3 XP Partitions

[Jerry]

I have an 80 Gig HDD that I have partitioned into 3
partitions. I now have on the first partition XP with all
of the programs that I want.

I have tried Drive Image to copy the first partition to
the second, but had several problems. When I had done
this I couldn't boot into the second partition. I don't
know that Ghost would do this well or what other program
might.

So now what I would like to do is put a fresh build of XP
on the second and third partition. The second partition
would be for backup of the first. Then the third would be
for beta testing.

The problem in doing this is that when I load a fresh
copy onto the second partition that then becomes the "C"
drive. I want to keep "C" on the first partition. I may
be able to use PM 7.0 from the DOS level and maybe be
able to change drive letters. I'm not sure that it gives
me this option or not.

So first off does anyone know of a good program to copy
the whole partition to another partition without
problems. When I had Win 98 on the first partition I used
to be able with Drive Image 5.0 copy from the second
partition with XP to the 3rd with no problems.

Secondly is there another way to change drive letters at
the DOS level besides PM.

Thanks for the help.

 

[CS]

I have an 80 Gig HDD that I have partitioned into 3
partitions. I now have on the first partition XP with all
of the programs that I want.

I have tried Drive Image to copy the first partition to
the second, but had several problems. When I had done
this I couldn't boot into the second partition. I don't
know that Ghost would do this well or what other program
might.

So now what I would like to do is put a fresh build of XP
on the second and third partition. The second partition
would be for backup of the first. Then the third would be
for beta testing.

The problem in doing this is that when I load a fresh
copy onto the second partition that then becomes the "C"
drive. I want to keep "C" on the first partition. I may
be able to use PM 7.0 from the DOS level and maybe be
able to change drive letters. I'm not sure that it gives
me this option or not.

So first off does anyone know of a good program to copy
the whole partition to another partition without
problems. When I had Win 98 on the first partition I used
to be able with Drive Image 5.0 copy from the second
partition with XP to the 3rd with no problems.

Secondly is there another way to change drive letters at
the DOS level besides PM.

Thanks for the help.

XP by design will only boot from the first primary active partition
on the first hard drive. You can overcome this by using a boot
manager. Try here:

www.terabyteunlimited.com Look for BootIt Next Generation

As for copying partitions, Drive Image, Ghost, True Image, and several
others including BootIt Next Generation do the job well. Try making
your images from DOS rather than doing it within Windows. Use the
Drive Image boot floppies.

 

[Alex Nichol]

XP by design will only boot from the first primary active partition
on the first hard drive. You can overcome this by using a boot
manager. Try here:

Incorrect. It will boot from whichever Primary partition is marked
active (within some constraints set by the BIOS on how far down the disk
that is). What matters though is that the partition number in the
partition table forms one entry in the line in boot.ini - if that is not
changed to reflect the system now being in partition(2) rather than
partition(1) the boot will happily go back to the first partition. You
also will need to correct the entries describing partitions in the
registry: after modifying boot.ini to boot from the right place, in that
system run regedit.exe and delete the lines in the right pane of
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices

Then reboot for PnP to sort out the enumeration again