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New partition copied disc won't boot
Ivan - 31/12/09 at 07:32 AM

I have a new machine with dual boot 7 Professional 64 Bit and XP 32 bit. I have done a complete partition copy of the primary disc onto a secondary backup disc using Easus Partition Maker and when i unplug the primary disc the machine won't reboot to the secondary disc despite adjusting the bios. It asks for a bootable disc to be installed.

This process used to work on my old computer so what am I doing wrong here?

bmseven - 31/12/09 at 07:41 AM

jumpers set correctly on the drive?
Are you sure it has a boot.ini file and if so is it set for the correct drive/partition?

boot from the windows CD go into the recovery console and run fixmbr.exe

snakebelly - 31/12/09 at 07:43 AM

Sounds like you will need to mark the new partition as bootable, sorry dont knoiw the software you used so cant help any more, which edition are you using, just looked at the download site and it says the Home edition doesnt support windows 7 64 bit?

Ivan - 31/12/09 at 07:55 AM

quote:
Originally posted by snakebelly
Sounds like you will need to mark the new partition as bootable, sorry dont knoiw the software you used so cant help any more, which edition are you using, just looked at the download site and it says the Home edition doesnt support windows 7 64 bit?


Yes - couldn't get it to work under 7 so run it in XP - not sure how to mark new partition as bootable - can't find anything in Easus free version that allows it except something that says set partition as active but then it wants to set all other parttitions as inactive which I am scared will mess up my primary drive bootability.

Ivan - 31/12/09 at 08:04 AM

quote:
Originally posted by bmseven
jumpers set correctly on the drive?
Are you sure it has a boot.ini file and if so is it set for the correct drive/partition?

boot from the windows CD go into the recovery console and run fixmbr.exe


Think jumpers are ok as it was originaly a primary disc - can't find any Boot.ini on any of my discs - even the one i am currently booting from.

Will try your suggestion re the windows CD if all else fails and run fixmbr.exe if all else fails - am scared to mess with my settings today as if something goes wrong thats it until next Monday.

Werner Van Loock - 31/12/09 at 08:37 AM

I don't think that the partition software is able to make a image of your existing disc. What you need is something like Norton Ghost or Acronis True image software to make a descent image. With this imaging software it will make a exact copy of your existing disc. Or are you trying to copy XP from another machine onto the windows7 machine?

maybe this helps: http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

[Edited on 31/12/09 by Werner Van Loock]

Ivan - 31/12/09 at 11:49 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Werner Van Loock
I don't think that the partition software is able to make a image of your existing disc. What you need is something like Norton Ghost or Acronis True image software to make a descent image. With this imaging software it will make a exact copy of your existing disc. Or are you trying to copy XP from another machine onto the windows7 machine?

maybe this helps: http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

[Edited on 31/12/09 by Werner Van Loock]


Basically what I've been doing on my old machine is using the partition software to make an image of the primary disk onto other backup discs once in a while then keeping those discs up to date twice daily (swapping between the backup discs weekly) with a file copier (TeraCopy) that allows one to copy the most recent versions of files. (this worked a lot easier and better than it sounds)

A check on the old machine showed that these discs where indeed exact copies of the primary disc and could be substituted for it directly and would boot etc. Something I did occasionally.

This meant that if ever my primary disc failed for any reason I had two exact copies of it (one absolutly up to date and the other stored in a safe place off site at most 1 week old) that could be substituted for it with no hassle at all - however that doesn't seem to work on the new machine.

I suspect that this is because on the old machine XP was the only opp system and hence no problem, on the new machine 7 is the primary system with XP the secondary and because the disc image was created when XP is booted (because the software won't work under 7) by XP software, XP becomes the primary system on the disc and the Bios is still looking for 7 which it can't find as XP is the bootable partition.

Maybe using EasyBCD to mke XP the primary partition is the answer to my problem but at the start of the long weekend I'm scared to play around until the nerd herd at my local computer shop is available to sort out my mess therwise i lose 4 days of computer use.

Excuse me if the above sounds like rubbsih but I'm not very technical with computers.

bmseven - 31/12/09 at 01:01 PM

Your bios does not not care what OS is on your disk all looks for is a bootable operating system.

You can set your bios to search so first it looks for a cd > HDD1 > HDD2 etc
So in theory it should boot up from one of the options available.

Your XP disk should have a boot.ini file. It is a hidden file by default so you may need to turn on "View hidden files & folders" first

For a single OS it should look like this 

code:
 

[boot loader] 

timeout=30 

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS 

[operating systems] 

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


[Edited on 31/12/09 by bmseven]