Windows Vista How to ghost a dual-boot system?

[Pensionada]

We are a training center for elderly people. We have just purchased 11 new (identical PCs). These new PCs will be dual-boot XP and Vista.
We have now completed the installation of our first system and would like to clone this to the other systems.

Questions:

- Which program should we use? (Most programs do not seem to support dual-boot).

- Should we operate this from XP or from Vista or from a boot-CD?

- How does this work with software licenses?

- Any other considerations?

Please advise!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Hmm, interesting problem.

First of all you'll need to back up the first installation to some portable media, an external hard drive being the favoured option or if the complete installation is small enough perhaps a USB memory stick.

And a second thought that has just occurred to me is all the machines should ideally be identical as the first installation may not work on them as it's configured to the hardware in the original machine.

Assuming all machines are identical and you've managed to back the system up to an external storage device, then maybe Acronis True Image could help you.

This software costs money, about £25.00, but you can try it free for a month.

If all systems are the same and you use Acronis true Image, back up the system to an external hard disk then make a boot disk within ACI.

Boot each computer from the CD and then load the system from the (connected) external hard disk.

That should work but I repeat 'Only if all computers are identical'

The other way, which I confess I know very little about, is installing Windows professionally across a network via a server. This is usually done within Corporate entities however and will probably not be suitable for yourself.

As for the licensing, I don't know, contact Microsoft if you want to stay legal. Sorry, I just don't know about that

 

[Pensionada]

Thank you for your response. I have been trying to get answers from the suppliers.
Norton (Ghost) has been very clear: they do not support dual-boot
Acronis is very vague about it

The systems are totally identical and we would be able to spend money: the alternatives just take too much time. I will try to contact Acronis again. Their first response was very vague and spoke about Microsoft Sysprep as a prerequisite and I got thoroughly confused.

 

[Pensionada]

In the mean time, I spoke to Symantec and they confirmed that Norton Ghost does not support dual-boot systems.

I also had some email exchanges with Acronis but they remained very vague. The most interesting comment that they made was: "Please be aware that according to Acronis software licensing policy, you should purchase one copy of Acronis program per each machine it will be used with."

Anyway, I downloaded the trial version of TrueImage Home 11.0 and installed it under Vista. Next, I connected an external disc that has the same size (250GB) as the hard disc and tried the clone option (disc utilities). This started normal but crashed without any real error message. When I looked at my external disc I found that it had copied all data neatly into 2 folders named the same as the original partitions. However, it has not copied the OS nor its folders (Windows, Program Files, etc.).

I also then realised that if it had cloned, I would have had to boot from the external disc (to restore onto the other systems) which is not possible as the external disc is connected via USB.

Any advise?

 

[floppybootstomp]

I suspected Acronis' software may not support dual boot as it doesn't fully support RAID 0 either.

It will backup a RAID 0 partition but when it comes to restoring it can't see a RAID 0 disc setup, it sees it as two seperate disks. I found this out the hard way.

So the latest version of Acronis won't recognise external disks connected via USB eh? Although Acronis has worked, albeit it in a limited fashion, for me in the past, I would say this makes it an inferior piece of software, not much use at all.

I also tried to correspond with Acronis and my replies, when they eventually arrived, were largely nonsensical or quoting from their software manual. I don't think their command of English is particularly too good.

Most anything made by Symantec is rubbish so it doesn't surprise me about Ghost.

The only thing I can think of is to buy a Server edition of Windows and use one of your machines as a server and do a mass installation. But I'm not even sure that there is a server edition of Vista or XP and if there is whether or not it will install a dual boot system across a network. And if there is it will likely be pricey.

Sorry to hear you can't find a solution, I'm personally at a loss at to what to suggest except perhaps to Install XP on every machine by cloning via Acronis or Ghost, then manually add Vista to each machine.

 

[Pensionada]

We appreciate your comments and thoughts. We are still experimenting with TrueImage and I will keep you informed.

 

[daveydoom]

I've successfully used DriveImage XML to image a Win2000 and Win98 dual boot laptop:


http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

It's free so it's probably worth a shot .


Unfortunately I don't have an answer to the licensing question either. Usually large companies would have a Volume License Key so it wouldn't be a problem but apparently that's not the case for you. You should probably contact Microsoft and ask them. As long as you have enough licneses (one per machine - for each O/S) you may just be able to manually change each key before activation.

 

[floppybootstomp]

That looks hopeful

Thanks for the link Davey

 

[Pensionada]

I've successfully used DriveImage XML to image a Win2000 and Win98 dual boot laptop:


http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

OK, Davey, help me just a little bit more, please. I envision following steps:

1. Starting point: the first new system with 3 partitions (C=XP, D=Vista, E=Data) with all applications and data in the proper partitions installed;
2. Download DriveImageXML in the XP partition and install the program.
3. make backups of partitions C, D, and E on an external hard disc (G)
4. Make a BartPE disc with the DriveImageXML plug-in
5. Boot a new system with the BartPE disc

then what? remember the other systems are new: nothing installed on the hard disc, no OS, no application, they are probably not even be formatted.

can I partition from the BartPE disc? is that the first step?
then connect the external hard drive? will the BartPE software see that device? or other actions?
next, restore the partitions one by one?
will that also create the proper MBR and such?

