I have XP/Vista/Win7 configured on 3 primary partitions off 1 HDD.  I'm running Ghost 15, and I'm wondering how it is best to make/restore the images to allow independent flexibility for restoring the partitions.

@ bill

Which boot manager are you using?
Where is Ghost 15 installed?

As for a boot manager, I set that up in Win7 (which I installed last).  I have Ghost installed in the XP and Vista.  Haven't installed it in the WIn7 yet. 

So, I wasn't sure if was better to image from within each OS, to reimage from within just 1 OS (say XP) or image from the bootable CD. 

What I want to avoid is having any particular OS image dependent on another (e.g. if I wish to re-image Vista, I'd like to do so without recovering the other two). 

Bill,

I don't use the Microsoft method of multi-booting as it doesn't create independent OS. I suspect your Vista and Win7 booting files are in WinXP. Is that correct?

You only need Ghost installed in one OS. It can image the other partitions even if they are hidden.

Something to consider...

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/principles.htm

Hey Brian -

Thanks so much for fielding my questions, bud!

I read the link you sent me, very informative and enlightening! I wish I'd read that *before* I set up my OS's. But that's totally on me for leaping prior to researching, eh?

As to my boot.ini and ntldr, that is correct.  I used EasyBCD 2.0 for that (I found  this thread (after a couple failed attempts :) ) and follwed the post  regarding "fixed... with  extra steps"):  http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/5173-windows-7-install-problem-vista-xp-dual-boot-4.html   

Bill,

I haven't used EasyBCD. I use BING.

More entertaining reading for you. It may help....

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=324

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=392&pt_sid=729796eef304ad26ee8895879c32041b

Is bootmgr (hidden protected OS file) in your WinXP partition?

Hi Brian,

Again, thank you, sir! 

After reading the first one, I understand now what EasyBCD automated, and the 2nd article dealt with my earlier problem - once installing Win7 I didn't have either two options (for XP or Vista).  But luckily the DVD installer was able to self-repair that problem. 

So, what it looks like I have (based on a couple tests and more than one disaster restoring each OS image) is my XP partition is set as the active partition (bootmgr is in my XP root directory). 

So far, I've validated that Vista and XP do restore independently (tho' I've only tested with Ghost15 restore points created at the same time for the partition images).

I found that leaving the Ghost 15 installation on Vista allowed me to re-image the XP partiition from Vista, and I also verified that either partition restores from the boot CD.

Heck, I even validated that when I made the wrong choice earlier, re-installing Win7 restored my rather nicely. :)

With that all said, (and apologies for the missive), I'd like to figure out if I got independent booting or not, my guess is since they all rely on XP, I don't.

Or if I try the tips in that second article you sent, would that make them independent boot configurations? 

Bill,

All your OS rely on the WinXP partition for booting. But you should be able to restore individual images if you have a problem with an OS. Say you have a bad Windows Update with Win7. You only need to restore the Win7 image to fix the problem. And as Ghost is in Vista, you should be able to restore Win7 while booted into Vista. However I haven't tried this with a Microsoft multi-boot. It certainly works with a BING multi-boot.


bill wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 11:28pm:

Or if I try the tips in that second article you sent, would that make them independent boot configurations?

I haven't looked closely at that article in the context of a triple boot. Would you like to make your OS independent? Like this?

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

Yup - that's the solution I'm striving for. 

Each partition containing its own boot files. 

And it sounds like I will need a 3rd party boot manager. 

I actually have 2 XP images (well two version of the same installation - one with .net and one without).  When I created my disk and partions (using Partion Magic 8) I had XP.  I created an image of it back before I had Vista and Win7 installed.  WIth my present configuration, I don't think I'll be able to use it (and I haven't tried because the last time I killed my whole testbox and embarked on this present rebuild strategy).

So, yeah, my goal now is to configure each OS in such away that the other partions appear hidden, and they boot entirely of their own resident boot files. 
Brian wrote on Mar 27^th, 2010 at 11:53pm:

you should be able to restore individual images if you have a problem with an OS. Say you have a bad Windows Update with Win7. You only need to restore the Win7 image to fix the problem. And as Ghost is in Vista, you should be able to restore Win7 while booted into Vista.

You are correct, my early tests confirmed that very fact. 

But again, I only have 1 remaining scenario to sort out - restoring that early version of XP.   

So, if I could find away to make Vista and Win7 truly independent of one another as well as the XP image, then I'd be set.

But, is that feasible since I've already installed the configuration in the manner of have.

Again, thanks for your help.  I've really picked up quite a bit just in this exchange. 

Bill,

I'd be interested to hear from Dan Goodell regarding separating the 3 OS. I've separated 2, not 3.

One advantage of using a boot manager such as BING is that you can have as many OS as you like. Several WinXP, several Win7, etc. You mentioned you have 2 images of WinXP. Both could be used on your HD.

Just a few questions. Is Win7 a recent install? If so it would probably be easier to delete the Win7 partition and reinstall as a standalone OS rather than run through the separation process. It's up to you.

To be honest, while they are all recent installations (I had to rebuild this pc from scratch), the real time investment is the configuration of all of them. 

So, I could do that, delete and re-install Win7 partition, but I figure at this stage, if I were to do that, I just might as well go all the way back to the beginning and do them all correctly.  That's only 2 or 3 day commitment to do.  I'd just rather not for - oh I don't know... a YEAR at least! :D

But, if it's possible to separate all 3, I'd rather try that. 

I mean, that is the beauty of having Ghost, if you're careful you can screw up royal and still get out of trouble with a click on restore

bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:39am:

But, if it's possible to separate all 3, I'd rather try that.

OK. That will be the aim. Let's wait on Dan's advice.

In the meantime there are some nice videos on using BING, here...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/index.htm

WOW!

Thanks again!!!

While we wait for him, I'll be grok'ing all those articles. 

Very VERY cool of you Brian!

PS - and thanks for the nod onto Bing - I keep forgetting to mention that to ya. 

bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:12am:

But again, I only have 1 remaining scenario to sort out - restoring that early version of XP.

You mean an image of the XP partition created prior to installing Vista and/or Win7?  If you restore that, it will break your ability to boot the later OS's.  When you installed Vista and then Win7, they made changes to the XP partition so they could piggy-back on that partition.  If you restore XP to a state prior to those changes, they can't boot through it anymore.

That can be repaired, though it's not something I would consider acceptable as a long term strategy.  A better strategy would be to make a new image of the XP partition after it has been configured for Win7.  If you don't like your current XP because it has gotten messed up or something, you'd be better off restoring the old XP, taking the time to repair it so it will boot Vista/Win7 again, and then immediately making a new image of it, with the changes.

However, all this does is give you the ability to restore your current, intertwined partitions.  It doesn't let you separate them from each other.



bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:12am:

if I could find away to make Vista and Win7 truly independent of one another as well as the XP image, then I'd be set.

That's not easily done.  Getting them to boot without going through XP is doable, but the big problem is the drive letters.  An independent Vista or Win7 installation would see itself as C:, but right now neither sees itself that way.  It's possible to break it out of a Microsoft-style multiboot and get it to start booting on its own as though it were C:, but it will choke in the middle of the process because there are countless ini files and registry entries that will be looking in vain for stuff on the wrong drive letter.

On ocassion I'll hear of somebody who will try to manually change all the drive letter references, but it's not easy, there are way too many of them, and you don't know where they all are.  Don't forget that many apps may also store drive letter references, so it's not just Windows you have to worry about.  In the end, you can never be sure how successful you were . . . though your chances are better if it's a relatively new installation with few apps.

OTOH, if it's a fairly new installation then you should be able to start over and do it right.  IMHO, the time and effort you would put into trying to separate the current OS's would far exceed the time it takes to reinstall.  And afterward, it will be worth the peace of mind to know that you've got an image of a good, pristine OS installation.

Hi Dan -

Again, thank you so much to you and Brian - you have been absolutely wonderful with your insight and advice.  As I observed earlier, my only regret is that I didn't do this *before* I started imaging. 


Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 8:31am:

You mean an image of the XP partition created prior to installing Vista and/or Win7?If you restore that, it will break your ability to boot the later OS's.When you installed Vista and then Win7, they made changes to the XP partition so they could piggy-back on that partition.If you restore XP to a state prior to those changes, they can't boot through it anymore.

Yeah, that's exactly the problem I got myself in.  So I am going to work on that today - restore that 1 original XP image and then fix Win Vista and Win7 so they'll boot.

I'm thinking it will go like this?
  - Restore the Original XP image I have
  - Repair Win Vista boot installation with the OEM DVD
  - Repair Win7 boot Installation with the OEM DVD
  - Then re-fix the boot.ini and ntldr (as I had to earlier)

That will at least get me the options of running all of my OS configurations today, albeit a less-than-ideal approach (I have to do this, because I have a new project kicking in tomorrow morning, and I need these images for it).

Unfortunately, I do need access and use of both those XP images because of their unique configurations I built (the original w/out .net and the one upgraded to SP3 with .net 3.5/SP1). 

All my images are essentially "out of box," with the exception of the XP I have now, where I have the majority of my testing tools (Eclipse, JDK, SOAPui, and some miscellaneous scripts).  Vista and Win7 just have the bare absolute minimum I need to connect to our VPN and back-end clusters, with some essential tools.  I've always been one to shy away from 3rd party boot managers, but I see now the pitfalls in such an attitude.  Again, thank you for that.

Then, when I have a weekend with not much going on, I can redo again from scratch and follow y'all's guidance (and I'll try it with that BING program Brian mentioned earlier).

Phenomenal work y'all are doing here.  I stand pretty humbled by your wealth of knowledge. 

Bill, here are a few questions I forgot to ask.

When you are in Vista, what is the drive letter of the Vista partition?

When you are in Win7, what is the drive letter of the Win7 partition?

Hey Brian! Top o' the morning!

I checked and here's what I got:


Brian wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

When you are in Vista, what is the drive letter of the Vista partition?

Vista see itself as "C:\"
Win7 is seen as "D:\"
XP is not seen at all
and my back/storage drive (logical partition) is seen as E:\


Brian wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

When you are in Win7, what is the drive letter of the Win7 partition?

