Duplicate OS same HDD access

[General Mailbox]

Greetings.
I have a new HP laptop with OEM Vista Home Premium.
I would like to run two sets of the OS on the same HDD. One to use in daily
activities and the other to dabble in. It's easier to do this than to hope
to recover from a messed up system.
I used a partitioning program (Parted Magic) to resize the C partition. Then
I used the copy partition feature to the unallocated space, now known as F
partition. Changing the flags to make C hidden and F the boot partition
renders an error "autocheck program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK". This
is the same error I've had on my WinXP OS and was repairable by editing the
boot.ini file to point to the correct partition where the duplicate OS was.
Opening the Command Prompt window, I've entered bcdedit /enum and the
response was "The boot configuration data store could not be opened. Access
is denied." I changed my prompt location to the directory where it's
suppose to reside to c:\windows\system32\ with the same result. I am
assuming that this is where I need to go in order to point the bootloader to
the correct partition. I do not wish to make a dual boot configuration as
it's unknown by me if anything is shared (common files and/or registery)
between them, or have any further configuration issues when I simply delete
the extra partition. I would like to continue to change the active(boot)
partition manually using 3rd party software.
Any help or advise on how to accomplish accessing and setting the BCD, or
any other method to obtain the same result, would be greatly appreciated.
B.rgds,
Kevin

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

The command prompt has to be opened elevated to access the boot
configuration data. I would suspect the root of your problems originate in
how you created the second installation. By copying rather than installing,
the mbr is looking in the wrong sector for the start of the partition (thus
the autochk error), and the boot files are not able to find and load the
system startup files.

A dual boot suing something like vistabootpro would be a more sensible
solution, and it's fairly easy even for a novice to use. Also, as to your
concern about "common files and/or registery" being shared, no, that doesn't
happen in a dual boot scenario. That would only happen, possibly, if there
were two installations to the same volume (and that has some other issues
which make it impracticle).

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[General Mailbox]

Hi,

The command prompt has to be opened elevated to access the boot
configuration data. I would suspect the root of your problems originate in
how you created the second installation. By copying rather than
installing, the mbr is looking in the wrong sector for the start of the
partition (thus the autochk error), and the boot files are not able to
find and load the system startup files.

A dual boot suing something like vistabootpro would be a more sensible
solution, and it's fairly easy even for a novice to use. Also, as to your
concern about "common files and/or registery" being shared, no, that
doesn't happen in a dual boot scenario. That would only happen, possibly,
if there were two installations to the same volume (and that has some
other issues which make it impracticle).

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

Thank you, Rick.
As I mentioned, I had to only set the boot.ini file, in the "copy" set of
the OS, to the correct parition number that the copy was in. From a cold
start, I would load via floppy or CD the partitioning program and use it to
change the flags of which partition is considered "Active" and which are
hidden. I was hoping to edit the BCD to do the same. This would keep the
cats from explorering into an OS they shouldn't be in either. Just an
advantage, but not my reason *smiles*. I read about VistaBootPro, and while
I didn't catch on the first read through, I did see that there's an issue
with the MBR being irreversible and has an issue with the restoration
program called Acronis True Image. Well, that's the backup program I use.
As soon as I get the laptop back, I'll look into manually editing the BCD
while I await any feedback from you before proceeding on with VistaBootPro.
I'd like to know the disadvantages of VistaBootPro too, i.e. does it alter
the MBR beyond repair of the original state that Windows had on it? And by
using it, do I have to find a different restoration program?
Thanks again!
Kevin

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

You can always rewrite the mbr if needed. I am unaware of the issues between
VBP and Acronis, so am ill-suited to advise on it.

Keep in mind that Vista does not use boot.ini, nor can it be booted from it,
so any modifications to it will be ineffective as far as it goes.

Have you ever looked at BootIT NG from terabyteunlimited.com? It can install
to its own embrl volume or run from a booted floppy and be used to do all
sorts of disk work including partition work and multibooting. I ask because
it is capable of determining which volumes load with each installed OS, has
it's own imaging backup program, and is, at least in my opinion, one of the
best power user utility products out there.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com