Registry data shared between partitions.

[camelot]

Hi,
I copied mu OS XP to a new primary partition. Now I have 2 primary
partition with the same XP installation. I did all that through
PartitionMagic 8.0. From the new partition I tried to uninstall
Office2003 and... almost magically I unistalled it also in the old
partition!!! It is as the registry shares data among partition
(primary, only 1 per time is visible and active). How does it could be
possible? Is there a way to hide totally this registry information
among partition?

Camelot

 

[R. McCarty]

IF both volumes are visible, you've created a "Phantom" XP instance.
Unless you modified the Boot.Ini on the original volume to include a
2nd XP install both are referenced as C:\. So even if you boot to the
2nd XP setup any changes are based on C:
What you've done would only work if ONLY one of the volumes is
visible and marked active. There aren't two true independent instances
of XP just a copy with both referencing themselves as C:

 

[camelot]

I did not modify Boot.ini at all. I use BootMagic for choosing my
current partition even if after selecting the item I have another
prompt issued by Boot.ini I think....
All operations have been done through PartitionMagic. The partition
are Both primary and only one partition per time is visible (so I
think active too).
What exactly should I check in your opinion in order to try to solve
the problem?

Camelot

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,
I copied mu OS XP to a new primary partition. Now I have 2 primary
partition with the same XP installation. I did all that through
PartitionMagic 8.0. From the new partition I tried to uninstall
Office2003 and... almost magically I unistalled it also in the old
partition!!! It is as the registry shares data among partition
(primary, only 1 per time is visible and active). How does it could be
possible? Is there a way to hide totally this registry information
among partition?

Camelot

What you have done is not a good idea. You risk confusing
Windows so that it may reference some of its files on one
partition and some on the other. Later, when you delete one
partition, Windows may fail altogether. If this was my machine
then I would revert to the original configuration as quickly
as possible.

 

[camelot]

But apart from few system files like boot.ini, etc which other files
are shared amongst the partitions? Registry information could be
shared?

Camelot

 

[R. McCarty]

Does the Boot Manager hide the unselected volume ? You have two
disks each with a XP instance on them. If both are visible then there
will be different drive letter assignments ( C:/ & D:/ ) while they are
both mounted. Since you copied A-to-B, both XP setups have data
internal ( Registry ) that points to Drive C:\. A lot of this discussion
keys off how Partition Magic Boot Manager handles the drive letters
and mounting of volumes. It makes it difficult to visualize how your
setup is configured.

To the best of my knowledge/experience the two independent XP
setups would not "Share" anything but a common Boot.Ini ( If both
disks/volumes are mounted at boot time ).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

It's not a question of "shared", it's a question of which
files are being used by Windows. If Windows boots
up with files located on drive C: but uses the registry files
located on drive D: then you have a very unhappy situation.

 

[Andy]

I did not modify Boot.ini at all. I use BootMagic for choosing my
current partition even if after selecting the item I have another
prompt issued by Boot.ini I think....
All operations have been done through PartitionMagic. The partition
are Both primary and only one partition per time is visible (so I
think active too).
What exactly should I check in your opinion in order to try to solve
the problem?

I would check the status of the partitions in Disk Management when
booting from the copy to see how the Windows XP copy behaves.
The references in the registry at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices may be causing the wrong
partition to be accessed.