Can TI restore individual OS partition? XP won't boot

Hello,

I am a new user, so please bare with me. There is so much stuff to read, and I'll probably age a few years before I find that one post with the solution I need. Here is my situation.

* I have a 40gb hard drive
* I want to dual boot with 98 & XP

My Problem:

I was dual booting with 98 & XP before I started using True Image. I backed up each operating system into an image, i.e. one image for 98 and one image for XP. When XP became infected with spyware, I decided to restore the XP image. The process was reported as successful, but then XP won't boot. I get errors like hal.dll is missing or corrupted, or the missing NTLDR file.

My Questons:

1) If 98 & XP are on different partitions, and if I can use TI to make an image of either OS, why doesn't XP boot after I have restored the XP image?

2) What is the proper way to set up my hard drive so that if one OS fails, I can use TI to restore just that OS and be able to boot from it and still have both OS working like new?

I need to get this issue with True Image resolved before I spend many hours setting up either OS and tweaking it to my liking, only to find out the backup image fails to boot.

Please show me how to fix my situation.

Many thanks

 

You have to backup and restore BOTH partititions.

ntldr, boot.ini, etc. are always on the C drive, and are needed to boot the system.

 

Hi Howard Kaikow,

If both 98 and XP are on FAT32 partitions, and 98 is installed first and then XP, the ntldr, boot.ini, etc are already on the 98 partition. When xp is infected with spyware and I want to restore the xp image, why do I have to restore the 98 as well since it still has the ntldr, boot.ini and other important files? Do you have a similar setup and know for a fact this method of restoring both partitions work?

 

FAT 32 is irrelevant.

You have to restore to assure that nothing happened to the critical files on the C drive, 98 or not.

I used to multi-boot with Win 98 on C, but got rid of 98 shortly after my PC's warranty expired.

 

TDS-user,

What you are proposing does work for many people. That's how I dual boot two WinXPs.

Few points. Win 98 doesn't have a boot.ini. If you have WinXP on the second partition then its boot.ini should reference partition 2. If you made the WinXP image when it was partition 1 then the restored image will have the wrong boot.ini and will give the hal.dll errror and won't boot. Have a look at the boot.ini in the non booting WinXP and change it to reference partition 2. You will then need to reimage that partition so you don't get caught again. Let us know what you find.

You can also boot an incorrect boot.ini WinXP with this floppy...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595/

Occasionally the partition table isn't in the same order as the physical partitions. This can be fixed.

I use BartPE to view and edit boot.ini.

 

I may have misunderstood your original post. Are the operating systems hidden from each other? Is each OS called C: drive when it boots?

 

Hello Brian K,

At first, I had my 40gig hard drive set up like this:

3 partitions:

* first partition = 4gig fat32 primary for 98
* second partition = 7gig ntfs primary for xp
* third partition = 29gig fat32 logical for data

I want to be able to restore either image and have that os boot up. So far, it hasn't worked. I will try the suggestions here and post the results. It takes many hours to do this and I need my pc at the moment.

Thanks

 

You haven't answered the questions about hiding the OS partitions so I assume they aren't hidden. You may have problems restoring.

This site explains in detail how to do it so it works with single image restores. You don't have to read all pages to understand the concept. You won't be booting from an extended partition, only from primaries.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm