Clone failure on Dual-Boot.

I have an older ASUS A8v Deluxe with an older Maxtor 250GB SATA drive. The Maxtor was had XP Pro installed and 3 NTFS partitions created. Next Vista was installed on the 2nd partition. The 3rd partition was used for data. I had an even older 250GB Maxtor in 1 partition to store the 1st drive's images and other data. I installed TI10 in XP and made 1 later update to it. Not sure of build #.

Everything worked well. I was able to successfully image the 3 partitions on the 1st drive to the 2nd and restore from those images to the 1st.

I have an external eSATA HDD with removable bays attached and TI10 Manual As Is Cloned the 1st HDD to a 320GB SeaGate in the external bay leaving the extra space unallocated. TI10 performed the operation fine and I closed and powered down the pc. Next I removed the old Maxtor 1st drive with the OS'es on it and replaced it with the new SeaGate.

I powered up and got the correct OS choice message, but could not enter either OS correctly. When I selected XP i got the \ntldrdr not found message and that I should Repair. When I tried Vista I got the winlogin.exe missing message and that I should Repair.

When I booted from my OEM Vista DVD I got into Repair, but it would only list the Vista OS. I'm neither expert nor novice user, but am flying blind on doing a Repair on this dual-boot situation. Can anybody help me out on what happened with the Clone and if/how I should Repair?

Thanks.

 

Those errors, missing ntldr for XP and winlogin missing for Vista are probably the two most common errors. Vista will only repair its own OS which is why only Vista shows up in the list for repair. Did you go through with the Vista repair?

Search the forum for missing ntldr. Some were able to solve it some couldn't.

What you might try is to re do the entire process by using the bootable True Image Rescue CD.

 

DN, Thanks for the quick reply.

I guess you answered the question that repairing Vista will not fix XP too. I'm still researching fixing XP, but need to know if I should repair Vista with Vista DVD and if I should do it before or after trying to do something about XP.

Also, I've swapped the clone into the case, and the source out, so I'd really prefer to try any solution where I do not have to swap back again (twice). I'd therefore like to explore more with a solution leaving the clone in the pc first. Note that I have a second pc I can attach the external to so at least I would only have to swap once if I could clone with both source and target in that external box.

BTW this makes me ask could I clone again from a TI boot CD, but leave the clone target in the box as drive 0 and the source in an attached external eSATA box bay?

Thanks

 

If you were dual-booting with the Windows bootloader, then I would repair XP first and then run Vista repair. Vista repair should then see your XP install and add it to the boot menu.

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

 

Thanks for the link, but it does not tell me specifically what to do. It only tells how to enter the recovery console and the most basic description of the commands. It specifically does not tell me what I should be doing in recovery mode to repair my XP install in light of it being a dual-boot with Vista other than how to select XP.

I assume it is some combination of Bootcfg, Copy, Fixboot and Fixmbr when I'm in XP, but do not know how/if to use them in light of a Vista Dual-Boot. Are you saying I should just ignore that Vista has control of the boot loader and work like XP is the only OS on the pc? That approach would seem to invite potential problems in the Dual-Boot setup I would assume. Can you explain it a little better to me than the Microsoft link you gave and CD-ROM Help did?

I'll understand if you want to take a pass on going further on this with me.

Thanks.
CC

 

I have not had to do an XP Repair so I'm just going by general procedures.

Yes, to repair XP, treat the system like Vista is not installed. At the very least you would need to run the fixboot and fixmbr commands. Also, make sure the XP partition is the Active partition before running them. You'll probably need to run bootcfg /rebuild too. See this link for other options.

You could also do an XP repair install. Once XP is booting, run Windows Update to get current. Then boot from the Vista DVD and do a repair. If XP is setup correctly, Vista should see it and restore your dual-boot setup.

 

Thanks for more clarification. I think I should research this a little more before my attempt. Additional experience also welcome.

 

After research I decided to do a Startup Repair from the Vista DVD. After a few tries it said all was well. I could now get as far as the Admin user login screen in Vista, but in the middle of typing the password it would always BSOD the pc before finishing.

I used Command Prompt from the Visa DVD. Both ntldr and winlogin.exe were where they should be. I did a Tree on the Vista drive and all the folders seemed to show. I did a BCDEDIT /enum and to my unexperienced eyes to seemed ok except for:

Device was Partition=D: on Vista section, OK yes?
Device was Unknown in Loader/XP sections, Not OK, yes?
Maybe the above was the case just because I entered
via the Vista DVD.

Well, I'm stuck for now. Thanks to anybody who can help me from here.

CC

"Sorry, MudCrab. Feel free to ignore me for not taking your advice."

