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Big problem, advice needed. (Read 58998 times)
Mr Moose
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Big problem, advice needed.
Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:30am
 
Hello all,

I had just finished setting up a dual boot, I had Win Xp pro running on a 1 TB drive so I had plenty of space to add Windows 7 Ultimate 64, which created its own partition.
I had everything in Win 7 loaded and working just the way I wanted.
So at that point I wanted a image of Win 7 as a back up.  What was nice about the dual boot was the fact that which ever OS I booted to, it was always C: drive.
So I fired up ghost 15 and told it to copy C: which it did successfully.
OK, this is were the trouble started. I forgot to unplug (eSATA) the drive that had the image. When I rebooted, something corrupted Win 7.
I tried to repair Win 7 by booting to the Win 7 disc, this was unsuccessful.
So I unplugged the drive that had the dual boot (BTW, Xp pro still booted just fine) plugged in the image (port 0 on my MB) and tried to boot the image that I just made, that came up with the MBR missing. Because it was set up as a dual boot, the MBR was in Xp pro.
So I used the Win 7 disc the repair the image, this worked, so at least I now had a  image of Win 7 that I could boot to.
So now I want to repair my dual boot set up.
Here's my plan, first, I'll plug in my old drive and boot to XP pro, there I can delete the corrupted Win 7 partition back to unallocated space. Them I'll plug that drive into port 3. Then plug the drive that has the image back the port 0.
Then I'll boot to the Ghost 15 disc and tell Ghost to copy my drive back the unallocated space on the other drive, but I would tell it not to copy MBR as that's all ready in XP pro.
Please let me know if this idea will work.

BTW.  I do have one more empty drive that I could use back up the image that I made of win 7 just in case something goes wrong.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #1 - Jul 20th, 2010 at 4:19pm
 
@
Moose

You have had an adventure that was unintended. My first comment is I don't think you did what you described.

Mr Moose wrote on Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:30am:
I wanted a image of Win 7 as a back up

Mr Moose wrote on Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:30am:
I forgot to unplug (eSATA) the drive that had the image

Mr Moose wrote on Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:30am:
plugged in the image (port 0 on my MB) and tried to boot the image that I just made

You did Copy Drive, not create an image. See "What is the difference between an "image" and a "clone"?"

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#note14

If you had created an image rather than use Copy Drive you would have been fine. Booting with two Win7 OS visible to each other led to drive letter issues. It was a drive letter issue, not a MBR issue.

As you are going to delete the Win7 partition I strongly urge you to avoid the Microsoft dual boot method like the plague. What you have experienced could happen again. Set up your dual boot so the OS are independent. With independent OS there is no sharing of booting files and each OS is hidden from the other.

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

We'll be happy to help out.

Edit... When you plugged the Copy of Win7 into the motherboard so that it was HD0 (no other HDs plugged in), what was the error message that you received? Did it say "BOOTMGR is Missing"? You mentioned MBR is missing. I know you have repaired this OS.
 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #2 - Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:12pm
 
Hello Brian,

Yes, I did use "Copy my Drive" and it does boot to Win 7 Ultimate 64. I did use the Win 7 disc to repair the MBR, which because of the dual boot, was now in XP pro.
I did make a recovery point of this copy using Ghost 15 to a external HD.
I put The Drive that had the dual boot set up, that I mucked up, into a external enclosure. I tried plugging it in a USB port, but doesn't even show up. Disc Management said there was a signature conflict, so its off line.
Is there away reformat it so I can start over?
I do have recovery points made for Xp pro that were made in Ghost 14 on a different external HD.
The fact that I used Ghost 15 to "copy my drive" if I had just shut my PC down and removed the copy before I rebooted this wouldn't have happened, that was my plan.
After that, my plan was to setup a regular backup using recovery points on a different external HD.
I would like to hear more about your method of setting up a dual boot were the drives can see each other.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #3 - Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:55pm
 
@
Moose

Mr Moose wrote on Jul 20th, 2010 at 9:12pm:
I did use the Win 7 disc to repair the MBR, which because of the dual boot, was now in XP pro.

You mean the BOOTMGR, not the MBR. BOOTMGR is in the WinXP partition.

I think the easiest way for you is to start again. You could recover your Operating Systems but there are some heavy going procedures that have to be done in the correct order and I don't think it's worth it.

Do you have an image of WinXP taken prior to creating the dual boot? Otherwise you will need to remove the Win7 BOOTMGR from WinXP and restore the XP NTLDR.