Win7 is seen as "C:\"
XP is seen as "D:\"
Backup/Storage drive is seen as "E:\"
Vista is seen as "F:\"

Finally, when I'm in my XP image:
Win7 is seen as "C:\"
Backup/Storage is seen as "D:\"
XP is seen as "E:\"
Vista is seen as "G:\"

And of course, between the articles you sent me, and your and Dan's post, I understand perfectly why the different drive configurations - again a consequence of letting Windows handle my disk management when installing.

Bill,

That started off sounding good. Vista and Win7 both being C: drive. But I expected WinXP to definitely be C: drive as it was the first OS installed. I don't understand that at all unless this WinXP was installed after Win7.

Hi Brian -

Actually, it was originally installed on Drive E: when I had multi-boot XP's. 

And I used it to work off of, when installed the other two OS's.  So, that was the 2nd mistake I made :)

And, come to think of it, now I wonder if why my Vista image doesn't see an XP image - is because Vista got installed on the active primary partition, and my test suite XP was on just a primary partition, not set to active.

I guess I couldn't have complicated my situation any better if I had purposely set out to do so :)

And I guess compounding the fact even more - is the fact that my boot files are all on the XP image (as you asked me to confirm for your earlier).

It's starting to look more and more like I should cancel any plans I had for next weekend, and gather all my media for a re-build.  :)

By the way, I checked out Bing, but I have access to Boot Manager 8.0 (I just never used it), I'm wondering if that will do me as good?

Like Brian, I was expecting a more conventional Microsoft-style multiboot, in which XP would have been C:, and Vista and Win7 would have been drive letters other than C:.

Following on Brian's inquiry, I'd like to confirm where your active partition is.  Boot into each OS and open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).  You should be able to identify your three OS partitions in the schematic map.  Which partition is shown as the "System" partition, and which (if any) is shown as "Boot"?  Repeat for all three OS's.

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 3:58pm:

Boot into each OS and open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).You should be able to identify your three OS partitions in the schematic map.Which partition is shown as the "System" partition, and which (if any) is shown as "Boot"?Repeat for all three OS's.

Okie doke! Here we go:
XP & Vista:

---

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 3:58pm:

Boot into each OS and open Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).You should be able to identify your three OS partitions in the schematic map.Which partition is shown as the "System" partition, and which (if any) is shown as "Boot"?Repeat for all three OS's.

Win7:

---

Okay, so it confirms you've got a Microsoft-style multiboot setup, and the XP partition is the 'system' partition for all three boot options.

Vista and Win7 can exist without each other because neither is the 'system' or 'boot' partition for the other.  But neither can presently boot without XP because XP is the 'system' partition for each of them.

Since Vista and Win7 actually do see themselves as C: then each, in turn, can be converted to standalone by making its partition active and "repairing" it to replace the files (currently on the XP partition) it needs for booting.  That will eliminate their dependence on the XP partition.

However, those are the partitions that are at this point easiest to reinstall (because they're new).  It's partitions that don't see themselves as C: that create the most difficulty.  Unfortunately, it's XP--the one you've got the most invested in--that's not C:.

Getting XP to stand alone is not the real issue--it's already booting by itself, and it will continue to do so whether the other partitions are there or not.  (Neither Vista nor Win7 is a 'system' or 'boot' partition for XP, so it won't affect XP if they're there or not.)

But the non-C: drive letter is a ticking time bomb.  Your XP needs to continue to see itself as E: or it will fail to properly boot.  You'll be in trouble if anything upsets that.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of potential causes for upset.  You're okay as long as you're restoring back to the same hard disk and the partitioning hasn't changed and the DiskID remains intact.  But if the disk ever loses its DiskID (not hard to do) or if you repartition or if you try to move to a bigger hard disk, then XP could lose the E: letter and then you're in trouble.  There are workarounds when that happens, so it's not necessarily fatal but it's a nuisance and requires some real tech savvy.

Yes, you did make things more difficult for yourself, but it all began when you decided the "E:" copy of your previously multibooted XPs would be your "keeper" version.

bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 1:38pm:

but I have access to Boot Manager 8.0 (I just never used it), I'm wondering if that will do me as good?

Bill, I've never tried it.

Dan has given you some very logical choices. Keep the ideas coming.

Well, I guess at this point, I'm wondering if I repair Vista and 7 into independent partitions, and I had a boot manager that could "hide" them from XP's installers, could I re-install XP with said boot manager in a manner that it would think it is installed on C:\ ?

Wouldn't that (3rd party boot manager) also prevent the risk of over-writing MBR with an XP format, and additional repair steps again?  Or is that pretty much a given since I'll be installing an older version on top of newer?


Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 8:26pm:

Since Vista and Win7 actually do see themselves as C: then each, in turn, can be converted to standalone by making its partition active and "repairing" it to replace the files (currently on the XP partition) it needs for booting.

I'd rather not burn and lose 2 licenses if I can avoid it (don't know about y'all, but I hate that condescending snort that goes with "you again?" from our IT folks), but - if a repair isn't feasible at this point, I could do a full rebuild, but I'd love to keep that as a last resort option for as long as I can.

Bill,

What do you think of this? An overview without details.

Install BING to the HD. You will have to unlimit primaries. More on that later.

Create a Boot Item for each OS.

Try to boot Vista from the BING Boot Menu. This makes the partition Active. It will fail to boot so do two repairs from the Vista DVD and it should boot.

Try to boot Win7 from the BING Boot Menu. This makes the partition Active. It will fail to boot so do two repairs from the Win7 DVD and it should boot.

Boot WinXP from the BING Boot Menu. As Dan has pointed out, it will boot.

Now all 3 OS are independent but WinXP will still be E: drive. You can install a fresh WinXP at your leisure. It will be C: drive.

The MBR is not an issue because you will have a TeraByte MBR. It covers all OS including Linux.

Man you guys have been terrific. 

I have to first look into bootmagic (since we have that licensed) until I can rule out it's compatibility.  Soon as I solve which boot manager I'll be using, I will ping you back Brian.

From your posts and Dan's feedback,  looks like we have a real viable course of action I'm comfortable and eager to get moving with it.

Thank you again.

bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 12:12am:

When I created my disk and partions (using Partion Magic 8) I had XP.

bill wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 1:38pm:

I have access to Boot Manager 8.0 (I just never used it), I'm wondering if that will do me as good?

bill wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 12:33am:

I have to first look into bootmagic (since we have that licensed) until I can rule out it's compatibility.

Did you mean Boot Manager, or Boot Magic?  I'm not familiar with a utility named Boot Manager, but you mentioned Partition Magic, and part of the PM bundle was a utility called Boot Magic.

If you're referring to Boot Magic, that's not a utility I can recommend.  It's old, it's meant to install inside one of your Windows partitions (never a good idea), and IIRC it requires FAT/FAT32 anyway--which you have none of, being all NTFS.

BING is a much more practical (and reliable) solution, and Brian's action plan looks good.

bill wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 12:33am:

Man you guys have been terrific.

You have Brian & Dan helping. Lucky you.

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 3:31am:

Did you mean Boot Manager, or Boot Magic?  ... snip ...  If you're referring to Boot Magic, that's not a utility I can recommend.

Sorry, I do that sometimes, I meant BootMagic. 

Once I'm set, - and since I prolly won't have bandwidth for this rebuild project until the weekend - should I renew this thread or what?

I'll have the testbox, BING and be ready to first break the two Vista/Win7, then recreate XP.

How should I proceed?


Rad wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 1:47pm:

You have Brian & Dan helping. Lucky you.

No Sh...enanigans there, my friend :)  And you should have heard me this morning layout a lessons learned case and why this particular solution is warranted.

I owe that level of competent and authoritative discourse directly to them and this forum. 

Bill,

BING needs to be installed into a FAT partition. You don't have one and you already have 4 primary partitions. In BING you can unlimit primaries and have more than 4 primary partitions on the HD. But you can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions in the MBR at any time. So each Boot Item will have a different partition table in the MBR. I use this feature.

So boot from the BING CD, click Cancel on the "Welcome to setup...", click OK on the Notice ("You are now entering...")
Click Partition Work and select your Data partition. Click Resize and make the New Size 8 MB less than the present value. OK. Click Close. Select the Extended partition. Click Resize and for the Free Space Inside (End), make it 0. You will now have 8 MB Outside. OK. The dashes in the 8 MB row should not be indented. (your data partition is indented). Close. Click Reboot. BING will soon be installed into this 8 MB of Free Space.

Leave the CD in the tray. This time click..
OK
Yes (BootIt can support..)
Yes (you can either...)
Yes (It's recommended...)
OK (Setup has...)
Yes (....was not created...)
OK
Close
OK and remove the CD

When BING boots on its own, click Maintenance, then Boot Edit. Delete each item in the Boot Menu. There should be three. OK. Alt + 0 to power off.

Let me know when you have reached this stage.

Brian wrote on Mar 30^th, 2010 at 4:25am:

When BING boots on its own, click Maintenance, then Boot Edit. Delete each item in the Boot Menu. There should be three.

Hi Brian -

I followed each step, and am at Boot Menu - DEFAULT.MNU and there was only 1 boot item listed Win7.  I deleted it.

Is it ok to continue from this, or should I reboot?

Everything else up to that point matched your previous post precisely.

Bill, sounds good. Standby.

Click OK on your empty Boot Menu -DEFAULT.MNU

Click Settings and put a tick in

Full Partition List
Use volume Label
Leave the rest alone
OK

Click Partition Work
Select each of your 4 partitions in turn (ignore the BING partition) and click Properties. In the name field, give it a meaningful name. eg WinXP

Click boot Edit
click Add
click the Drop down arrow and choose WinXP. In the Identity field type WinXP (or your choice). Choose an icon. In MBR Details (on the right), select 1).  click Fill and choose your Data partition. OK. OK.

Repeat this procedure for Vista and Win7. Each MBR will only have two entries. The OS and your Data partition.

When completed, click Resume. Select Vista and click Boot. It will fail to boot with a BOOTMGR is missing error. Boot to the Vista DVD and do two repairs. On the second boot you will get to the Startup Repair choice on a big menu. Vista should then boot from the BING menu.

Restart and choose Win7 from the BING menu and repeat the above process with a Win7 DVD.

