Disk Image of dual boot problems

Man.....I have been racking my brain over this. I have WinXP installed with Vista installed second. Im doing a full disk backup. When I restore I have problems with booting into Vista. Im being logged in as a guest account and with no privlages. Lots of errors. I cant even get into "my computer" to check to see what drive letter Vista is booting into. Im thinking it it somehow booting other than C.

Any ideas? I have no clue.......thanks

David

 

On a drive that is restored with a Vista only OS, the winload error usually prevents Vista from booting. The fix for this is to use the Vista install dvd to do a repair. Maybe this would work for you in a dual boot situation.

 

I tried that many times in different ways. Can anyone explain what is happening? Im all ears here

David

 

David:

Try this. When you get into Vista hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and then choose Task Manager. When task manager starts, choose "File > New Task (Run)" and type "explorer.exe" in the entry box. This will start the normal Windows desktop and you will be able to view "Computer". Check the drive letter that Vista is booting from to see if it is any different.

Did you restore a whole-disk image or did you restore the partitions one at a time? If you do a whole-disk restoration then this shouldn't happen. If you do one partition at a time you need to be careful of the order that you restore so that each OS can reassign its drive letters in the proper order.

Could you describe your partition layout? Is it [XP primary][Vista primary] or something different? If different, please describe. Which partition is active?

 

Thanks for you interest!

It will be a few days before I can find the time to rework it, but I can tell you a few things.

It was a full disk backup not just a partition. WinXP was installed first followed Vista. I did full disk restore.

There was a partition for Winxp, Vista and one other partition. Three partitions in all.

I am using the latest build of Home version.

I didnt try the Ctrl-Alt-Del into task manager but I'm not so sure that would have worked. I had no privlages in Vista and could not even look at "my computer". It was kinda like all the links were messed up.

I tried hiding partitions and also making different partitions active.

Also tried copying the boot files from Winxp to the root Vista and making the Vista partition active.....no go.

Wish I could tell you more but I formated everything and restored just my WinXP which worked flawlessly with Acronis.

Here's a link of another person with the exact problem........
http://techreport.com/forums/viewto...previous&sid=d8461e4a5bd3644cadd765a8cecd142a

Thanks..... David

 

David:

When you say that you are using the latest build of TI Home then I am assuming that you have TI 11. Is this correct?

None of us are yet sure how TI handles the pointers in the BCD when restoring an image with TI 11. It would seem straightforward for a system with only Vista installed to its own partition, but for multiboot systems there are many opportunities to get things messed up, especially if you are multi-booting using the Microsoft method (where each OS can see the other).

If you get the opportunity to work on your system again and the same problem occurs, try starting an explorer session as I described in my previous post. Then take a look at how the OS has assigned drive letters. Also, start an elevated command prompt (right-click on Command Prompt and choose "Run as Administrator"). From the elevated command prompt type "bcdedit" and post the output of the command here. Perhaps the fix is as simple as changing the pointers to the System partition.

I just fixed a similar problem with my Vista machine, so your symptoms sound very familiar.

 

I have run a test using TI 11 and Vista. I took the installed Vista in partition 1 and restored it to partition 2 (as Active). I then set partition 1 as hidden. Vista booted right up from partition 2 without any problems.

I think the problem here is that the Windows bootloader is being used and XP and Vista are being handled in Vista BCD file (probably on the XP partition since it was installed first).

You need to determine which partition has the hidden "\BOOT" folder on it (most likely the XP partition). That partition needs to be Active. The other partition should just be Primary.

TI 11 may work differently than TI 10 when restoring an entire disk image (the Disk # checkbox checked). With TI 10, you could use this and Vista would still boot properly. However, I never tested with a dual-boot system using Microsoft's bootloader as I avoid that type of setup.

When the system was working properly, could you see and access the other Windows partition from each OS (XP could see Vista's partition, Vista could see XP's partition)?

What were the original drive letters for each partition when booted into each OS?

Is this the first time you've restored the disk image (no previous partition or disk restores)?

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Do you have DD or another partitioning program that can hide partitions?

If you do, then I think what you may need to do is this:
Do the restore again (entire disk), but not try and boot the drive
Boot to DD from the DD CD
Make sure the XP partition is Active (make it Active if it's not)
Hide the XP partition
Reboot and see if you can boot into Vista okay (you shouldn't see the XP partition in My Computer)
If successful, reboot to the DD CD and Unhide the XP partition, leave it Active
You should still be able to boot into Vista and hopefully XP will boot okay too

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Mark,

I don't think BCDEDIT can fix this problem. The BCD file is probably correct. I'm guessing it's because Vista is finding TWO "new" partitions (one of which is Active, the "boot" partition) and it's causing a reassignment of letters.

 

Thanks for everyone's help! I was just browsing around and came across this........

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/cloning.html

This IS the answer and worked perfectly

I hope the link to this can find it's way to a lot of people that are having this problem. I probably spent 10 hours messing around with this and if I had just seen this page.......

Thanks again to everyone.......David