Dual Boot with Vista and XP

Hi can someone please help me i am using the latest version on Trye Image V11 (Build 8053)

I have a dual boot computer running Vista and XP on the same hard drive but on different partitions, on a SATA hard drive.
I have made a backup of the complete hard drive including the master boot record, when i boot into the XP system. XP is on the C: drive and Vista is on F: drive. And when i boot into the vista system Vista is on the C: drive and XP is on the D: drive, this works very well and i have no trouble booting into whatever operating system i want.
The problem i have is i have made a full hard drive image in both the XP and Vista systems. I then tried to restore an image i made with true image v11.0 and it restore ok but and i am able to boot into XP ok. But true image will not restore Vista and i am unable to boot into Vista.
It does not seem to matter what system i made the image in Vista will not restore fully, it look as if when i restore the image true image restores Vista it changes the Drive letter where Vista was installed and then the boot manager cannot see Vista.

Anybody got any idea please
Regards

 

If you restore your Entire Disk Image (checked the Disk # checkbox) can you boot successfully into both XP and Vista?

Is the XP partition the Active partition (the booting partition) for Vista?

Are XP and Vista both on Primary partitions?

Did you restore the XP and Vista partitions before you tried to boot into Vista (not as an Entire Disk Image restore)?

What error message do you get (or where does Vista hang) when you try to boot Vista?

Depending on your setup, it may be a BCD fix is needed or it may be a drive letter change problem.

 

Hi thanks for the quick reply. i will try to answer you questions.

1 I have restored my entire disk image IE i checked the little box for a full image restore, An after the resotre i can boot only into XP. when i try to boot into vasta i get (run dll32.exe entry point not found) and then it says after a while (Error loading C:\windows\system32\mscories.dll the specified module could not be found).

2 if i try to retore a image made in Vista system the active partition for Vista PRi and XP is Pri,act if i usae an image made in the Xp system it is XP = pri,act and vista pri.

3. i did not try to boot xp first i retored all the patritions at once then tried to boot into vista.

4 Vista does not hang at all it just restore but the drive letters for vista have changed in the vist system in xp there are just the same but have changed drive letters in the vista.

i did notice thet when the restore is running the xp prartition is restored first to the correct drive then vista is restored but it then changes hte drive letter from C: to D:
hope this information helps

 

One thing I noticed with a dual boot (XP Pro SP2 and Vista 64 Ultimate on a 1Tb RAID 0 configuration in two partitions is that when XP boots it is the main first partition. When I boot Vista is comes up as C: and my XP drive is now D. Why yours is showing different letters that far out I don't have an answer for. How many HD's you have in the system to cause them to not just switch between C/D on the different boots?

 

Hi in reply to you i have 3 hard drives and a memory card reader that alocates drive letters but i have unpluged all but the min hard drive.
When i boot into Xp system XP is on C: and vista is on F: and when i boot into vista systm vista is on C:and XP is on d: drive and every time i restore an image the xp partition goes back to the correct partition but vista changes every time and will not boot no matter what i select on boot up..

But when i boot in xp and look at te drive letters every thing is back where it should be in the p system, but i carnt check what drive letters it is showing in vista.

 

Well, the only thing I could suggest (and I just did this tonight) is when you backup the MAIN C: drive (XP for me and you) that you check the box underneath the C: drive which should show the letter for the Vista disk/partition. This way when you restore you're restoring it all. I know it's a pain but this way you have both backed up and drive lettering shouldn't become an issue. At least as far as I can tell it shouldn't providing you don't unplug any existing hardware prior to the restore so it keeps things in order.

Mike

 

Hi metalmike, thanks for the advice.

Been there done than and got the tee shirt, i am just installeng Vista for the fouth time and i made several True Image backup files some created in XP and some created in Vista.

And when i first started dual booting i just backed up the XP and Vista oartition seperatly but then on restoring ether one it corrupted the master boot record, and i was advised by mudcrab to back up in the way you have surgested if i understand you right.

When i make a image file on the hard drive it is split into 3 partitions one with XP installed first then Vista on the next partition then the thrd partition has all my working files that i use on a day to day basis.

When i make the backup i select the little box above the drive and slect all the partitions and the master boot record.

When i go to restore the image you can look at the partitions on the image file and everything is correct with the drive letters, but then after the restore XP has the correct drive letter and the one with my data on is correct but vista has moved drive letters usualy to G: and then when i select to boot into Vista it is not where it is suposed to be and will not boot.

I have used this method before just once and it worked but now it will not restore everything as it was. but it did and others seem to be able to do it.

I wounder if it as anything to do with my hard drive beeing a SATA conection

Regards to everyone

 

Sam49,

I doubt the problem is related to your hard drive being SATA.