Now all OS should boot but we may have to cleanup the WinXP secondary boot menu.

Success? Questions?

Well - when I tried Alt-O, it didn't power it off, it just notified me that I hadn't saved my changes, so I clicked Yes.  I'm at Boot Menu and I have Add, Help Delete, etc. but no Settings.

Should I CTRL-ALT-DEL and reboot?

Scratch that last post.

I'm at the settings menu now.

It is Alt-zero

Yes,  try CTRL-ALT-DEL and reboot. Click Maintenance when you see the empty Boot Menu.

Brian wrote on Mar 30^th, 2010 at 11:10pm:

Click boot Edit click Add click the Drop down arrow and choose WinXP. In the Identity field type WinXP (or your choice). Choose an icon. In MBR Details (on the right), select 1).click Fill and choose your Data partition. OK. OK.

On the Properties window, I have the Name set, but the button is for BCD Edit. 

When I click that, I'm in a BCD Edit windows with Items = Win7, Vista, XP. 

If I click I add, I have options that look like Recovery options.

You are on the wrong window. The Name field is at the top of the Properties window from Partition Work. Type in this field.

OK?

Click Partition Work
Select each of your 4 partitions in turn (ignore the BING partition) and click Properties. In the name field, give it a meaningful name. eg WinXP

Hey, ok... at the Work with Partitions window, each partition is named.   However, I never did encounter the Boot Edit you mentioned - maybe because of Win7 and EasyBCD being installed (That button was on the Properties window, under Additional Information).

Here's what I got:
XP  Partition  33001MB HPFS/NTFS
Vista  (same but for size)
Win7 (same but for size)
MBR Entry 2 (same but Extended)
Storage (Indented HPFS/NTFS)
BOOTIT EMBR

So I think they auto-configured?

Boot Edit is beneath Settings on the BING desktop.

OK. Where I referred to your DATA partition, use Storage. Looks good.

-DUH- Oh Jeez... That was dumb of me.  Sorry. 

Ok... under MBR Details, I have:

---->HD 0 <-----
0)    XP

and everything else is blank. 

Do I select XP and Fill and Set to my XP data partition?

You select 1)

It is the line below WinXP. It is the second slot in the partition table. WinXP is in the first.

Never Mind I figured it out, when I saw Data = Storage?

So, I should see:
--->HD 0<---
0)   XP 
1)   MBR Entry 2 (My Extended where I have my image storage)?

Correct. I should have said Extended.

Ok... and I suppose now I need the Vista DVD don't I?  Which (and this is unbelievable) I won't have until the morning. 

I swear, I'm not as stupid as I seem. 

Sorry, but let's finish this tomorrow night, when I have all my media with me.   

Is there a way to back out what we did so far?

I'm at the BOOTMGR is missing screen right now. 

No big deal at all. Just shutdown and continue from the same point tomorrow. If you have the Win7 DVD you could do it now. Choose Win7 from the BING boot menu.

Brian wrote on Mar 30^th, 2010 at 11:10pm:

When completed, click Resume. Select Vista and click Boot. It will fail to boot with a BOOTMGR is missing error. Boot to the Vista DVD and do two repairs. On the second boot you will get to the Startup Repair choice on a big menu. Vista should then boot from the BING menu. Restart and choose Win7 from the BING menu and repeat the above process with a Win7 DVD. Now all OS should boot but we may have to cleanup the WinXP secondary boot menu. Success? Questions?

Perfect!  I'll ping you back tomorrow.  Actually with these last steps, I got it from here.  I boot from each DVD, and after the 2 repairs I'm booting from Bing, eh? 

Now, I have 2 questions:
1.  My XP will still boot, but I will need to reinstall so it sees itself correctly.  For that, do I just follow the standard videos, or what (since I have a triple boot)?

2.  I saw that my Vista image wouldn't let me Ghost to my XP image because it doesn't actually see that drive.  ONce I re-install XP, that should be handled and fine, correct?

Again, thank you for putting up with my dumb @-sign. 

Oh Also, Once I complete all these steps, my existing backup images won't be useful?  SInce they all have the pre-BING boot and we have introduced BING in a stand-alone partition.

Which is not a problem, since I started with the images I wanted to end up with anyway. 

Also, once I re-read our thread, I realize there's no reason to back out any changes at this point, so please disregard that. 

WinXP will boot and you could install a new one tomorrow or next year. When you are ready. Can we talk about it later?

Because of unlimited primaries there will be a "problem" with Ghost. You will need to change one MBR partition table.

Let's say you change the Win7 MBR to

Win7
Extended
WinXP
Vista

That will cover all OS from the Ghost in Win7. You will hide the Vista and WinXP OS from Win7.

I forgot, Ghost is in Vista so we'll modify the Vista MBR.

Remember, you must try to boot the OS from BING before you boot from the DVD. Trying to boot from BING makes that partition Active so it is then seen by the DVD.

Thanks Brian.



Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 12:33am:

WinXP will boot and you could install a new one tomorrow or next year. When you are ready. Can we talk about it later?

Of course!  No one can get a glass of water from a fire hydrant, eh?  :)


Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 12:33am:

Let's say you change the Win7 MBR to Win7 Extended WinXP Vista

For the sake of simplicity, I'm fine with running Ghost from Win7. 

As far as configuring the Win7 MBR for Ghost, is there an article somewhere I could follow tomorrow and do that?

Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 12:44am:

Remember, you must try to boot the OS from BING before you boot from the DVD. Trying to boot from BING makes that partition Active so it is then seen by the DVD.

THANKS!!  I'm glad you thought to let me know about that, cuz you know I'd've slapped the DVD in and tried to boot straight from it.

Brian, you've been great through out this whole darn ordeal.  If I'd've known at first what I know now, I swear I'd've come in properly configured to make this far less painful that it has been.

But the big question I got is being sure to have Ghost 15 running in harmony with all this.  Again, the Partition I run it from isn't important (XP or 7 or Vista or even from the bootable CD).

Ghost 15 will be fine. You will be able to run it as before to create backups of your 3 OS.

If you have to restore an image you will need to make sure that the correct MBR is in use. Not so hard to do.

bill wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 12:57am:

For the sake of simplicity, I'm fine with running Ghost from Win7. As far as configuring the Win7 MBR for Ghost, is there an article somewhere I could follow tomorrow and do that?

Ghost 15 is already in Vista. Let's use it from there. Unless you would prefer it in Win7. When we are ready I'll talk you through changing the Vista MBR. It is a 5 second job.

Okay, Vista is booting; Win7 is booting; XP is booting (albeit via the old Win7 boot menu)... wow, that didn't hurt a bit!! 

Okay... ready to fix XP then Ghost when you are.

Bill,

Almost there. At the BING Boot Menu, put a WinXP CD in the drive, hold down Left Shift and click WinXP. You will hear a soft beep but nothing else will happen. This is a sham boot but it has made WinXP Active. Out of interest, click Maintenance, Partition Work, View MBR. You will see WinXP is Active. Cancel out and click Reboot. Press "Any Key" to boot from the CD. Enter the Recovery Console and you only need do Step 8 of the following page.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=324

This cleans up WinXP booting by restoring the ntldr method.

Which OS would you like Ghost 15 to run?

Sorry Brian, I just want to be sure I'm entering this correctly (since I have XP thinking it's Drive E:\)


I followed the booting sequence to get to Recovery Console.

Following step 8, I selected 1:  C:\WINDOWS
Entered my Adminstrator Password
entered fixboot at the DOS Prompt
"Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition c: "

Yes is absolutely correct? 

Bill, I'm glad you asked. I considered the issue of having WinXP as an E: drive and wondered whether restoring ntldr would be a problem. Then I forgot. No, don't do it. It may work but it's not worth the risk.

Never fails! :)

Okay, I did set "y" and then restarted

back at BING boot menu, selected XP that was OK

Booted Vista:  it's fine

Booted Win7:  it's fine.

We're good.

-whew-

It went fine, all drives are labelled appropriately (e.g. they each see themself as C: except for XP which still thinks it's E:\  but that is fine, no issue there (for the time being).

Ready to fix Ghost - on WinXP first, if we could.

Then Vista next so I have a backup to the backups.

So fixboot did remove the Win7 boot menu when WinXP starts?

When do you plan to reinstall WinXP? Soon or next year? You only need one Ghost installation and it should be in a C: drive.

Bill,

What do you think of the following idea? It will enable you to continue to use your E: drive WinXP while you gradually setup a new C: drive WinXP.

Resize the current WinXP to 16000 MB.
Create a NTFS partition in the 16 GB of unallocated free space following WinXP.
Install a new WinXP into this partition.

Then you will have four bootable OS. When you no longer need the old WinXP, delete the partition and expand the new WinXP to take up the 16000 MB of space.

Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 2:33pm:

So fixboot did remove the Win7 boot menu when WinXP starts?

Correct.  It is removed.  It boots straight from BING to XP.  Nice work, y'all.  :)


Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 2:33pm:

When do you plan to reinstall WinXP?

I'll probably start the process tonight. 
Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 2:49pm:

What do you think of the following idea? It will enable you to continue to use your E: drive WinXP while you gradually setup a new C: drive WinXP. Resize the current WinXP to 16000 MB. Create a NTFS partition in the 16 GB of unallocated free space following WinXP. Install a new WinXP into this partition. Then you will have four bootable OS.

I LIKE this idea very much!  That is what I would like to do.

But, then, should we bother with fixing Ghost in XP I have now?  Or should I just fix in Vista?  Snce the XP I have now will go away as soon as I get the new XP set up (and imaged while it is still in the out of box and w/out .net, SP3, etc.)

Ghost is already in Vista. You only need it in one partition. Would you like to keep Ghost in Vista or install Ghost in Win7 and uninstall Ghost from Vista? I guess it depends which OS will be the most used.

To be entirely honest - XP will be the most used, once I have it set up again.  But, I like having it available in Vista as well, just as a catastraphic fall-back back up (I do have the boot CD - but I always felt there was a reason stanchions are used plurally and never singularly if they are to have any value.  :) )

So let's go ahead and fix it in Vista, and later when I get ready to reinstall and set up XP, we can make it work there, no need to do so now (unless you want to guide me through fixing Vista and then leaving me directions for doing XP once I am at that stage).

