Vista/XP dual-boot w/ TI - successful test!

For those interested in dual-boot (multiboot) of Windows Vista and Windows XP, I performed the following test with TI and it worked like a champ:

Configuration:
Intel D975xbx2 motherboard
Intel Core 2 duo processor
3 internal Caviar SE16 320 GB SATA hard drives
Kingston RAM (2GB)

1. Installed Windows XP on 1st drive (single partition)
2. Installed Windows Vista on 2nd drive (single partition)
3. Vista automatically setup dual boot so that I could boot to either drive/OS
4. Formatted 3rd drive (single partition)
5. Used TI to backup contents of Vista hard drive to 3rd drive
6. Rebooted to XP drive and formatted/erased Vista drive to simulate failure
7. Mounted TI Rescue disk and rebooted
8. Directed TI to restore Vista backup to empty drive (same as 2nd drive above)
9. TI restored successfully
10. Rebooted to restored Vista drive successfully
11. Rebooted to XP drive successfully
12. All boot loader information was preserved
13. Result – successfully recovered back to original configuration w/ dual-boot intact

Happily amazed!

Thanks everyone for your replies... Tim
My original posts:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=177913
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=177951

 

timos,

Out of interest, if you disconnect Drive 1, can you still boot to Vista? If you disconnect Drive 2, can you still boot to Win XP?

 

Brian,

Yes I can.

Tim

 

Thanks. That's good to know.

 

I doesn't surprise me that the Vista drive (disk #2) can be disconnected and XP will boot because it's on the first drive.

However, it does surprise me that Vista will boot if disk #1 (the XP drive) is disconnected. Isn't Vista's bootloader installed on disk #1? Is it also installed on the Vista disk?

What happens to the drive letter for disk #3?
Does it retain its assigned letter or does it drop by one?
Is it different in XP than Vista?

Just curious...

 

Re: Vista/XP dual-boot w/ TI - ** Clarification **

You are correct MudCrab (I misunderstood Brian’s question).

If you PHYSICALLY disconnect the Windows XP drive (disk #1), the Vista drive WILL NOT boot. You get the message – “Bootmgr is missing”.

However, if you PHYSICALLY disconnect the Vista drive (disk #2), you CAN successfully boot the Windows XP drive.

I'm not sure about the drive letters because they were XP (C), Vista (E), Backup (D) before disconnecting the Vista drive and XP (C), Backup (D) afterward (I've done lots of testing since the first test described above and the drive letters got switched around in the process).

Sorry for the misleading information.

Tim

 

Re: Vista/XP dual-boot w/ TI - ** Clarification **

That's okay. Thanks for the clarification.