Moving Vista 2

[Nelviticus]

I have just bought a couple of drives to create a RAID array for my home PC. What I'd like to do is move my existing Vista and XP installations (it's dual-boot) to the new array without having to do re-installs.

Does anyone know if this is possible? I know there's backup software that can shift the files, but I assume that Vista's boot config files specify which drive controller the installation sits on. Since I'll be moving things to a different controller the config files might point to the wrong place.

I have Norton Ghost 9 which came out before Vista. No idea whether it'll be up to the job!

Thanks

Nelviticus

 

[linney]

Is there any such software for doing this that is supplied by the drive manufacturer or available at their site?

IDE to new hardware w/SATA Raid-0

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-108282.html

 

[wolluf]

Can't see there being a problem with cloning the installations from current to RAID, assuming Ghost9 can see the RAID - but you'll certainly have to repair (repair reinstall) the XP installation - supply RAID drivers after pressing F6 - which will wipe out the Vista boot sector I think (I've seen other posts here about fixing this, but haven't looked in detail - just can't get interested in the Vista boot process, just use third party boot manager to avoid having to tangle with it!) And you'll probably have to run vista's repair feature, to get it to load RAID drivers too. If the XP & vista were on separate hard drives (and independent with 3rd party boot manager), would be a little easier.

 

[linney]

Perhaps "Wolluf" is referring to these type of programs to fix up Bootloaders?

This is a handy program to use when having Boot problems in Vista dual booting with XP. It can be run from XP and may correct the booting problem.

VistaBootPRO

http://www.vistabootpro.org/

Some prefer this one.


Used EasyBCD

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

 

[Nelviticus]

Well I was thinking I could install the RAID drivers on my current set-ups before I back them up - that way the images should have all the drivers they need for when I restore to the new array.

I've used VistaBootPRO before to fix my boot menus and it's very easy to use - I'd recommend it to anyone. However it needs to run from Windows so if I can't get either of my moved installations to boot I won't be able to run it.

If you look at XP's boot.ini file the entries are something like this:
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

The first bit - multi - refers to which disk controller to look at (see this handy Microsoft page for more info), so multi(0) means the first controller in the system. I assume that my RAID controller will be a different controller, maybe multi(1), so that boot.ini file might no longer point to the right place. I'm guessing that Vista's boot config database, although different in structure and location, holds the same kind of info.

Linney's first link has some useful info and contains further links to more info, so a star for you. It looks like I should be able to do what I want without having to do a repair install but I'll just have to 'suck it and see'.

Thanks

Nelviticus

 

[wolluf]

Nelviticus - I'm not sure, but I don't think installing the RAID drivers within windows XP will work. I think they need to be installed as part of the XP install process, to make XP able to boot from the RAID array. Memory's failing in my old age - but I think I've tried to do what you're suggesting - and ended up having to do a repair anyway. Vista I don't know.

I also suspect rdisk & partition are the only values that matter in a normal machine - RAID array or not - whatever the machine is set to boot from will be rdisk(0) I think, and other disks 1->.

 

[Nelviticus]

Well I am half way through the job - I have managed to set up the RAID array and installed the drivers in Vista and XP. They can now see the array as an extra disk so that seems promising. All I need now is a spare day with no interruptions to do the actual moving - I assume that unless I'm lucky there's going to be a fair bit of backing up and restoring - once per OS if it works, twice if it doesn't!

I'll post back when I've tried it.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Nelviticus]

Well I've done it and I can confidently report: it doesn't work.

Moving XP was a breeze - just install the RAID drivers in your working OS, back up the old partition, restore it to the new one, re-boot (with the new drive selected as primary in your BIOS) and you're away. There was one event log error about a mis-matched drive signature but it said that it had successfully updated itself with the new signature and the error wasn't present on subsequent re-boots.

Vista was a different matter. I was able to back it up from within XP using Ghost and I restored it via the Ghost boot CD. As I expected the boot loader had to be fixed but this had to be done by booting from the Vista DVD and repairing it, as VistaBootPro run from the XP install couldn't get it right. Now Vista will boot but when I log on I get an error message related to setting up my desktop and when it finally appears there are serious fundamental problems such as no Aero, UAC dialog boxes not appearing and so on. This makes it pretty much un-fixable in my opinion so a re-install is in order.

So there you go. Clearly Vista's registry or other system files contain details of the signature of the drive on which it's installed, probably to prevent people doing what I did with XP.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[firewolfrl]

It may be as simple as the vista drive is seeing itself as a drive other than c:\

Wipe the receiving Raid drive and have it empty and not formated. Low level format if you can.
Then unhook all the drives in your system except the original vista and the empty drive.
Clone to the empty drive.
VERY IMPORTANT... Do NOT reboot...shut down a unhook the original drive...turn machine on and toss in the vista install DVD and let it do a repair of the boot.

this should restore the drive so the MBR refers to C:\

after Vista loads and runs correctly. then if you have cloned the XP drive at the same time as one drive you can repair its boot setup


I just assumed your Vista boot was c:\ and the XP read as D:\

you really need to keep the original drive letter setup so it will boot correctly


I do not believe that 2 OS's should be on the same drive. Drives are cheap and its way easier to maintain if it is only one OS per drive. I say this because I have 6 drives in my system and run 4 different OS's
I do not like the Microsoft boot managers in any version of Windows. I use Bootit NG. the third party boot managers work better and give way more options for Booting OS's

just to note I have used Bootit NG on a computer with one drive and 2 OS's I cloned the original drive to a second primary partition. then I used bootit ng to hide the clones from each other and used the Vista DVD to repair the second drive so it would boot as C:\

here is the link

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

 

[Nelviticus]

In my original set-up, both XP and Vista see their own partition as C:. In each one, the other OS partition isn't assigned a drive letter - this gets around the problem of Vista wiping out XP's restore points in dual-boot systems (or is it the other way around? Can't remember).

When I restored the backups I made sure that my original drive (well, RAID array, but the system sees it as a drive) was disconnected. I had backed up to a removeable hard drive so it was a two-step backup/restore process rather than a one-step clone.

The error that I had - which I should have written down - definitely referred to a drive signature rather than drive letter or partition number.

I already have five drives in my system: three in the original RAID 3 array and two in the new RAID 1 array. I have space for one more but heat and power are becoming problems!

Nelviticus

 

[firewolfrl]

ah! so you are familiar with the OS's issues and drive letter assignment. I have fixed the drive letter assignment using the bootit ng program. I have seen if you open a drive on reboot with another program that the drive letter is put into the MBR and you get stuck with the drive referring itself wrong. what a pain.
anyways good luck and post how you got it fixed.