You guys have just been over-the-top helpful, I hate to take advantage of your expertise and kindness... but (as I learned in Chemistry 101 - "A little does a little, but a lot does A LOT"

OK. Leave Ghost in Vista for the time being.

In BING click Boot Edit, select Vista, click Edit. In MBR Details on the right, select 2), click Fill and select WinXP, OK. In MBR Details on the right, select 3), Fill and select Win7, OK.

Boot to Vista and in Disk Management select Win7, right click, Change drive letter and paths, Remove, OK. Do the same for WinXP. Remove its drive letter too. Now those two OS won't be seen in Windows Explorer. Make sure they are still seen in Ghost. You may have to click Show hidden drives. Let me know if Ghost sees the drives.

Yes they're seen by Ghost.

Bill,

This shows you are in Vista but you haven't removed the Win7 drive letter yet. XP is OK.

What is Disk 1? It is not present in your previous screenshots.


Edit.... You have removed the screenshot.

But I see Vista Explorer also sees Win7 now.  And I did do the diskmgmt.msc step to remove...

---

Try to remove the Win7 drive letter again.

Perfect.  I had an explorer window open.  That was why it wouldn't remove.

It's gone now.

bill wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 2:09pm:

I just want to be sure I'm entering this correctly (since I have XP thinking it's Drive E:\) I followed the booting sequence to get to Recovery Console. Following step 8, I selected 1:C:\WINDOWS Entered my Adminstrator Password entered fixboot at the DOS Prompt "Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition c: "

Just to explain what's going on there:

Drive letters are always assigned by the OS that is booting, so the letter designations may change depending on which partition or OS you are booting from.  (You're already aware of that from your previous experience of the MS-style multiboot, wherein the letters of the same partitions changed depending on whether you booted into XP, Vista, or Win7.)

It's the same principle here.  When you boot XP, it assigns E: to its own partition.  When you boot from the CD into the recovery console, you are not booting into the XP installation, so it can assign letters any way it sees fit.  And the default way is to assign C: to active primary on the first HDD.

Thus what the installed XP sees as E:\windows and the RC sees as C:\windows are one and the same.


(I see Brian is walking you through how to get the OS's to be seen from each other when you want them to.  So I'll have more to comment on this "E:" business when I get another break later on . . . but gotta run now.)

Now to install the new WinXP.

In BING, Partition Work, select the WinXP partition, click resize, OK, type in 16000, OK, Continue.
Select the Free Space, click Create, name it WinXP2 or your preference, File System NTFS, OK. Close out of Partition Work. Actually this is covered in the video, "Installing WinXP Pro to its Own Primary Partition". So follow the video. You won't see the hal.dll error or the re-activate BING step because your WinXP is first in the partition table. But you will have to re-activate BING from the BING CD when WinXP has completed the install.

I omitted to mention, when you setup the WinXP2 Boot Edit prior to installing the OS, only have WinXP2 and Extended in the MBR Details.

When you use unlimited primaries in BING, the primaries that aren't in the MBR show as unallocated space in Disk Management. So don't use Disk Management or any partitioning app apart from BING to manage your partitions.

After XP2 is booting from the BING Boot Menu, go into Boot Edit for Vista and select your old WinXP in MBR Details. Click Fill and choose XP2. Old XP won't be in the Vista MBR anymore and won't be seen by Ghost. Boot into Vista and remove the drive letter of XP2. XP2 will be seen by Ghost and you can create images of XP2 as you add software.

Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 5:03pm:

Thus what the installed XP sees as E:\windows and the RC sees as C:\windows are one and the same.

Thanks Dan. I suspected that was the case but I wasn't certain.

Bill, if you add a second internal HD to your computer you will have to use "Fill" in Boot Edit to make the partition(s) visible.

Bill, just for your information but you can also create and restore partition images from BING. Very easily too. You indicated you like redundancy.

Okay, I promised to get back to the matter of XP relying on E: as a drive letter.  Earlier in this thread I mentioned that this is not a desirable condition, so let me back up a bit and explain why.

There is nothing wrong with that as long as XP continues to see its own partition as E:.  However, a problem arises when Windows, for one reason or another, loses track of which drive letter goes with which partition.  Without going into details of why that happens (but understand the risk is higher when cloning/imaging partitions), the point is that when it does happen Windows has to "rediscover" partitions and start assigning drive letters again.  Anything Windows hasn't lost track of will keep the same drive letter, but Windows follows a specific sequence when assigning drive letters to newly discovered partitions.  If C: hasn't already been assigned to another partition, the first newly discovered partition will be assigned as C:.

When you restore from your XP image, the first time the restored partition starts to boot up it looks for new partitions (those it hadn't already recorded in its registry).  If its own partition isn't exactly where it had been previously (per the registry), it looks to XP like a new partition ... and gets assigned as C:.  Similarly, it doesn't see a partition where it expected E: to be ... so that letter is put back in the pool and becomes available for re-use for something else--perhaps a data partition or a DVD drive, for example.  And that's when booting fails--XP is booting from C:, looking for E:, and not realizing they are one and the same.

This is not an issue if the OS expects itself to be on C:.  Even if it lost track of its own partition, when it rediscovers new partitions its own partition is the first one it finds, so gets reassigned C: anyway.  Vista and Win7 behave the same way, but since your Vista and Win7 both installed themselves as C: in the first place, they don't have the same vulnerability as your XP installation.

When this problem arises, you need to correct the drive letter assignment in the registry.  For the average user, this is a problem ... how do you edit the registry if you can't boot?

In your case, you're multibooting, and that gives you the opportunity of using one of the other installations to remotely edit the XP registry.  If XP ever runs into this drive letter issue at some point, you could boot into Vista or Win7, fix the XP registry, and then XP should be able to boot.

Thus, the fact that your XP is not on C: is less crucial than it is for most people.  Obviously, it's not as tidy as if XP were on C:, but at least it's not the show-stopper it would be for many others.  (Read between the lines: reinstalling XP to get it on C: is not urgently necessary in your case.)  Note this is because you're multibooting.  If you reverted to single-booting XP only, then you wouldn't have this easy way of fixing XP when it breaks.

Here is an example of how to remotely edit the XP registry from Win7.

First, you need to make XP visible from Win7.  Brian has already covered how to use BING to do that.  Make sure XP has a drive letter when seen in Win7.  (It happens to be E: in the illustrations here.)

Next, launch regedit in Win7.  In regedit, click once on "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" to select it, then click 'File', 'Load Hive'.  (Note: 'Load Hive' will be grayed out unless you are on "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".)

Navigate to the "windows\system32\config" folder on the XP partition, and select the "system" hive.  Click 'Open', and you will be asked to give an alias to the hive.  In this example, I called it "XP-System".

Now you'll have the XP registry's system hive open as a branch called "XP-System" under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".

Select the "MountedDevices" key in regedit's left pane, and you'll find the drive letters XP has "remembered" in the right pane.  If XP lost track of E: and failed to finish booting, you'll probably find that it reassigned its own partition as C:.  Right-click "\DosDevices\C:" and rename it to "\DosDevices\E:".

Finally, select "XP-System" In the left pane, then 'File', 'Unload Hive', to disconnect the XP hive.

Now the "new" partition XP had rediscovered as C: will be E: instead when XP boots.

---

@ bill, @ Brian, and @ Dan Goodell

Very interesting---lots of *good stuff* in all this!

Hmmm...all those references to setting up BING--hard to appreciate when I don't use that software--but I better remember this thread for future reference--I suspect I will sometime in the future!

Luckily, I dodged the *Microsoft Way* of multi-booting a long time ago--I have always used separate active primary partitions so the OS is always assigned C:\--that was how the original PartitionMagic v3.xx talked about doing it back some 12-15 years ago in their User Guide--they were discussing how to avoid drive letter changes when booting different OSs!  I think their *BootMagic* boot loader simply *automated* the process of switching primary partitions--but don't know for sure--never actually use it--just the *pqboot* program (DOS based) that changed the active and hidden primary partitions when booted from a floppy disk or bootable optical disc (using DOS)--or using *pqboot32* form within a Windows OS--which switched the active primary when you closed out the current Windows--then upon reboot, the other primary was active for booting.

NightOwl wrote on Apr 1^st, 2010 at 12:00pm:

I think their *BootMagic* boot loader simply *automated* the process of switching primary partitions--but don't know for sure [...]

Yes, that's what it did.  While pqboot/pqboot32 were command-line utilities that merely unhid/activated the desired primary partition and hid all the rest, BootMagic had a few more bells and whistles.  It operated from the MBR (ie, pre-boot rather than post-boot), it had a graphical menu for the boot choices, and it could be configured to selectively hide/unhide each non-active primary.

Though it continued to be bundled with PartitionMagic through version 8, BootMagic essentially ceased development after PartitionMagic 5, so obsoleted itself with several limitations that made it unsuitable for continued use.

Unlike most respectable boot managers, it had to be installed inside a Windows installation--which meant Windows was no longer a true standalone partition.  While PM7 gained NTFS compatibility, BM did not and was restricted to FAT16/32.  (How many people nowadays still have a FAT16/32 Windows installation on their system?)

Cloning BM/Windows from one partition to another meant you ended up with two BM installations and conflicts.  Because of that, I switched to System Commander in the late-90's.  But System Commander also had its own limitations, it was expensive, and you had to keep buying a new version every time a new version of Windows came out.  So about 2002 I switched to BING, and have never looked back.  I haven't seen anything as powerful, yet lightweight as BING.

I'm always on the lookout for new alternatives, but if it costs money it can't compete with BING.  If it's free, then it has to compete with XOSL, which is hard to beat (though not as powerful as BING).

In some ways changing the drive letter of a non booting (due to a drive letter issues) solitary Win7 is easier than a WinXP OS as you can access the registry of the non booting Win7.

Choose Safe Mode from the F8 menu. Login and when you see "Preparing your Desktop" (the kiss of death message) press Ctrl Alt Del. From the menu choose Task Manager. In New Task type regedit and put a tick in administrator privileges. This is the Win7 registry so you don't have to load a hive.

You can do something similar from the Win7 boot DVD but you have to load a hive to get the Win7 registry.