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

Also, have a look at "Installing Windows 7 to its Own Primary Partition"

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

The aim is to have WinXP and Win7 as independent OS, using BootIt NG as the boot manager.
 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #4 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:27am
 
Brian,

I have recovery points for Xp that were made before, and after I setup the dual boot.
All I have left for Win 7 is the clone that I made with "Copy My Drive" I did make a recovery point for that as well.
I hope the clone (I gather that "Copy My Drive" is a clone, not a image) can still be used, it works flawlessly, and again, its all I have left. I really don't want to reload Win 7 unless it the last resort.
I have a App call Easy BCD that makes editing the Bootmgr much easier, as I've already been using it. Its freeware, you can get it here. v2.0.1
I had already planned on donating $20 to them, as this App has already been very helpful.
http://neosmart.net/
I have another 1 TB available for this, as I still don't know how to format the drive used for the dual boot.
What would be the best way to proceed?

Thanks, Bill.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #5 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 1:36pm
 
Bill,

That sounds promising. It sounds like you have made a recovery point for Win7 on the (original) eSATA HD. This recovery point was made after you used the Win7 DVD to make the OS bootable?

My suggestion is to boot from the Ghost 15 CD and restore the WinXP recovery point taken prior to setting up the dual boot. Then restore your Win7 recovery point, at the same Ghost session. Just restore the recovery points to the partitions already present. Now you have two independent OS but they need a boot manager.

You can get a 30 day trial of BING to see whether you like it. There are good tutorials on the link I posted. Install BING to the HD. It only needs 8 MB of unallocated space anywhere on the HD to create its own partition. Set up your Boot Items with XP hidden from Win7 and Win7 hidden from XP. Then boot WinXP. If all goes well, try to boot Win7. You will probably get a Boot Manager error on the first boot so fix it with....

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

Any questions?

 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #6 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 2:43pm
 
Hi Brian,
The recovery point for Win 7 was made from the clone  "Copy Drive" that was made just just before all of the trouble started, and yes, it was made after the Win 7 DVD made it bootable.
My plan was to make a clone as a backup on this spare drive and put it back in the closet, but I forgot to do that, so when I rebooted the next time it was still plugged in, and trashed my original  install of Win 7. So that clone is all I have.
If all had gone right, my next task was setting up Ghost 15 to do regular back up's, but I never got that far.
So I hope that the recovery point from the clone will work for me.
The reason this is so important, I work for the University Of Wisconsin, I can by software at discount, I have Photoshop CS5 extended that I paid only $169.00, also Windows 7 Ultimate 64, my cost $80.00
But here's the catch, you only get two installs, that's it. I would like to save the other install for my next PC.
In regards to editing BCD I already have Easy BCD
Do you have a link to Bing? I can't seem to find it. What does this do? Is this how I hide xp from Win 7?
One other problem, the drive that had the dual boot, I put it in a external encloser and plugged into a USB port so I could format it.
It doesn't show up in the Win 7 library. In disk management its marked as off line with a little red dot, it also says there's a signature conflict with the OS.
How do I format this if its turned off?
Once I can format this drive, should I make two partitions, boot to Ghost 15, put Xp in the first partition, and Win 7 in the other?
I really appreciate the help, this has been very frustrating, I was so close before it all turned crap.

Bill.
 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #7 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 3:15pm
 
I think I have found a fix for the hard drive problem, just right click on "off line" there I should be able to turn it back on.
The signature conflict with the OS has something to do with drive letters as there are 6 or 7 partitions from all of my attempts to load Win 7 from ghost 15.
I'll see when I get home tonight.

Bill.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #8 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 4:36pm
 
@
Moose

BING is one of the cleverest apps I've used.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm

I make use of it numerous times each day.

Your original HD has been formatted in a USB enclosure. This is the HD that had the dual boot. Install it in your computer as the only HD. No external HDs attached either. Boot from the BING CD and delete any partitions on the HD. You want it 100% Free Space. Next, boot from the Ghost 15 CD and restore the two recovery points. They will take up the same space as the original partitions. Finally, install BING and set up the Boot Items. If there is no unallocated free space after restoring both OS, simply resize Win7 8 MB smaller to create a space for BING.

To create the BING CD....

Making the CD

unzip the downloaded file
double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Normal, next
don't choose any Default Device Options (if necessary, these can be chosen in BING), next
leave Registration strings blank, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish


To install BING, boot from the CD...

click OK to install
No on the enable support for more than 4 primary partitions
Yes for setup to choose
Yes for dedicated  partition
OK to begin
Yes to create EMBR
OK. Close. OK.

When the computer reboots you will be at the Boot Menu. Click Maintenance to get to the BING desktop.

Click Boot Edit to setup the Menu Items as I discussed above and as you saw in the videos. Remember to Hide each OS from the other. When you boot into Win7, WinXP will not have a drive letter. When you boot into Win7, WinXP will not have a drive letter

Let's say you would like Win7 to be the default. The OS you will use most of the time. In Edit Menu Item tick Default. Then in Settings, make the Timeout 5 seconds (or your time choice). Then you can power on the computer, walk away and if WinXP hasn't been chosen within 5 seconds, the computer boots into Win7.
 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #9 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 6:38pm
 
Hi Brian,

Downloaded BING. After unzipping, I double click on the makedisc.exe I get a error "unable to find makedisc.CFG file" Hit OK to open manually"
After that nothing, the thing is, I can see the file on the list with all the others.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #10 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:05pm
 
Bill,

I've never seen that. I just downloaded the zip and it works fine here. Maybe try downloading it again. If that doesn't work could you try running makedisk.exe on another computer and create the CD on that computer.
 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #11 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 7:39pm
 
Hi Brian,

I sent them a email.
I was able open the hard drive that had the dual boot, and xp is still there. I'm to see if will still boot, if it does, I'll BING from there as I only have one PC.

