Dual Boot (XP Pro / Vista) Strategy

I have a PC with XP Pro installed and will be adding Vista shortly (initially RC1 but then an upgrade copy) on a new HDD.

Currently i image my C (XP) Drive to my D (Backup) Drive. I'll be adding a V (Vista) Drive and upgrading to ATI 10.

Once the PC is set up with both OSs what is the best way to image the PC?

1) Image both C and V Drives in one Image file to the D Drive

2) Image each C and V Drives separately to the D Drive.

I think 1 is better because it does both in one job but what if (for some reason) i only want to restore one OS? Can i do this?

Example:

9 am Boot into XP install upgrade / update / something
10 am Boot into Vista do same
11 am Boot into XP & discover XP unbootable / slow / crashes - suspect upgrade / update etc

If i do option 1 will i be able to select to only restore the C Drive and leave the V drive as it is? If so, would there be any impact - i.e. to the Boot Loader?

If i do option 2 i assume that i can restore the disks individually but will there be any impact?

 

Anyone?

 

Paul:

It's six of one or half a dozen of the other. Either way will work. If you have both partitions imaged in one .tib file then you can choose to restore one partition only or you can restore them both. If they're imaged in separate .tib files then you can also do the same.

 

Thank you. That is what i wasn't sure about. I had a feeling that if i imaged more than one partition in a tib then i might have to restore all partitions.

Cheers for clearing that up.

 

Hello PaulB2005,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

You are right in your concern about the boot loader. It is safe to restore the system as a whole (all hard drives and partitions containing Windows family system installations) at once. However, in case of restoring only some partitions/hard drives containing Windows family operating system some or all installed Windows family OSes may become unbootable and require a repair-installation and/or manual repairing of system files.
Please have a look at this article for a detailed explanation of the way Microsoft manages boot sequence and why altering even one partition may break it.

Thank you.
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Marat Setdikov