@ Dan Goodell

I'm going to play *devil's advocate*--asking some questions that may impact the information you outlined in your reply #84 above:


Quote:

Here is an example of how to remotely edit the XP registry from Win7. First, you need to make XP visible from Win7.  Brian has already covered how to use BING to do that.  Make sure XP has a drive letter when seen in Win7.

Can this be done from a booted Bart PE disc?  (In case you do not have a multi-boot setup and can use the *regedit* program on another booted OS of the multi-boot!)

In other words (I guess), are there other tools to *remotely edit the XP registry*?


********************************************
(Aside note: 


Quote:

In your case, you're multibooting, and that gives you the opportunity of using one of the other installations to remotely edit the XP registry.

if it were the Win7 that was the non-booting OS with an incorrect drive letter assignment as the cause--can you be booted to your WinXP and use the WinXP *regedit* program to edit the Win7 registry in a similar fashion--i.e. is WinXP's *regedit* forward compatible with Win7's registry?)

********************************************



Quote:

(Note: 'Load Hive' will be grayed out unless you are on "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".)

Just a note of caution--I played around with my *regedit* just to see how the steps show up--and I found that the *Load Hive* will also be available if you have selected *HKEY_USERS*--so if that's critical--then need to be sure you have selected *HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE*.


Quote:

Select the "MountedDevices" key in regedit's left pane, and you'll find the drive letters XP has "remembered" in the right pane.  If XP lost track of E: and failed to finish booting, you'll probably find that it reassigned its own partition as C:.  Right-click "\DosDevices\C:" and rename it to "\DosDevices\E:".

How do you know you are selecting the correct drive to change?  If you have used the system for awhile, isn't it likely that C:\ will have been re-assigned to some other device as the first available drive letter?

But, I guess the example is assuming that *all* HDD devices have lost their assigned drive letters and are being *re-assigned* drive letters and because of the sequence drive letters are assigned, it will *always* be C:\--but, what if the system had assigned an optical drive the letter C:\--would that still be remembered as C:\--because its device ID will not have changed (hard wired?)?

Well, I guess one would know that they had been using C:\ for an optical drive letter!  If it's still remembered--at least in the above example the next available drive letter would D:\--unless that was an assigned device that does not get a re-assigned drive letter too!

See my dilemma--if the *simple* set up does not exist--what are the other possibilities--and how do you know which *DosDevices* in the registry is the OS partition for your XP that you want to edit?

Actually, in a more complex setup, another partition may already be *DosDevices\E:*--so, I presume you would have to change that as well--so it does not conflict with your editing of the incorrect OS *DosDevices* back to E:\!

Seems simple as an example--but, may be really complicated if your setup is *complex*--sure seems a better choice to avoid the Microsoft method of multi-booting--and doing multiple previous installs that ended up making one of your retained OSs having a drive letter assignment other than C:\!!!

I don't know if any of my ranting above makes any sense--being as I'm just trying to imagine what's going on and what one might find in a more complex setup!  The above registry *DosDevices* are so cryptic--don't know how one can be comfortable in selecting the correct one to edit!

@ Brian


Quote:

In some ways changing the drive letter of a non booting (due to a drive letter issues) solitary Win7 is easier than a WinXP OS as you can access the registry of the non booting Win7. Choose Safe Mode from the F8 menu. Login and when you see "Preparing your Desktop" (the kiss of death message) press Ctrl Alt Del. From the menu choose Task Manager.

Missing something here--you said the Win7 Os is *non-booting*--but, sure looks like you have just booted to that Win7 OS if you can get passed the *Login* and bring up *Task Manager*!


Quote:

Choose Safe Mode from the F8 menu

In Win7--if it's non-booting, does that allow you to boot anyway--seems like having the wrong drive letter in the registry would still cause non-booting--even in Safe Mode?!

Win7 has *new* capabilities?

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 12:00pm:

you said the Win7 Os is *non-booting*

Terminology? I meant fully load into Win7. Do you use another term?

Win7 behaves differently to WinXP when there is a drive letter issue. The OS starts to boot normally and you can login at the Welcome screen. You see "Welcome" for a second or so. Then "Preparing your desktop" for a minute or so followed by a dull grey blue screen with no text or icons. This screen persists until you use the power button.


NightOwl wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 12:00pm:

even in Safe Mode?!

The sequence is the same as above except that instead of a dull grey blue screen, you see a black screen with the words Safe Mode in each corner. But even from this screen you can use Ctrl Alt Del to bring up a menu to start Task Manager.

The menu has...

Lock this computer
Switch user
Log off
Change a password
Start Task Manager

I like this Task Manager method.

Hey All!! 

I've been testing out the separation we did, and you guys nailed it like a woodworker. 


Dan Goodell wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 5:03pm:

I see Brian is walking you through how to get the OS's to be seen from each other when you want them to.

Indeed he has!

And all is good. 

I've run the following checks to verify the boot configurations and ghost are all cohabiting:
1.  (Vista) - When I set Ghost to show all hidden drives, I can backup XP, Vista, and Win7 corporately or individually to my storage drive.
2.  (Vista) - I can restore XP and Win7
3.  (XP) - I followed Brian's steps for fixing Ghost in Vista and applied those to XP (incl. the disk management of removing Vista and Win7) and when I select "Show hidden drives" I can backup XP, Vista, and Win7.
4. (XP) - I can restore Vista and Win7.
5. Through disk management, I can allow each OS - should I want - to see any other OS on my system (thus giving me the ability to have broad overview when I need).

This configuration completely gives me what I need in terms of each OS functioning and living independently of one another, and Ghost can fully protect and recover each partition running solely from the HDD (albeit said need for Ghost to reside in two OSs).

At this point, I am ready to start the process of Moving XP to what it see as drive c:.

However, I've decided to get greedy here.  I'd like two functional XP OSs. 

I'm guessing the steps would be something along the order of:

1.  Follow Brian's directions in creating the new partition and installing and re-building the present XP configuration I have now.

2.  Instead of merging the old partition, re-format for a 2nd XP install following the same steps I'm about to do.

Bill,

That is good news. You have caught onto using BING very quickly. It took months before I was comfortable using BING without outside assistance.

From Reply #77 onwards I've given instructions on installing a second WinXP. Do you want to eventually delete the E: drive WinXP and install a new WinXP? To have two C: drive WinXP? No problem. Basically it is deleting the old WinXP partition in BING, creating a NTFS partition and doing the same as you will do with your pending C: drive WinXP.

Or you could delete the old WinXP and do a BING copy of the C: drive WinXP into the unallocated space. That is the quick way to do it.

Edit... Do you already have the new WinXP?

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 8:50pm:

Or you could delete the old WinXP and do a BING copy of the C: drive WinXP into the unallocated space. That is the quick way to do it.

We can do that, and it will then think it is C:  vice E: ? 

Sure!  I'm all for it.  That means I'd just have to do 1 re-install of XP?  That'd save me some hours, for sure.

I'm going to create the partition shortly (running some updates for windows, and then I'll run a back-up). 

Yes, each WinXP will be C: drive. You just have to decide at what stage of the new WinXP setup you want to do the copy. After you have installed X number of apps or whatever.

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 8:50pm:

Do you already have the new WinXP?

Installing it now.  So far so good.  I'm at the re-boot "Exciting new look" phase right now.  From here, I think it'll take me about an hour or two to completely install and configure the "out of box" installation w/ all my drivers, etc. 

Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 5:27pm:

when you setup the WinXP2 Boot Edit prior to installing the OS, only have WinXP2 and Extended in the MBR Details.

I did - I followed the video and the previous steps you walked me through when setting up BING. 

Piece o' cake.


Brian wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 5:27pm:

you will have to re-activate BING from the BING CD when WinXP has completed the install.

I do see that I'm booting straight into the new XP image.

Reactivated and I am installing my drivers and apps.

Bill, you are a natural.

Truly, it's the product itself.  Between the videos and what you, Dan, and all the others have offered up literally does make this a piece o' cake. 

But trust me, I ain't done w/ you yet, Brian :^)

Once I get this initial XP image set, I'll be ready to copy it over.

And, I want to dig more into what you said earlier about using BING to back up my partition images.

And, I am going to need to move some excess space from my storage drive to the XP partition we're about to create when I get ready with this SP2 configuration.

And then, I think I'm gonna owe y'all a pint and a half  and a couple rounds more.

bill wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 11:37pm:

And, I am going to need to move some excess space from my storage drive to the XP partition we're about to create when I get ready with this SP2 configuration.

Bill,

Maybe. But I don't think you will have to. You had 10.5 GB of data in your original WinXP. That's not too much to have in a 15 GB partition.

Your HD is 120 GB. If you wanted to upgrade to a 1000 GB HD (just joking) it is a simple matter to install the new HD in your computer, copy the partitions, one at a time to the new HD, resizing as you go. You should be able to copy all partitions to the new HD in less than an hour. Then you will have room for dozens of OS. If you desire.

Once I complete these two XP's I'll be done. 

The XP image I had, I hadn't completed setting up all the tools I am going to need to install, (wireshark, for instance) so I would want to add about another 7 gb from the storage drive. 

But y'know, if there's videos or articles yougot on that, that'd be fine, I know I already put ya through the wringer with your help. 

When you are ready I can take you through moving space out of your Storage partition. This will be a good tutorial for others. We've covered a lot of what BING can do.

Let me know when you are ready to copy your new WinXP partition.

Ready, anytime you are. 

How many MB are in your first WinXP? From Partition Work.

Your second WinXP should be 15000 MB.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 2:43am:

Your second WinXP should be 15000 MB.

Correct.

And I re-thought where I want to take it from, 16G is way more than I need for the SP2 image (currently it's only 4.5G or so)... so I could actually take 10G from that drive (the one we just created) and move it back to the orignal drive.

That way I still have plenty of room for backups, etc. on my storage drive.

I still need to know how many MB are in the first partition.

Hi Brian -

I'm not sure which partition you are calling the first (the original XP that was E: ?)

Ok, I did a resize and this is what I have:
XP partition 26004 MB  (old XP_E:)
XP partition  6997 MB   (new XP we just created)
Vista partition 22003 MB
Win7 partition 2099 MB
MBR Entry 2 (Extended) 38460

OK. You are a step ahead of me.