Can you do another Entire Disk Image restore (restore all three partitions on your main drive -- check the Disk # checkbox)? If you've just previously done this and your system has not been modified since the restore (trying to fix Vista, etc.), you can skip this. Also, if you have changes in your Data partition (the 3rd partition), make a backup of that partition (or copy the data off) so you don't lose it.

After that, can you please post the following information:

1. A screenshot in XP of what Disk Management shows for your drives.

2. While still in XP, verify the driver letter of the Vista partition (it may be G:, for example).

3. Verify the location of the \BOOT folder: It should be on the Active partition (the XP partition, the C: drive). Open the Command Prompt and run the following (<ENTER> means to press the ENTER key):

Code:

c: <ENTER>
cd \boot <ENTER>
dir /ah <ENTER>

You should see a list of several files including the BCD file.

4. Run BCDEDIT: I'm using G: as the Vista drive as assigned in XP (if it's different on your system, use the correct letter).

Code:

g: <ENTER>
cd \windows\system32 <ENTER>
bcdedit <ENTER>

Please post the BCDEDIT output.

5. At this point, if you can boot Vista, post a screenshot of what Vista's Disk Management shows.

 

Hi mudcrab

I will doas you asked but i am having problem whn i try to ru bdcedit in xp i keep getting an error message, but iwll try again.

Also could youplease tell how i can send screen shots of the item you asked for without sendind a full screenshot on my computer.
i read somewhere that there is some software that will just take a screen shot of the active window.

How would you do this please

Regards

 

What error are you getting with BCDEDIT?

Screenshot instructions can be found here and here.

 

Hi here is the inofrmation you asked for

the erros is not there now i musthave done something wrong

hope the screen shots are attached

 

Did you do the Entire Disk Image restore before you gathered the information?

Is Vista booting okay? I assume it must have booted since you have a screenshot. If not, what did you need to do to get into Vista? Also, the drive letter was originally C: and now it is K:.

While in Vista, can you start the Command Prompt (made sure to run it in Administrator Mode) and run BCDEDIT? The output of that from Vista will tell if the BCD file is linking to the correct partition.

 

Hi yes i did do a full rstore before collecting that infomation.

I am able to get in to Vista in a limited way while it is booting i get (prepering your desktop then rundll32.exe entry point not found then i get error loading C:windows\system32\mscories.dll the specifed module could not be found)
it then lets me into Vista but only a part of it i carnt ruj any prorams or anything like thet i can just see a limited version of the desktop.

I will give it a go and post the results if any

Thanks

 

Hi mudcrab here is the dcdedit from vista, it wil let me in but it is very limited as to what i can do with it. all my settings are gone and i just get a black desktop, its unusable

regards

 

Sorry the screenshot is not thre i will have another go

 

Your BCD file settings look correct. The drive letters are probably just messed up because of how Windows redetects drives on partition changes. This is one of the the primary reason I prefer isolated OS installations and each OS booting from its own partition. Using the Windows boot manager causes all sorts of problems when this happens because the "booting" partition and the "system" partition are not the same partition.

See if you can start the Registry Editor. If you can get the "Run" box up, type in regedit to start it. Otherwise, start the Task Manager and use File->New Task (Run...) to get the "Run" box.

Browse to the MountedDevices key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

You should see your drive letter assignments on the right side. What you need to do is change C: to D: and K: to C:. Since you can't duplicate keys (reuse existing letters), you may have to shuffle around until you get it right.

To rename a key, right-click on the key (\DosDevices\C:, for example) and select Rename from the pop-up menu. You can then edit the name of the key.

For example:
Rename \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\W: (free up D: for use)
Rename \DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\D: (get XP back to being D
Rename \DosDevices\K: to \DosDevices\C: (get Vista back to being C

Exit the Registry Editor and reboot Vista. Hopefully, it will come up okay. You can then use Disk Management to set your other drive letters to what you want.

 

Thank you for your advice.

as i am at work now i will have a go tomorrow with what you have told me to do and i will post back.

Do you think i would have a better chance of beeing able to restore with correct drive letters if i had the two operating systems on seperate drive instead of seperate partitions on the same drive.

If i have seperate systems on seperate hard drives would that work with TI as before i just made an image of each partition on its own and this seem to upset the master boot record, would it not just do the same

i ask you thiis because in September of last year you advised me to make a full backup of the disk at the same time because of the master boot record, if i could do this with two drives that would be ok i would only have to backup the Vista drive as my Xp does not change all that often i only use it for one program that will not run in Vista

Regards

 

Having the OS installations on separate drives will not help if they are not independent of each other. For example: If XP is on Drive #1 and Vista is on Drive #2 and Vista is booting from Drive #1, it will be no different than how you have it now. If you install XP on Drive #1 and Vista on Drive #2 and use your BIOS boot order to switch between them, then it should work fine as each will be booting from their own drive (and assigned the C: drive letter). These types of installs are best done with only the new OS drive connected during the installation.

