XP clone blinking cursor

When I cloned a failing XP hard drive by sector with Easeus (smart drive beeps and bad sector) the cloned drive didn’t boot, it only showed a blinking cursor. I found the solution at:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/515490/windows-doesnt-boot-black-screen-with-blinking-cursor/

Use an XP install disk for the same sp installed on the failing hard drive.

Quote from comment that did the job:

It is possible that your boot.ini is corrupt. Try the following:

In Recovery Console get to the C:\ prompt, not C:\Windows. Then type the following

 

attrib-h boot.ini  >enter

attrib-s boot.ini  >enter

attrib-r boot.ini  >enter

del boot.ini  >enter

 

bootcfg  /rebuild  >enter   Edit: There is a space between bootcfg and /rebuild

It will ask to add installation to boot disk. Press Y

It will ask to enter a load identifier. Type: Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Under enter OS load options type:    /fastdetect  /noexecute=optin (space between /fastdetect and /noexecute=optin)

 

finally type:

fixboot  >enter

exit >enter

 

Reboot and see if windows loads. Good Luck.