In Partition Work select your old WinXP. In the Actions column click Delete. Put a tick in Clear Boot Sector (don't Wipe), Yes.

Select the remaining WinXP partition (your new WinXP), click Copy in the Actions column.

Select the 26 GB of Free Space, click Paste in the Actions column. Don't touch the Options. Click OK. Wait for it to finish. Resize it.

Select the new OS, Properties, give it a meaningful name.

Click Boot Edit, Add, set up the Boot Item as you have done before.

Hey Brian,

So I copied it, but then I had:
8 MB Free Space    (above)
XP_2    6997 MB  (the copy I just made)
18999 MB  Free Space
XP_1    6997 MB (the original XP I copied)

I was able to resize and thet the 18G onto XP_2, but I can't seem to get the 8MB to do as well.  I tried sliding XP_2, but it wouldn't (no error message was thrown).

Booting into it now...

And I'm liking what I see :)

You can remove the 8 MB of space but it isn't worth the effort. Accept it. It won't cause any problems.

So - Earlier when I was testing Ghost images, I noticed than when I scheduled a new backup, Ghost was wanting me to do all the drives with something about related files.

How should I handle that?  I shouldn't need to image w/ related drives after the configuration we did? 

---

Ghost "sees" two BCDs so it assumes one is the SRP. When Win7 has a SRP, both need to be backed up. But why should XP_SP2 have a BCD? Isn't it the latest XP install? There shouldn't be a BCD in that partition. Check in BING by clicking BCD Edit for that partition.

It said no BCD store.

But, I did add it to the Vista MBR earlier, when I wanted to backup the out-of-box install condition. 

However, I've added it so that I can restore that image from Vista (that's the image I'll be installing Ghost on). 

I don't want to use the bootable CD to restore images, I tried that yesterday, and it killed my Vista boot - but by having ghost in XP, I was able to easily recover from a non-bootable OS.

Actually, change that - I may have just confused you.  I'm deleting the SP2 entry, and adding the new XP I am now building (that I copied using the SP2 installation).  I think I switched numbering on an earlier post - apologies for any confusion.

OK. The old WinXP did have a BCD store.

I don't think you need to do this but if you get tempted...

http://www.bootitng.com/kb/article.php?id=274

Good work with the resizing and sliding. You did that without instructions. I think you like BING!

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 6:03am:

I think you like BING!

The more I use it the more I'm impressed with just how the term "powerful" is an under-statement. 

Once I got over that initial learning curve of configuring the various partitions, I don't think a utility like this could be any more easier to use.

The "slide" feature is friggen awesome.  I've normally used Partition Magic, and this utility far outpaces that one.

Yeah - y'all won me over :)

I see the article on removing that 8MB of free space.  Soon as SP3 finishes installing, I'll play with that.

Thank you again so much for spending time walking me through the app.  I sat back last night before I went to bed, booted each of my OSs, and just couldn't believe I finally had something so versatile in a way I hadn't before.

Now... back to my question about Ghost - and apologies if you responded and I missed it, but when I ghost from Vista and I get that warning message that I need to also image the related drives as part of that Vista drive - can I ignore that?  Or do I need to accept the default setting and keep those two imaged in sync (Vista and Win7 when I image Vista)?

bill wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 11:27am:

can I ignore that?

Yes. It doesn't apply to you. Maybe Ghost doesn't like your partition setup but you only need to backup the partitions that you think are relevant.

Just some general information. There are two ways to hide a partition. Remove its drive letter in Disk Management as you have done or select Hide in the BING Boot Edit window. The latter may not work if the partitions have already seen each other so I opted for the first method. I use a combination of these methods. The advantage of the former is you can "unhide" the partition in Windows by giving it a temporary drive letter if you want to change a file in that partition. I do this with a DOS partition.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 5:43am:

but if you get tempted...

I was... and I did... and it worked flawlessly!!!

DOOD!

I'm in pocket-protector heaven, hand me the duct tape and stand back, I have an eyeglass modification to complete.

:)

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 12:04pm:

The advantage of the former is you can "unhide" the partition in Windows

While I didn't know about hiding the partition in BING - I, too, prefer using diskmgmt.msc to do the hiding for that very reason - very easy to unhide in case I need to see the partition for whatever reason.

This gives me maximum flexibility.

One thing remains:  Using BING to create backup images.

I'd like to give that a spin so that I can see which of the two do me better (Ghost for imaging or BING).  Or both. 

Yup, redundancy and ease of use - my favorite 2 qualifiers when it comes to configuring a machine.

In Partition Work, select the partition you want backed up. Click Image, Create Image in the dialog box, OK. Select the target partition that will contain the backup. Click Paste. Double click a folder, name the backup, OK. 4 GB. OK. Select validate if you want it.

I'll get back to you later about BING restore.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 12:36pm:

I'll get back to you later about BING restore.

Take your time!  I've got PLENTY to play with for the time being - and I want to see the size of the backups and compare with the size of the Ghost image backups.

Again, thank you so much for all the help you've given me so far!! 

BING images will probably be larger than Ghost images because they contain the page file. Version 2 BING should be released in the next few months and the images won't contain the page file. You will get a free upgrade.

For a BING restore, select the partition containing the image. Click Image, Restore from file in the dialog box. OK. Double click the folder that contains the image, select the image, OK. Select the partition you want restored, click Paste, Yes. Name it, OK. Select validate if you want it.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 12:55pm:

Version 2 BING should be released in the next few months

Awesome!

Lemme know if you need a beta tester!

Bill,

TeraByte Unlimited has BING, Image for Windows, Image for DOS and Image for Linux. Until two years ago the images were interchangeable. An image created by one app could be restored by the other apps. Two years ago ver 2 of IFW, IFD and IFL became available. Ver 1 images aren't compatible with ver 2 images. We are looking forward to ver 2 BING. I've no ideas what surprises it contains or whether it will be released on time.

Another interesting feature of BING is Image Sets. Worth knowing about even if you don't intend to use it. You can double click an icon in Windows and Windows will restart into BING which will image each of your chosen partitions and then do a shutdown. I love automation.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=258

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 6:01pm:

whether it will be released on time.

SDLC usually sees most products not release as scheduled - but that's ok... I don't know about you, but I prefer it later than sooner just so it has more time to undergo iterative internal development and release certification :)

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 9:04pm:

Another interesting feature of BING is Image Sets.

I was just reading that article -
FTA:  "Image sets do not support the saving of image files to CD/DVD."
I was reading somewhere in Dan's guidelines about the ultimate in backup protection is saving your image to a dvd.  Let's hope BING2.0 has that feature, eh? While I haven't done that myself, what he said in that article really rang a bell with me. 
I don't know about you - but I hate building pc's.   This has been a chore getting this to where it is now. 
I'm really grateful to y'all and this app (in case I haven't mentioned it yet).  I'm more than happy to advocate for it

So tonight - my final phase of all this work - to set up an imaging process that meets my picky-@ sign needs

bill wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 10:07pm:

in Dan's guidelines about the ultimate in backup protection is saving your image to a dvd.

Did Dan say that?

I read it somewhere, maybe in my thinking I'm attributing to him, but it could not've been as well. 

Anyway, it struck me what I read: that the ultimate in protection is maintaining the backed up images on DVD separate from the HDD in case of catastrophic error that could prevent accessing the HDD.

Personally, I don't store any images on optical media. I feel it is too unreliable. Especially if the image is spread over several discs.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 11:37pm:

I feel it is too unreliable. Especially if the image is spread over several discs.

Same here - which is why what I read stood out. 

I'll dig around and see if I can find where I read that and see if my memory is serving me or not :)

I've always kept my backed up images in a partitioned storage drive like I have here.

My primary backup site is a second HD. Secondary backup site is an external HD. Some people keep backups on the same HD as the OS but if the HD fails, they lose everything.

Hey Brian -

I have an issue now with my XP_SP3 image (running on the partition I resized to 26G earlier).

Allfour OS installations running fine, and decided to test restoring images. 

I set the Vista boot mbr to see my XP_SP3 drive for the purposes of restoring that image when necessary (Reply 70). 

I returned to boot edit, and set up my XP_SP3 partition to see the XP_SP2 and the Vista (so I could restore Vista from XP_SP3) and then I ran a backup (with these two drives backed up in a directory and sub-folder (neither existed prior to this installation and 1st time backup)

To test my restore working theory, I booted into Vista and ran a restore of my XP_SP3 image.

Things kind of started going wrong from there.

I noticed that Vista suddenly detected my XP_SP3 and upon my reboot attempt, I got a notification that drive size was different (it was 2Gb or so smaller).

I re-booted to BING, got a drive size mismatch warning and then opened Partition Work to error check the drive,  and I saw the SP2 image absorbed the 2G.

I'm wondering - to restore, I'm thinking I'll have to (worse case) start over from copying the smaller SP2 as we did in Reply 107.

Thoughts? 

Also - at some point, I want to be able to restore my Vista image, which is the same dilemma I have presently.

Thoughts on that one, too?

I'm kind of thinking I should abandon ghost and utilize BING?

I guess it'd help to understand why it thought it was a different size when restored from Vista but actually I guess it's better question to ask how I should handle restoring a partition in which I have my primary ghost installation running.

Thoughts there?

Strange observation in boot behavior now:
1.  XP_SP3 boot menu had a dual XP boot (in a boot configuration controlled by Windows) fo Windows XP Pro and a second selelction of NT/2003.

2. Vista boots simillarly through a Vista dual OS boot style menu w/ Windows Vista and below it NT/XP/2003.

Strange, but all part of what I did when I restored, I think. 

So fixing it is no big problem, restore Vista boot as I did earlier, fix XP as we did when we copied, and then abandon Ghost and utilize BING for managing partition backups and restores.

Question:  Does BING restore similar to Ghost, and each backup is it's own unique file - or does it do iterative backups as Ghost 8 or 2003 would by letting you overwrite an existing image?

Doesn't matter at the this point, I'm a bit gun shy of relying on one particular method of restoring images, and would like to perfect backing up my configuration with BING at this point.

Bill,

To summarize, do your partitions look like this in Partition Work?