Bill.
 
 
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #12 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:15pm
 
Mr Moose wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 3:15pm:
The signature conflict with the OS has something to do with drive letters

That's correct.  Win7 uses the same scheme for assigning drive letters as all the earlier NT-based OS's.  You'll find details of the scheme here.  Your cloning operation not only copied the OS partition, it also duplicated the DiskID.  There is no problem as long as only one disk is connected at a time, but when both are connected simultaneously the OS doesn't know which to call "C:".

Basically, what you need to do is change the DiskID on one of the two Win7 disks, either the original disk or the disk with the clone on it.  If you're working from Windows you can use something like WinHex or Roadkil's SecEdit, or use something like PTS Disk Editor if you're working from a DOS boot.

I'll second Brian's enthusiasm for BootIt-NG.  It's one of the best software bargains in the industry, especially if you're multibooting.

Footnote:  BING has a one-click button, "Clear Sig", that was designed precisely for the above situation.  It simply zeroes the DiskID.  It's simple and works great for XP, in which case XP recreates a new, random DiskID the next time it boots up.  But it seems Win7 doesn't know what to do when it encounters a completely zeroed DiskID, so I've resorted to using SecEdit or the PTS tool to alter the DiskID randomly instead of completely zeroing it.   I've only done one or two Win7 tests, but that's my preliminary impression.  Brian, what's been your experience with Win7 and "ClearSig"?

 
 
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #13 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:48pm
 
Dan,

Deliberately creating Win7 clones with a drive letter issue was a hobby of mine for a while. You know the situation where after you login to Win7 you see "Preparing your Desktop" followed shortly by a dull grey blue screen which persists.

I found that using Clear Sig in BING followed by a BING BCD Edit allowed Win7 to boot normally on the next attempt.

A slower but just as effective measure is to use fdisk /mbr from a Win98 boot disk and then two Repairs from a Win7 DVD.

 
 
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Mr Moose
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Re: Big problem, advice needed.
Reply #14 - Jul 21st, 2010 at 8:52pm
 
Brian wrote on Jul 21st, 2010 at 4:36pm:
@
Moose

BING is one of the cleverest apps I've used.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm

I make use of it numerous times each day.

Your original HD has been formatted in a USB enclosure. This is the HD that had the dual boot. Install it in your computer as the only HD. No external HDs attached either. Boot from the BING CD and delete any partitions on the HD. You want it 100% Free Space. Next, boot from the Ghost 15 CD and restore the two recovery points. They will take up the same space as the original partitions. Finally, install BING and set up the Boot Items. If there is no unallocated free space after restoring both OS, simply resize Win7 8 MB smaller to create a space for BING.

To create the BING CD....

Making the CD

unzip the downloaded file
double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Normal, next
don't choose any Default Device Options (if necessary, these can be chosen in BING), next
leave Registration strings blank, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish


To install BING, boot from the CD...

click OK to install
No on the enable support for more than 4 primary partitions
Yes for setup to choose
Yes for dedicated  partition
OK to begin
Yes to create EMBR
OK. Close. OK.

When the computer reboots you will be at the Boot Menu. Click Maintenance to get to the BING desktop.

Click Boot Edit to setup the Menu Items as I discussed above and as you saw in the videos. Remember to Hide each OS from the other. When you boot into Win7, WinXP will not have a drive letter. When you boot into Win7, WinXP will not have a drive letter

Let's say you would like Win7 to be the default. The OS you will use most of the time. In Edit Menu Item tick Default. Then in Settings, make the Timeout 5 seconds (or your time choice). Then you can power on the computer, walk away and if WinXP hasn't been chosen within 5 seconds, the computer boots into Win7.



Brian,

Xp was a no go, it wasn't even on the menu.
Just to let you know, the drive that had the dual boot was my internal C: drive, it was a 1 TB drive that replaced the old 160 GB that was getting old, I already had the 1 TB it as a spare, yeah 1 TB was a bit large, but I thought I could hear some noise, didn't want to take any chances.
I had Ghost 14 recover Xp to that drive about 6 months ago.
That is where Win 7 was loaded for the dual boot.
Tomorrow at work I'll try BING, maybe my buddy in IT will make the disc for me.
Time to shut this dam computer down and head to bar for a couple of cold ones.

Bill.
 
 
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