Mission Accomplished! (FD-ISR & WINDOWS 7)

Could this have anything do to with importing the snapshots?
I really don't know. I ask because I have removed my 7 snapshots twice now, leaving only my XP snapshots, and everything has been fine. The difference in my case, is that I never imported a snapshot.
In each case, I created a new empty snapshot, and reinstalled 7 from scratch using houaus' method (Vista Recovery Disk).

 

No, is not related with importing the snapshots.
I do not know what is causing it but it happened 17 out of the 20 times that I tested it.

ps. I only tested it with xp/vista combination and not xp/7.

Panagiotis

 

Well, with a view to getting Win 7 installed into a new FDR snapshot on my EeePc (without CD/DVD drive), I successfully put together a working USB 7 installation stick, and following the great help here, I downloaded the Vista Rescue Disk. Problem is, I can not get the Rescue disk to boot from a USB stick, so even if I install Seven, I am unable to run bootrec.exe /fixboot.

Can anyone help with getting the Vista Rescue Disk to boot from USB stick, as that is the only thing stopping me from installing 7 into a new snapshot. It SHOULD boot, but whether it will boot from USB is a another matter.
Many Thanks.

 

Seem to have solved the problem. Now have a bootable Vista Rescue Disk that gives the right options, so will try the FDR install with Seven when I have more time. Thanks anyway..

 

Hi Kennyboy,

Sorry for not responding earlier but I wanted to perform some tests first with 7RC and FD-ISR.
The only garanted methods that will work are the upgrade install and the /nt60 method from the vista cds. The /nt52 method and the vista recovery procedure can cause headaches in some circumstances.

I would attache the vista sp1 bootect.exes in zip but probably would be a violation of the Eula and the forum policy.

Here are the correct hashes of them
Vista SP1 x86 bootsect.exe
CRC32: 59A06154
MD5: EC61A27F790C3A2FA535F5C9A212F2CB
SHA-1: A53853BEA7CC7600CF8E8BDBAFC014B4EB98BB65
Vista SP1 x64 bootsect.exe
CRC32: EBAE7DF9
MD5: E19FBFE9627DCCAEF813AC9BBAF8CB22
SHA-1: 248C739BC312522681ABA8AAEC7E73F40AB0A91A

Panagiotis

 

Hi Panagiotis.

Many thanks for the useful info.
I have managed (more luck than judgement) to successfully install Seven into a new snapshot, using the USB Stick Vista Recovery with bootsec. At first I had no pre-boot screen, and no option to boot into another snapshot. After a bit of fiddling around, I managed to get the Pre-Boot to work. Then when I booted to the XP snapshots I had the same issue, so I just uninstalled FDR (program only) and re-installed. Seems to work ok now.
Have booted back and forth using both the GUI and the Pre-Boot, and no problems so far. Have also copied/updated, and created new snapshots/archives without issues. Windows Seven and FDISR could be the perfect combination for the future.
Consider my greatest achievement was getting the USB stick to boot the Vista Rescue.

Appreciate everyones help and advice as always.
Regards. Ken

 

I just replaced my laptop Seagate 200GB hard drive with a Seagate 320GB. I usually buy new WD drives but not this time because the original was Seagate. Replacing the hard drive with the same brand allows imaging your Windows partition and transferring it to the new hard without any driver issues. I made sure that the MBR was copied with the image. I had 4 XP snapshots and had successfully installed Win 7 RC 7100 into a fifth one using the great instructions from this thread and got FDISR up and running in Win 7.

When I transferred the image to the new drive and booted up my laptop, I was able to boot into the XP snapshots just fine. But, when I tried to boot into Win 7, I got the error screen that said Win 7 could not boot and I would need to reboot my computer and use the repair option from my Win 7 install disc to fix the boot problem.

So I put in the Vista recovery disc and rebooted without changing snapshots. When the recovery disc booted, I chose the repair option. It asked which Windows installation I wanted to repair giving my only one option - Windows 7, which I selected. It said there were errors and asked if I wanted to fix them. I chose 'Yes', and after about 3 seconds my laptop rebooted and came up to the FDISR pre-boot menu. I selected the Windows 7 snapshot and it booted up fine. I've been able to perform normal FDISR operations within Win 7.

Thanks for the collective knoweledge.

Edit: After reading another thread about someone saying that Shadow Protect will not work with Windows 7, I should add that I use Shadow Protect for partition imaging. I always use the boot disc, not hot-imaging (I'm image paranoid) and except for the boot error that was fixed by the Vista recovey disc, Shadow Protect seemed to backup and restore my C: partition, including the Window 7 x32 snapshot fine.

 

My 2 cents worth: The hard drive boot setup for XP is incompatible with Vista's boot setup. FDISR cannot copy the hard drive boot sector to change it with the XP or Vista snapshot . At least, that is how it was explained to me by a more knowledgeable person than myself. Snapshots of Vista and XP will work initially until you try to go back to the first different OS snapshot.

SourMilk out

 

No problems here booting back and forth between Windows 7 and XP.

 

Ditto. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

I stand happily corrected. Guess I'll have to give Win7 a try.
SourMilk out

 

Now, if we could only get it to work on SSD drives.

 

As I mentioned before, I have had no problem getting it to work on my 2 SSDs. Maybe I've been lucky.

 

Which OS are you using?
Which version of FD-ISR?
Which SSD are you using?

Did you do anything special to get it to install and enable?

Many thanks,

Silver

 

Hello Silver. If you look at my post 81 in this thread, you will see what I did roughly.
I am using a cut down XP SP3 on 4Gg SSD in the Asus 7" eeepc and also the 20Gb Asus SSD in the 9" screen version.
The FDR version is what I suspect may be the answer. I used my original 105 Build 166 and changed from VSS to RSS. I have always used this version.
Maybe I was just lucky with my configuration, but I honestly never even thought I would have a problem just because of SSD.
Hope you are as lucky.
Ken

 

It is end of July, where is Todd?

 

Question is: "Why the hell would you want all 3 OS's on one partition anyways" you can only use one at once, the others are just wasting space in my opinion but its entirely your choice, I sway you not otherwise panders

 

I do not have 3 OS's. that was only for testing possible incombatibilites.
And on that particular pc, space is not a problem... 3,4 TB is more than enough for my needs.

Panagiotis

 

It would be the same as to ask why people use dual-boot systems. Of course you can use only one at a time.

 

No it wouldn't, don't be smart

 

While I myself only have one OS, I can think of at least one reason why someone would want three OS, that is besides any possible actual practical reasons: the play/fun factor.

Acadia

 

Oh but I am not, really
Multiple snapshots do indeed give you the same as dual-boot - in an NT environment. I have Win2000, XP and Vista snapshots (and a bunch of archives as well) and use all of them for various purposes. Yes, playing is one of them...

 

I tested something really bizaar on my system today, I added another 6GB of RAM (Now running 12GB for a short while only as to see the speed improvements even further) and FD-ISR copied my entire drive in 3 minutes

Also I ran into Boris Becker ( you know, that tennis guy, he's friends with my cousin) well not literally I missed him quite a few yards , anyway surprisingly enough his company use FD-ISR on their office systems

 

I am still using XP and you have much more RAM than me. I can update my entire c drive in 2-4 mintues, and create an entire new backup from scratch in 12-15 minutes. My c drive is about 8.5 gigs. This program never ceases to amaze me even after 5+ years of usage.

Acadia