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:


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.

Hey Brian! Top o' the morning!

I checked and here's what I got:

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

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:

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.

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?

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

Okie doke! Here we go:
XP & Vista:

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.

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:


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.

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 29^th, 2010 at 12:33am:

You have Brian & Dan helping. Lucky you.