SP3
SP2
Vista
Win7
Storage
BING

Are there any "E" partitions?.
Is there a message saying "Errors exist"?
Are the first two partitions the correct sizes?
You could be correct. Ghost might not like unlimited primaries.

I think Ghost mistakenly created those "Dual boot" menus when you restoed the images. If so it it easy to fix. In WinXP have a look at your boot.ini. In Vista look at msconfig. I doubt there is a BCD problem.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 2:54am:

do your partitions look like this in Partition Work? SP3 SP2 Vista Win7 Storage BING

Confirmed, that is precisely how I see my partitions.


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 2:54am:

Are there any "E" partitions?.

Negative.  No E:\ partitions.


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 2:54am:

Is there a message saying "Errors exist"? Are the first two partitions the correct size?

I saw a warning the first time I re-booted after running a restore (form within BING when I tried to boot to SP3) that suggested I run Partition Work to check the partition for errors. 

As for the XP_SP3 and XP_SP2 partition sizes, they are not the same size they were when I built and installed on the two partition sizes (XP_SP3:  24 that was 26G, XP_SP2: 8G that was 6G)

After I selected the source image (running the XP_SP3 restore from Ghost in Vista), when Ghost gave me the option of restore image, I did see that it was seeing all of my Windows drives (a surprise at first, but I didn't stop to think that seeing all of them was warning me about something) and for my XP drives (where I wanted to target the restore) it saw them as unallocated and there was some other incidents of strangeitude all pointing to Ghost.

Not E:\ partitions but an E somewhere on the partition line in Partition Work. E for error.

In partition Work select the first partition and hold down left Shift and click Properties. Anything about a File System error? Do the same for the second partition.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:16am:

Anything about a File System error?

Indeed - "Warning: File system ends at LBA 49142897 This partition may not boot WinNT


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:16am:

Do the same for the second partition.

No warnings like the first.  Has cluster size 4096 bytes and the same notification regarding NT.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:16am:

Not E:\ partitions but an E somewhere on the partition line in Partition Work. E for error.

-smacking forehead- Dang that was dumb of me, forgive.

Are you sure the isn't an "Errors exist" warning at the top of Partition Work?

OK. Do this for the first partition.

Hold down left Shift on the keyboard and click Properties
in Additional Information there will be *Warning* File system ends at LBA --------- (numbers here)
copy this number to the LBA Information End field. Click OK

Let me know what the numbers were.

Is there a Warning for the second partition now if you Left shift Properties?

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:32am:

Are you sure the isn't an "Errors exist" warning at the top of Partition Work?

No, no errors like that at all in Partition Work.


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:32am:

Hold down left Shift on the keyboard and click Properties in Additional Information there will be *Warning* File system ends at LBA --------- (numbers here) copy this number to the LBA Information End field. Click OK Let me know what the numbers were.

For Additional Information:  "... ends at LBS 49142897"

For "LBA Information" (to the right of Option:  Mulit OS)
49158899

Has the Warning gone? Are the partitions the same size?

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:32am:

Is there a Warning for the second partition now if you Left shift Properties?

No - no warnings, nothing on XP_SP2 properties (58) dialog box.

And XP_SP3 Properties dialog box has no warning.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:39am:

Has the Warning gone?

Yes. 


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:39am:

Are the partitions the same size?

XP_SP2 is the same size.
XP_SP3 is slightly smaller (now showing 23996 MB)

Good. Try this. Resize the second partition to what you had before. Then slide it. Resize the first partition to take up the Free Space.

Does it look OK now? Do both OS boot?

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:43am:

Resize the second partition to what you had before.

Error 55 found on file system.  Use a tool such as scandisk or chkdsk/f to correct this error

Boot that XP and run chkdsk /f.

This is a pain. Damn.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:49am:

This is a pain. Damn.

Yeah - but I think it brings to light the need to use an imaging tool that can handle unlimited primary partitions.

Or, just have 4 primary partitions and finagle the XP between 2 different images that restore on the same partition.

It certainly excludes Ghost. Did that XP boot OK?

Okay, chkdsk/f ran and fixed the errors.

I'm back in Partition Work and this time if I try to resize XP_SP2, no errors come up.  So I am now resizing, sliding and enlarging.

It's funny, I can handle Ghost and Vista/Win7, and I could see setting up ghost for SP2/SP3, but I'd have no way to restore Vista or SP3. 

Man.  I had no idea how difficult this would be.  Sorry y'all.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:55am:

Did that XP boot OK?

I am still working on sliding enough to disk space to at least make XP_SP3 the same size if not larger than before.

My guess is with yours - it should boot at that point.

That leaves me with some unexpected boot menu items post BING boot menu window.  But 1 thing at a time of course. 

I didn't know Ghost would be such a problem. At least we have almost fixed the problems.

You asked about BING images. I'm not sure what you meant. At least BING will image and restore all partitions without problems.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:04am:

At least BING will image and restore all partitions without problems.

That's what I meant. 

I have no problem using to BING to manage my backups and restores.

You had mentioned earlier about getting back to me on how to restore using BING.  I'd like to hear more on that when you're up to it.

I did that. Reply #124.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:55am:

Did that XP boot OK?

So it looks like either I didn't move just quite enough, or that XP_SP3 partition is toast.

It still fails just after that old WIndows controlled Dual XP boot menu that has suddenly starting presenting after the BING boot menu.

No such menu for SP2 or Win7. 

So, I think I have some repair work to knock out and keep me busy for a while. 

Friggen Ghost, eh? 

Well, I guess it sure beats the old sharp stick in the eye trick.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:11am:

I did that. Reply #124.

My apologies, Brian.

bill wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:16am:

It still fails just after that old WIndows controlled Dual XP boot menu that has suddenly starting presenting after the BING boot menu.

Do either choice boot?

Partition 2 is fine. The second XP. I'm getting confused with your naming so temporarily I'll call them P1 and P2.

Is P1 still a problem? It is the one with the dual boot menu. What is the error message?

Top o' the morning Brian! Happy Easter to you and all -


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:39am:

s P1 still a problem? It is the one with the dual boot menu. What is the error message?

Sorry for the confusion, I have the drives named according the "flavor" of Windows XP I had installed (SP2 = Service Pack 2).  So -

P1 = XP_SP3 (XP w/ Service Pack 3) = the partition we made by creating a copy of the fresh XP basic install into the 26G partition.

P2 - XP_SP2 running on the 6Gb partition.

And there's no error, once I click Windows XP Professional in the boot menu, I get a blank screen and nothing else.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:20am:

Do either choice boot?

Negative.  BOth will do the same thing... from the BING menu, I click on that WinXP install I want, I get the dual OS boot menu, and both fail to boot - I go to a blank screen (no cursor, no boot sequence) and must restart by disconnecting all power.

So, I'm going through Reply 107 now, and am copying the smaller XP onto the 26G partition, and then will update it to SP3.

After that, I guess the next one is fix Vista boot like we have long abouts Reply #34.  I'm assuming that's all that needs, because Vista will boot after I select in the Win Dual Boot menu I get for it.

Once that's all recovered, I'll delete Ghost, and manage my images from BING.

Sound reasonable?

bill wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 12:07pm:

because Vista will boot after I select in the Win Dual Boot menu I get for it.

Try this first. Boot into Vista, enter msconfig, Boot tab. Are there two entries? Delete the unwanted one. That should fix it.

Well...  the repair Vista didn't work.  I still get that Dual Windows Boot menu when I boot Vista. 

XP, on the other hand is fine now (both flavors).

Have you tried msconfig?

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 2:43pm:

Try this first. Boot into Vista, enter msconfig, Boot tab. Are there two entries?

No, only 1 entry for the Vista image.

---

OK. In the Vista Boot Edit, make sure the are only two entries, Vista and Storage in the MBR. Try to boot Vista again. If there are still 2 items in that boot menu we should be able to remove one via BCD Edit in BING. I'll investigate.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:02pm:

In the Vista Boot Edit, make sure the are only two entries, Vista and Storage in the MBR.

Confirmed - there are only 2 entries.  Last night, I went ahead and changed all the Boot Edits for all my partitions to just 2 entries:  The OS I wish to boot, and the Storage Drive.


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:02pm:

Try to boot Vista again. If there are still 2 items in that boot menu we should be able to remove one via BCD Edit in BING.

I do see two entries there, (Partition Work > Vista > Lt. Shift - Properties > BCD Edit

Just select the 2nd entry and hit delete?

What are the entries?

Windows Vista (TM) Business (recovered)
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003

(these are the two entries that also appear on the secondary (Win Dual boot) boot menu after selecting Vista in BING).

Excellent. Get rid of the second. You don't need to do Shift Properties anymore. Just Properties. It is looking good now.

Deleted...

Rebooting...

Bing Menu.... Selecting Vista...

No Secondary Boot Menu...

Vista is booting...

Looks like you saved my kiester again, there, Brian... some one should make you demigod or something on this app.

Whew. So all OS are now booting as they should? And you have fixed all Boot Edit MBRs to two entries. That's great. Now it is time for you to play with BING Image/Restore.

Sorry about Ghost.

Not that you need this now, but some BCD Edit instructions if they are ever needed..

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:19pm:

Sorry about Ghost.

Yeah, me too.  Well, 15 is so easy to use, but it wasn't like 8, in that I could over-write existing image files - which was a wonderful space saver.

But, I think this:  If I only ran 3 OS partitions, it would be fine.  Moving to 4 primaries - and tapping into the ability of BING to offer unlimited primaries - gives me full advantage of BING, but at that point renders moot any question of configuring Ghost to deal with a partition set up like we did my XP partitions (and thus, unlimited primaries).

All in all, the only harm done being several hours of the weekend recovering.  A small price to pay to learn before losing any critical data, how to best configure, utilize, and rely on my setup here.

I think, provided no issues with image sets and restores, we might be just about ready to send you on your way there :)

Over the next couple days, I'll work the advice in Reply 127 and prior on setting the images and restoring.

I'll ping back once I either encounter an issue, or successfully create and restore each OS image.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:22pm:

but some BCD Edit instructions if they are ever needed..

NICE!!!

This whole thread has been awesome.  And a great guide for me to refer back to as I move forward. 

