My old computer is a 600MHz Compaq Presario running Windows XP Home.
It is set up just the way I want it. My new computer is a 1.8GHz IBM
NetVista Computer running Windows XP Pro. I would like to use
Partition Magic and BootMagic to make the IBM computer a dual boot
computer which, upon startup, will let you choose whether you want to
run its existing Windows XP Pro operating system or run the restored
image of Drive C from the old Compaq computer (which of course would
be running Windows XP Home). I obtained the following steps from
Powerquest Tech Support:
1. Use Partition Magic to create unallocated space on the hard drive
of the new computer. Do not assign a letter to this unallocated space.
2. Use Drive Image to create an image of the C drive of the old
computer. Create a folder on the C drive of the new computer called
"Image of C from Old Computer". Restore image of C from old computer
to this new folder on the new computer.
3. Insert the Drive Image CD in the new computer. Boot the new
computer to the Drive Image CD.
Use Drive Image to restore "Image of C from Old Computer" to the
unallocated space of the new computer. Let Drive Image automatically
resize the partition proportionally to fit in the unallocated space.
4. Do not let the computer boot back into Windows. Do not hit OK for
"reboot?", but remove the Drive Image CD and insert the Partition
Magic CD before rebooting.
5. The computer will reboot to the Partition Magic CD.
6. When the computer reboots to the Partition Magic CD, you will see
both partitions.
7. Use Partition Magic to hide the newly created partition that had
the image from the old computer restored to it.
8. Reboot back into Windows XP Pro.
8. Install BootMagic. Boot Magic sees both partitions and lets you
choose which one to boot to. I called BootMagic's first menu entry
"Windows XP Pro" and the second menu entry "Windows XP Home".
9. If booting to the new partition does not work, you may have to do a
repair of the new partition.

I followed these steps, and upon completion, I rebooted my new
computer. The BootMagic menu appeared. I selected "Windows XP Pro" and
the computer booted up properly. I then rebooted the computer.  The
BootMagic menu again appeared. This time I selected "Windows XP Home"
and got the message:
"autochk not found--skipping autocheck.
STOP: C000021a (Fatal System Error).
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated
unexpectedly with a status of 0xc00 ... 03a (0x 0 ...0 0x0 ... 0)
The system has been shut down."

As part of my attempting to solve this problem, I followed the above
steps except that I used Drive Image to create an image of the C drive
of the new computer, and restored that image to the unallocated space
in step 3. This worked fine. I can now boot to either the first
partition with the original Win XP Pro operating system, or the new
second partition having the restored image of that operating system. I
suspect the problem is due to the HAL of the old computer being
different than the HAL (hardware abstraction layer) of the new
computer. The person who solves this problem for me will most likely
need a working knowledge of Drive Image 2002, Partition Magic 8.0,
Boot Magic, Windows XP, and the Microsoft Windows Corporate Deployment
Tools User's Guide.

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Clarification of Question by michaeldavid-ga on 25 Oct 2004 11:42 PDT

This is a clarification based on the comment by pcchiu-ga on 25 Oct 2004 11:17 PDT:
My old computer has XP Home with all the programs (think many) already
installed that I need. So I would like to make an image of the whole C
drive, and restore it to a new partition in my new computer. Of
course, the reason for having Win XP Pro (which works fine) in the
first partition, and Win XP Home in a second partition, is that if Win
XP Home does not boot up properly, I am not locked out of the
computer--I can always reboot and boot up Win XP Pro in the first
computer, and then try to fix whatever was preventing the computer
from booting up second partition's Win XP Home. So it all really boils
down to: How do I quickly get all the installed programs from the old
computer onto the new computer without having to reinstall all the
programs all over again? I would even accept a magic trick that takes
all the installed programs from the old Win XP Home computer, and
properly installs them (or links them up) into the new Win XP Pro
computer, without any partitioning.

just a comment not an answer.
what's the point to have the windows xp home and windows xp pro
running on the same computer?  and BTW there's many other easiler way
to do the samething and not using Drive image and partition magic...

A part of your problem would be to have the current Windows
installation on the older computer being able to be used on the newest
one, though they have different hardware.
If you just clone your current C: drive from the old computer to the new one,
when you try to boot the new computer off the cloned "Old C:" you will 
certainly face blue screen and won't be able to boot at all.
If you run Qualystem UbiBoot just before you clone the old C: to the
new computer, then when you boot the new computer off the cloned
partition, Windows won't crash: it will just detect the hardware in
the new computer. Be sure you have all the drivers for the new
computer...
More details about Qualystem UbiBoot:
http://www.qualystem.com/en/ubiboot.html

HTH

PS: Yes, I do work for Qualystem

You also may have some "Mounted Devices" problem:
Your old "C:" must be seen as C: in the new computer when you boot it
off the "Old C: cloned partition"

In my opinion, your problem should not be related to HAL:
Usually HAL incompatibilities generate blue screen or reboot before autochk 
can be invoked.
Yet, I know that Compaq used to have their own HAL.
(Maybe you can try to change the HAL in your Compaq installation to a
standard one (I suggest ACPI HAL) and see if the compaq still works.
Then, you can clone the Compaq's C: partition to your "Windows XP
Home" partition on the IBM.)

The description of your error message seems to indicate that the problem
is related to mount points. I guess that Windows XP Home searches 
C:\windows\system32\autochk
If your system drive is not mounted as C: (because there is some other
C: drive reservation for this system), this could explain your
problem.
To validate this hypothesis, you can, on your Compaq booted off
Windows XP Home, delete the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\DosDevices\C:
just before you build your Windows XP Home partition image.
Then restore it on the IBM the way you described previously.
Windows will then have "space" for a "new" C: drive.
Remember that Windows assign drive letters to partition using, among
other things, the Hard Drive signature. This signature is stored in
the MBR and then, all the partitions in the same drive share this
signature.
Because your drive, on your Compaq, has a signature that is not the
one of the drive in your IBM, the Windows Home instance cloned from
your compaq to your IBM cannot mount your IBM's drive has C: (this
letter is already reserved for a partition of a drive that has the
Compaq's drive signature).
Deleting the key mentioned above should make Windows able to mount
this "unknown" partition as C:

HTH