Please advise

 

[daveydoom]

You can create a Bart PE disk ahead of time and use the DriveImage XML program that's included in it .

Boot from the Bart PE CD with the external USB drive plugged in and backup the entire drive (all partitions at once) to the removable drive. The USB drive will be detected by the CD .

Boot one of the new PC's from the Bart PE Cd with the USB drive installed and restore the image .

When I did it I had the drive formatted ahead of time. I don't know if it matters if it's formatted or not to be honest. I also am not sure if you can format a drive using the Bart PE CD. I haven't tried.

Hope this helps somewhat.

 

[Pensionada]

Ok, thank you; this is very clear.
I will give it a try on Monday morning. My last worry is whether it will properly set up the Master Boot Record.

I will report back so that a proper record can be made for future use.

 

[daveydoom]

I'm just restoring an image now using this same process . DriveImage XML does require an existing partition to be present before you can restore an image .

The Bart PE CD also has a Windows Disk Management although I've never used that option .


Good luck!

 

[floppybootstomp]

davey:

Slightly off topic but do you know whether DriveImage XML will restore a RAID 0 setup?

I ask as I'm thinking of changing from 2 x 74Gb WD Raptors to 2 x WD 150Gb Raptors and don't fancy setting up Vista all over again. My current setup is 138Gb and I have an external drive of 160Gb I could use.

 

[daveydoom]

I had no idea so I checked the FAQ's :

http://Q. Can I backup and restore a RAID?

A. You can backup a RAID volume, but you can usually not restore it back to the RAID. You can restore it to an individual drive, though.

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage_faq.htm#raid

That sucks.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for that Davey, I did look at the FAQ but couldn't find that one.

Same as Acronis True Image then and yes, it verily sucketh a large one

 

[Pensionada]

The continuing saga

After a day full of frustration:

We tried to restore the backup using DriveImageXML and we ran into problems. First of all, neither ImagedriveXML nor BartPE managed to create the new partitions so we did that using another boot disc.
Then we restored the backup and it all seemed to go as planned. But something had gone wrong as neither the XP nor the Vista system could be started. I guess that something with the MBR or track 0 was wrong.Both requested a repair action but those failed and we were back to zero.

So,we downloaded Acronis TrueImage Home 11, made a backup and a bootable disc with the program. This seemed to work very well. First of all, you do not have to create the partitions first and secondly everything can be restored as one big file in one action.

After the restore on a new system, XP turned out to be running OK, but Vista does not.
I get the following error:
Title Bar: Rundll32.exe Entry Point Not Found
Message: The procedure entry point SdbGetAppCompatDataSize could not be located in the dynamic link library apphelp.dll.
This is soon followed by other errors and a "Your user profile was not loaded correctly"...

Also, we noticed that C and D drives get switched in a real funny way.
Googling we found a similar problem reported in Technology questions, but no responses.
We need to have all 10 systems running by the end of this week and the only solution now seems to re-install Vista (and all its applications) on alll systems by hand, which seems so dumb....

Any suggestions?

 

[floppybootstomp]

As I mentioned previously you could save a little time by using the imaging software to install XP on each machine and then manually install Vista on them all.

Not ideal, I know, but it will save some time.

 

[Pensionada]

As I mentioned previously you could save a little time by using the imaging software to install XP on each machine and then manually install Vista on them all.

Not ideal, I know, but it will save some time.

Yes, that is the only way we can currently think of, and if we do not get an answer to the problem that is what we will do, but installation of Vista, and all its applications plus updates will take 3-4 hours per system ....

 

[psd99]

Yes, that is the only way we can currently think of, and if we do not get an answer to the problem that is what we will do, but installation of Vista, and all its applications plus updates will take 3-4 hours per system ....

3-4 hours per system?

What kind of applications are you installing there? Must be high end.

You could try installing 5 of the machines together with Vista, but you will need a power cable with each machine. Plus you would need to jump between each machine with a keyboard or mouse depending on the configuration.


I was reading through and first OS I thought of was Windows 2003 server or even better Windows 2008 Server, which has come out recently.


Why do you wish to have both Vista and XP?


I am a bit intrigued as to why it didn't work properly. I would have taken all the hard drives stuck in as many in one machine. Installed Vista, then installed XP. After that I would have installed Acronis. Copied the whole partition of that one drive directly on to the other drive. I would have done this 11 times for each hard drive (depending on how many hard drives you have) Each time I would have powered up another machine to see if it worked properly.

Now with this method if ALL hardware is EXACTLY identical and all software is EXACTLY identical it should work. If not there is a problem somewhere.

Good luck.


p.s Flopps for educational purposes. I thought that with RAID in order to install and rebuild another RAID configuration (with different HDD) wether it be RAID 0, 1 or 5 you would have to rebuild from scratch. That's what the problem with Acronis or Ghost would be. I am unsure.

 

[Pensionada]

Nothing high-end, but the sequence of installing Vista, then do all the updates, virus scanner plus updates, Office 2007 plus SP1, Adobe plus updates, etc. followed by Deepfreezing the lot just takes long, maybe not 4 hours, but 3 hours for sure and that for 10 systems.

Yes, having a server would be great but we do not have the money, nor, in all honesty do we need it. This is a one time installation effort.

We want XP and Vista because we give training in both systems.

Thanks for your thinking with us!