Copying OS's for multiple boot

Ive tried:
-Copying partitions in disk director
-Backing up with true image and restoring
-Cloning (wont work because they are partitions, not drives)

What I need to do is create a base OS installation (I have this). Now at various times I need to copy it to a new partition, goof it up as I want and delete it later and repeat. I may even haev 4-5 of these copies.

But every time I do this, then I go to OS selector and choose the tools, OS detection wizard it says "No new operating system is found in the specified position. Try to change boot partition or boot sector file name".

 

This is how I have done mine...

You need to manually edit the boot.ini to add in the location of the new OSses... I succeded in achieving this a few years ago, but not after a lot of hard work.. you will need to change the way you setup your drive, partitions etc for it to work well, as there are lots of factors which will prevent it from working.

You cannot simply install the OS to C, copy this to other partitions, for a number of reasons. If C is still visible, the next partition will be D, and so all registry, drive associations will be for C, so it wont work. If you hide C, this is your boot partion, so you wont be able to boot into another - a bootable partition must reside within the first 2 gigs of a HD.. hence why I create an independent boot partition which is 100mb, and make this primary, the rest can then be logical... and you are then not restricted to a max of 4 (only 4 primary partitions allowed on a drive)

I have a sinlge OS install, and clone it to 4 partitions, was a bit tricky but got there in the end... Things yoy may need to do, which I have learnt from experience, is to disable system restore before cloning the OS, as Im sure this causes problems.

You must also remember to hide each of the OSes from each other, so that they keep the same drive letter.... this is very important. The way I did it was to create a 100mb Primary C drive for boot files, and OS Selector, and when asked where to install windows, I choose my first logical partition, D. Once installed, I disable System Restore, then clone to the other three partitions. Hide the other partitions, boot into the original one, edit the boot.ini (my example)

Make sure there are no spaces, or line returns at the end of the boot.ini, so the cursor finishes after the fastdetect on the last line.

When you run OS Selector from the original OS, you will now see the other OSes, what you have to do, is go into each of the properties, remove the folders from the list only (do not delete the actual folders).. this will stop the prog from protecting the OS folders, by copying them to a hidden folder. To do this, you may have to unhide the respective OS partitions in the OS properties screen.. so remember to rehide them after.

Hiding the OSes is very important, as they must all boot with the same letter, in my case D, as all registry details and prog locations will be referenced to D....

It took me quite a while to work out the best way to do it, and you may need a lot of patience, and remember to back up your stuff... I use this mehtod all the time now, and it works great for me... 4 OSes in about 20 mins!!!!

If you need any more help, I will try as best as I can.. As I said, it toook me awhile to work out the kinks, but its now a piece of cake to setup and works great for me.

More info i posted previously....

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=38253

 

Yes I know abotu boot.ini, but OS loader doesnt even recognize the partition. I've found that the BING utility can easily do this. You can even use it to edit boot.ini, but you dont need to. Just two mouse clicks to copy a partition, then a few more clicks to set it up to boot it and swap the MBR and poof you are booting a copy.

 

Can you tell me your hard drive partition structure...?? Have you just installed Windows to C, then copied this partition to another??

I dont know what the BING utility is...??

 

Ok here is what I do. I install all my OS's on what they see as the C drive and hide the C drive of other OS's. Then I have a big partitino at the end of my drive for data that all OS's can see. I map the C drive to MBR 1 and the data to MBR 4. This cannot be done with OS selector as it tries to be smart and doesnt let you control things.

BING is a competitor product, but it only costs $35. I hesitated to post any info here as this is a competing forum. Search for BING (Boot It Next Generation) on a search engine and you shoudl find it.

Again - True Image has saved my butt numerous times. But Disk Directory, adn *especailly* OS selector need some more work IMO.

Your mileage may vary. BING is not as automatic and takes some reading , but its nto archaic and anyone who understands partitinos can make it work pretty easily. OS selector and DD are of course much more graphical and easier for novices.

 

Thanks for that info.. I will have a look... I know DDS and OSS are aimed at novices, and are very simplistic.. but unfortunately I likke the glitzy front end and gui!! Got fed up with dos like menus, and graphics, and hardware have come along way since those days!!

I tried many many utils for partition hiding during bootup, but found non that would work as well as OSS... I got it to do exactly what I wanted, and have not looked back.. I can clone and boot into new OSes ina matter of minutes!!

I even became a beta tester for hyperos, which is a very interesting porg for auto cloning a single OS install to many partitions, but I dont like the way in which it works, tries to overcomplicate things a bit too much, which causes problems

 

1) I looked at HyperOS. Too much magic going on - the more complex, the easier to break. BING is blazingly simple. Hard to break, and if so easy ot fix.

2) Dont get me wrong. BING is not DOS based, or a nasty UI. It is GUI, but its just not fancy with pictures of the drives like DD. Unless you are a total newbie, BING is pretty easy.