are read-only to everyone except Trusted Installer, even administrators cannot change them. I downloaded a program PowerRun, it allows you to run a file browser (I use Directory Opus) as Trusted Installer and then you can rename the files and/or replace them. Make a restore point first just in case. Thanks, netguru