Doing an Entire Disk Image backup and restoring it as an Entire Disk Image usually allows the restored disk to boot multiple systems correctly. For some reason, it's not working for you.

The drive letter problem happens any time Windows has to detect more than one drive letter change. In your case, it had to detect at least three. If you had just restored XP, booted XP, booted Vista, restored Vista, booted Vista, booted XP, etc. (only one partition change per boot), then Windows would probably have assigned the correct drive letter back to the "new" partition since it would be the next available drive letter.

 

Thanks for the advice i am reluctant to change the bios on boot up as it seems a radical way to do it and every time i mess with the bios i am worried i make a mistake and stuff it up.

i have tried to restore Xp first then restore Vista but that ruins my boot manager and i have great problems getting the boot options set again to boot both systems.

I guess TI is not for me and my computer as it has caused me more problems than it saved i have had to reinstall my operating system 5 times now

regards

 

Some computers have a key to press at bootup (like F12) that will let you select your boot device without even needing to enter the BIOS. A lot of people (like myself) use a third-party boot manager to avoid using the Windows boot manager.

My advice on this would only have worked the very first time you tried to restore. Any attempts after that and multiple partitions would have already been changed. There is no way to revert back to the original state if the Entire Disk Image restore won't work.

It's your choice, of course. If you do decide to try the Registry fix, please post back with the results as it may help someone else.

 

I think your problems have been caused by the odd partition lettering in your XP system, with XP on C and Vista on F instead of D.

If you can get to a situation where you can boot both OS then use Disk Management in XP to juggle your drive letters so that XP is on C and Vista is on D.

As I said in another thread, my setup is nearly identical to yours and works fine with the above arrangement.

 

XP and the XP Registry could care less about what Vista says the drive letters are for any partitions. And changing any in XP won't matter because it's Vista's Registry where the incorrect settings are.

The fact that the drive letters are different is just because XP was installed first and when Vista was installed it got a letter after the other drives. When Vista was installed, it assigned itself C: and then started the rest with D: (the XP partition).

There are numerous problems when setting up systems using the Windows boot manager to multi-boot. This is just one of them.

If you can load the Vista "hive" when booted into XP, then you should be able to make the changes that way. However, since Sam49 is able to get into a limited form of Vista, I would try doing the changes from Vista as it's easier. Also, I have not tried loading a Vista Registry hive using XP. They may not be compatible or it may cause corruption to the Registry. If a VistaPE CD is available, that is what I would recommend next if the change can't be made directly in Vista.

 

Earthling:

Actually, that won't work. Each operating system assigns its own drive letters, so having a certain drive letter assigned by XP has nothing to do with what the drive letter will be when seen by Vista.

Conceptually, this is easy to fix. Once fixed, (like your dual-boot setup), the drive letter assignments are stored in the registry and will be persistent; that is each partition will be assigned the same drive letter upon the next reboot. The problem with Sam49's setup is that his Vista registry now contains the wrong drive letter assignments for the first two partitions on Disk2.

The fix is described exactly by MudCrab in post #16. Here is another way to do this if you have available any program that can manage partitions, like PartedMagic or Acronis Disk Director:

1. Boot the PC from the PartedMagic disk or from the Acronis Disk Director recovery disk
2. Hide the first partition on Disk2 that contains XP and the boot files and is called XP (C in the Vista Disk Management console screen shot in Post #11
3. Reboot into Vista and Vista will take the C: drive letter.
4. While booted into Vista, start Vista Disk Management console and reassign any partition that is using the D: drive letter to some other letter, leaving D: free.
5. Boot from the partition manager disk again and un-hide the XP partition.
6. Reboot into Vista and you should find that XP has been assigned the D: drive letter.
7. Now rearrange the other drive letters to suit using Disk Management.
8. Reboot into XP and do the same.

Once you get your system in this state remember that dual-boot systems that are done "the Microsoft Way" (where XP can see Vista and Vista can see XP) are very delicate beasts and you must treat them with kid gloves. If you do any future partition restores, only do one partition at a time followed by a reboot to be sure that Windows comes up with the desired drive letter assignments.

Perhaps you can now see why so many people prefer dual-boot systems where both operating systems are hidden from each other and are completely independent.

 

By luck rather than judgement that is exactly what I do ATM, but presumably in the case of installing a hard disk replacement you should restore the entire disk in one op?

It's a minefield

 

Mark,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you missed a step prior to 3. The MountedDevices key needs to have the \DosDevices\C: and DosDevices\K: entries removed before you boot Vista, otherwise Vista will keep the letter already assigned to its partition.

In this case, Vista would keep K: as the drive letter for the Vista drive and no reassignment would be made because the only new (undetected partition) is hidden. C: would be available, but not automatically assigned to the Vista partition.