Brian, you've shown the patience of a saint, and the perseverance of mule-skinner.  Thank you so much for all this amazing information.

You, too Dan... and the other moderators as well...

You have 6 primary partitions.

If you use Image Sets, the new image over-writes the old so if you want to save two images, you have to rename the old image in Windows prior to running the second Image Set.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:31pm:

f you use Image Sets, the new image over-writes the old

Actually, that's perfect for my needs!  And how I prefer to maintain my backups, except in some rather specific occasions, and for those...


Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:31pm:

rename the old image in Windows prior to running the second Image Set.

Bill, you have been easy to work with. No-one else has lasted the distance.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 12:36pm:

In Partition Work, select the partition you want backed up. Click Image, Create Image in the dialog box, OK. Select the target partition that will contain the backup. Click Paste. Double click a folder, name the backup, OK. 4 GB. OK. Select validate if you want it.

Okay, running each partition now.  Starting the first one. 

I tell ya, the more I use it, the more I love this app, Brian.

Same here.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 3:36pm:

No-one else has lasted the distance.

Can't triumphantly cross the finish line unless you run the entire race.

:)

And thank YOU, sir - for walking me through this all...

Regarding the .img files I'm creating:

I didn't prepare my storage drive first (creating a back up folder and all), so I am just saving my .img files to my Storage drive, and figured once done I could boot into one of my OSs and create a folder for these backups, and then move the .img files to that folder.

Doing that (moving the files externally to BING) won't cause me any heartaches in BING (I know Ghost would throw a fatal warning, and I'd have to delete the backup job and the image was rendered un-usable)?

Gut feeling says that should be fine, but wanted to check with you first.  I"m at the point now, I don't want to do any more destructive damage to my OSs, all this reinstallation work, after 4 rounds of starting from scratch - is really really getting old.  :)

Moving and renaming the .img files is fine. Will you eventually have your backups on another HD? Just in case your current HD fails?

Yeah... actually I'll probably store them on a network drive I have. 

This machine I'm using is a laptop, so I don't anticipate adding a hdd to it.

Wow, this thread has doubled in size since I last checked it.  Internet connectivity is infrequent for me this week--it's Spring Break week here, and I'm away in Oregon for several days.  But to tie up a few loose ends . . .


Way back in reply #88, NightOwl wrote:

"Can this be done from a booted Bart PE disc?  In other words (I guess), are there other tools to *remotely edit the XP registry*?"

Yes.  I haven't tried it that way myself, but any way you can get to regedit is sufficient.

If you're not multibooting, you can also remove the HDD, put it in an external case, and edit it from another working system.

"can you be booted to your WinXP and use the WinXP *regedit* program to edit the Win7 registry in a similar fashion?"

Yes.

"I played around with my *regedit* [...] and I found that the *Load Hive* will also be available if you have selected *HKEY_USERS*"

That's correct, but I didn't mention it (in reply #84) because it's not relevant to the task.  The hive you are editing isn't of consequence to the active OS (the one you're editing from), so it doesn't matter under which branch you temporarily put it.

"How do you know you are selecting the correct drive to change?  If you have used the system for awhile, isn't it likely that C:\ will have been re-assigned to some other device as the first available drive letter?"

I was addressing bill's particular situation, in which he knew XP had been on E:, needed to stay E:, and he knew there was no C:.  If it failed to boot because it reassigned drive letters, chances are almost certainly E: would have changed to C:.

FTR, a footnote here is XP needs to have gone through the rediscovery process.  If you are restoring the image to a different location, you might predict XP will end up reassigning E:, but you can't skip ahead--you still have to let it try to boot first.  You can't edit the registry value until XP has given you something to edit.  You see all that stuff following the "\DosDevices\C:" name in the registry?  You don't have that until XP has gone through the discovery process.  Let XP derive that part first, then afterward change the name of the registry value.

(BTW: this rediscovery process will generate a "Found new hardware" balloon in XP.)

"Actually, in a more complex setup, another partition may already be *DosDevices\E:*--so, I presume you would have to change that as well--so it does not conflict with your editing of the incorrect OS *DosDevices* back to E:\!"

Correct.  Suppose you had an OS, DVD, and data partition that had been E:, D:, and G:, respectively.  If everything got reassigned, the data partition would become E:.  In that case, you'd be doing two edits--one to change "\DosDevices\E:" to G:, and one to change C: to E:.  (Note XP should recognize the DVD is the same by its GUID, so it would keep D: as its drive letter.)

"The above registry *DosDevices* are so cryptic--don't know how one can be comfortable in selecting the correct one to edit!"

Well, that's part of why this task shouldn't be routinely recommended for the common user.

But for the techie, it's not really that hard.  For background, see my page on how XP remembers drive letters.

In my illustration in reply 84, I was aware beforehand that the XP disk had a DiskID of "8888-8888".  There was only one partition on the HDD, so there should be only one "88 88 88 88" DosDevices entry.

If there had been more than one partition on the HDD, I could have gone further.  I knew the XP partition started at LBA 63, so double that and convert to hex, and I could have predicted the DosDevices string should start with "88 88 88 88 00 7E 00 00 00".

Aside: On my own systems I have a habit of manually setting the DiskID to something useful to help me keep track of which HDD belongs where.  I choose some four-character ascii string that is meaningful, such as "6823" for my daughter's HP-DV6823 or "R-40" for my IBM R40 laptop.  I set this as the DiskID with a disk editor (ala, de.exe from DOS or SecEdit from Windows).  Either of those utilities let me enter ascii (eg, "R-40") in the right pane and it automatically shows up as hex ("52 3D 34 30") in the left pane.

I'm just playing with Image Sets on my test computer. You can run the Set from BING or Windows. From Windows it reboots into BING for the imaging. I have 5 partitions (small) in the one Set. BING just flashes through them. You can have different Sets depending on which combination of partitions you would like to image.

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:14pm:

You can run the Set from BING or Windows

How do I run from Windows?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=257

Don't forget to open Settings in BING and tick BootNow Support.

Sweeeeeet!!!!!

Gold star for you!  :)

Brian wrote:

"I don't store any images on optical media. I feel it is too unreliable. Especially if the image is spread over several discs."

bill wrote:

"Same here - which is why what I read stood out.  I'll dig around and see if I can find where I read that and see if my memory is serving me or not."

bill is probably referring to this note.  Bear in mind that was written back when an OS image could still fit on a DVD!

Yet, I still transfer old images to DVDs for archiving.  Like bill and Brian, I store recent images on a separate partition on an internal HDD for easy access.  When I create a new image, however, I transfer the prior image off the internal HDD to DVD(s) and store them away.  They're not as convenient to get to, but OTOH I should rarely ever need to restore from one of those old images.  DVD blanks are inexpensive, and I'll still have the image in case something happens to the copy on the internal HDD.

Aside: with Ghost 2003 I use the "-split=1440" switch to split images into manageable pieces for eventual offloading to DVDs.  Three segments will comfortably fit on a single DVD.  1440MB accounts for variations in the size of some brands of DVDR disks, and 1440 is a size I can easily remember, being burned into my brain from olden days as the size (in KB) of a 3.5" floppy.  1440 also leaves a bit of room to also drop a backup of the MBR on the DVD and a small text file reminding me when and what the image includes.

Dan Goodell wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:13pm:

I set this as the DiskID with a disk editor

Dan, I like to do this in BING from the View MBR, Edit Sig choice.

Sure is a lot of fun.

Dan Goodell wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:27pm:

bill is probably referring to this note.Bear in mind that was written back when an OS image could still fit on a DVD!

That was the ONE!! :) THank you Dan!!

And that is a good idea:  when updating my backedup images, move the old ones to optical (makes for a great catastrophic disaster recovery plan), and then save the new ones. 

But it looks like in my case, Ghost won't do me so good, as the recent activity brought so poignantly to the forefront.

Luckily the BING images are fine for what I need (although, yeah, that took a whopping 27G of storage... already looking forward to BING2.0!!   

Bill, how much larger were the BING images than the Ghost images?

It's not an apples to apples comparison, since I set the Ghost images to maximum compression. 

With that said, the Ghost Images took up about 8G or so. 

bill wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:36pm:

And that is a good idea:when updating my backedup images, move the old ones to optical

Bill, 2 GB splits in BING might suit you better than 4 GB.

Good idea.  4G should be fine, eh.  A dvd is good for ~ 8G. 

But, if I'm wrong, seems easy enough to fix:  re-image using 2Gb splits. 

Especially if moving to a network backup drive. 

In your old system the partitions contained this much data...

XP 10 GB
Vista 16 GB
Win 7 10.5 GB

Total of 36.5 GB. Now you have an extra Win XP OS.

Even so, imaging 36.5 GB of data could not have yielded 8 GB of images. My guess is 20 GB + using Maximum compression with Ghost. Are you sure?

I've never seen Maximum compression do better than 55%.

Y'know... I'm not entirely sure... I didn't re-check before I deleted the Ghost backups, but it could've been the 2 XP images came to 8Gb rather than all 4.  And just got stuck in my head incorrectly (like the size of a DVD - 4G vice 8G). 

However, it's a moot point at this juncture - since Ghost can't but BING can.  :)

Brian wrote on Apr 4^th, 2010 at 4:32pm:

Dan, I like to do this in BING from the View MBR, Edit Sig choice.

Yeah, nice feature, so of course BING would have a way to do it.  SecEdit has the advantage, though, of allowing you to edit as ascii, while AFAIK BING only does hex.

And I still like Ghost 2003 because 1440MB splits fit better on a DVD than 2GB splits.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 12:55pm:

select the partition containing the image. Click Image, Restore from file in the dialog box. OK. Double click the folder that contains the image, select the image, OK. Select the partition you want restored, click Paste, Yes. Name it, OK. Select validate if you want it.

Worked like a charm!  I'm set.  It's backing up, restoring, no problems.

Guys, you did it!! Thank you both for all the killer info, tips, tricks, how-to's and Dan, especially for all the knowledge base you shared!

Made my day.

And BING can fit on a floppy. It's hard to believe it can do so many things.

Good to hear it's all working.

Sure is.. thank you again for all you've done (floppy?  what's that?? is it like a soft sided CD? :) :) :) )

Hat's off to y'all!