 

It's perfectly fine if you ignore my advice. As I said, I haven't done this procedure myself so I'm just throwing out possiblities.

The general idea I'm going with is that XP doesn't know about Vista (Vista didn't exist when XP was made) so it will wipe out Vista's boot setup and allow XP to boot.

Once XP is booting, a Vista Repair should find XP and resetup Vista's bootloader. Vista is newer and can/should recognize XP installs.

I prefer not using Windows boot managers in the first place. It's just not worth all the trouble to fix when things go wrong.

 

MudCrab

Hope you're still watching.

I tried a Repair from the XP Recovery Console. fixmbr/fixboot/bootcfg and res-started the pc. XP was the only boot option and I could successfully login to the OS.

Next, I booted from the Vista Home Premium OEM DVD into Command Prompt. I bootrec.exe /fixmbr and /fixboot and /rebuild. Now both OS'es boot messages showed. If I pick XP it now tells me to Repair again. If I pick Vista I get get as far as the user password entry dialog, but as soon as I hit enter I get a BSOD.

The preceding process was Acronis's Tech Support advice and they have not got back with me yet for a next step.

I'm afraid my best hope might be to repair XP (my primary system) and re-install Vista from the DVD.

Do you have any more ideas?

Thanks.

PS: After reading the ATI PDF and a bunch of other threads I'll start another thread to better understand how to use Acronis TI with multi-boot all partitions on the same disk setups.

 

This is probably your only choice. I would try to repair XP again (do a repair install if necessary) and then try a Vista repair again.

I would have just done a regular Vista repair (let the install boot to the graphic menu where it gives you the choice) and not used the console commands. I don't know if that would have made a difference or not, though.

The other option is, as you said, to reinstall Vista. If you do this, make sure you have XP repaired and booting properly before you reinstall Vista. Vista will need to see XP properly in order to setup the multi-boot system.

 

I had already gone the Vista Startup Repair route to no avail.

This time I Recovered XP and booted and used it several times no problem.

Next I installed a new copy of Vista over the current one.
This copy booted and ran with no problems several times.
Each time it showed the revised standard boot menu

"Earlier Version Of Windows"
"Microsoft Windows"

Of course the Recovered boot name of XP had been changed.

When I now booted XP I got the Repair error. Right back where this whole adventure started.

In Vista I Ran As Administrator cmd.exe to look at the old boot.ini.
Dir /AH would show it along with \ntldr.
Vista would not let me ATTRIB -S or -H the boot.ini files to see what they said.

So now I'm really stuck. I think I need heavy BCDEDIT.EXE in Vista and someway to look/edit the boot.ini files on the XP partition to get both running at the same time. This is with the wild assumption I would know what to change.

Any advice still welcome.

Thanks.
CC

 

I would repeat the clone as you described it but do it from the TI Recovery CD. Shut down and remove the internal drive and replace it with the 320GB drive without ever starting Windows. Finally, boot from the 320GB drive.

If Windows starts with both drives attached, it will probably prevent booting from the clone. After you have booted successfully from the clone, you can then reattach the original drive and repartition and/or reformat it.

 

jmk

I'm confused. you say replace the internal with the 320gb and then boot from the 320gb. The problem is two fold. First the internal has already been removed from the pc and replaced by the 320gb. It's the 320gb I'm having trouble dual-booting from. If the internal has been removed as suggested then I also do not understand how I'm supposed to clone. Is the original internal source now supposed to be in my external box and the clone target now in the pc and I use the boot CD to clone from external to internal?

Any clarifications on what you mean are welcome.

Thanks
CC

 

Yes, I was typing too fast and just got it wrong.

When I said to repeat the clone, I meant to put the old internal drive back in the computer and put the 320 back in the external slot and then clone as you did before.

However, you should be able to leave the 320 where it is and put the old drive in the external slot and then clone "backwards". Just be sure that you select the old drive as the source and the 320 as the target so that you don't mess up the old drive.

Boot from the TI Recovery CD, and clone again. Just be sure to disconnect the external drive before attampting to boot into Windows after the clone operation.

 

Any advice on the actual ATI clone choices I might make this time?

Last time IIRC I did:

Manual Mode
As IS
and kept the exact 3 partitions the same with the extra space turned into Unallocated.

Also should I "Zero Out" the drive with Seagate's Seatools for DOS on the target 320GB drive before performing the clone?

Thanks

 

That all sounds fine. Zeroing out the 320 shouldn't be necessary, but it can't do any harm if you have the time to do it.

 

Clickcardo,

I had similar problems as you and TI Rescue CD did the cloning correctly. Both XP and Vista run perfectly. I chose "as is". I then resized (expanded) partition on new drive later.