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:
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.