Vista installer on multiboot system messed it up

[Goran Ekstrom]

Hi,
got a multiboot system using Bootmagic 8 with three XP partitions. Thought
I'd put Vista on a fourth partition but forgot to hide all the three other
partitions before installations and naturally Vista placed its own multiboot
manager on one of my XP partitions. How do I get rid of this Vista boot
screen on that XP partition and restore the normal XP boot behaviour?

Thanks
Goran Ekstrom

 

[Don]

Hi,
got a multiboot system using Bootmagic 8 with three XP partitions.

I have more questions than answers ) Is Bootmagic from Acronis?
(I've never used it and I don't know how it works.)

I put Vista on a fourth partition but forgot to hide all the three other
partitions before installations and naturally Vista placed its own multiboot
manager on one of my XP partitions. How do I get rid of this Vista boot
screen on that XP partition and restore the normal XP boot behaviour?

Can you use Bootmagic to boot directly into Vista without using the
Vista bootmgr? (I'm guessing that Bootmagic loads Vista's bootmgr
as it's first step, but I dunno.)

I would guess that Vista installed its \boot directory and \bootmgr in
the first primary partition of your first BIOS disk (the boot disk), am
I right? (That would probably be the XP partition you are worried
about.)

Unless your Bootmagic completely bypasses Vista's \boot directory and
\bootmgr (and I don't know how it could do that) you should be very
careful about what you 'get rid of'.

Did you need to reinstall Bootmagic *after* installing Vista? (I use
GRUB as a bootmanager and I usually need to reinstall GRUB after the
Windows installer overwrites sector 0 of my boot disk.)

Does Bootmagic store configuration files showing what information it
needs to boot each OS? It would be interesting to know what info it
uses to boot Vista.

 

[Goran Ekstrom]

Hi.
BootMagic 8 from former "PowerQuest", think Norton bought it and slaughtered
their products.

I have not gotten a functional config yet, all sorts of strange things
started to happen, all partitions on my second disc where suddenly hidden,
got repetetive messages about having to reactivate some of my XP partitions,
etc. I was really worried there for a while but now my only problem is the
Vista bootmanager remaining on one of my XP partitions. Yahooed and found a
possible solution, reboot to the XP CD, start Recovery Console and execute
FIXBOOT.

I have had this mess more than once before when making second NT and XP
installation on a disc containing another NT based OS. Slipped my mind that
I should have created a blank partition for Vista from XP, created a boot
entry for that blank partition in BootMagic, restart the computer and then
boot to it. You get a boot error message of course but now the drive is
primed for installation, the new blank partition is active and unhidden and
all the rest of the partitions are hidden. Now simply reset the PC and boot
directly to the installation CD/DVD and off you go. This has worked before
and I hope it will work with Vista.

Goran

 

[Goran Ekstrom]

Did you need to reinstall Bootmagic *after* installing Vista? (I use

GRUB as a bootmanager and I usually need to reinstall GRUB after the
Windows installer overwrites sector 0 of my boot disk.)

With BootMagic 8, after installing a new OS the computer usually boots
directly to that new installation, removing the multiboot. You then run a
"BootMagic Rescue Diskette" that will restore the manager.

 

[Don]

...now my only problem is the
Vista bootmanager remaining on one of my XP partitions. Yahooed and found a
possible solution, reboot to the XP CD, start Recovery Console and execute
FIXBOOT...

Yes .... BUT! You have three XP installations plus a Vista
installation. Exactly which bootblock will you be 'fixing'?

I suspect you will be unable to boot your Vista after 'fixing'
your XP bootblock.

If you were using GRUB I could tell you exactly how to fix your
problem. But I know nothing about Bootmagic (

 

[Don]

With BootMagic 8, after installing a new OS the computer usually boots
directly to that new installation, removing the multiboot. You then run a
"BootMagic Rescue Diskette" that will restore the manager.

Yes, now I am back in familiar territory ) The important question is:

After you run the rescue diskette, how does BootMagic know (remember)
how to boot your new OS? The Rescue process must save some important
information *somewhere* or BootManager would not know what to do when
you want to boot the new OS (e.g. Vista).

 

[Goran Ekstrom]

After you run the rescue diskette, how does BootMagic know (remember)

how to boot your new OS?

If the new OS is on the boot select menu directly is not so important, only
that I can boot to my OS where the BootMagic configuration is done, then I
can add the new partition to the menu.

 

[Goran Ekstrom]

Yes .... BUT! You have three XP installations plus a Vista

installation. Exactly which bootblock will you be 'fixing'?

Don't know this process in detail. It has worked for years using Win95, 98,
NT4, 2000 and XP, mixed freely. Does Vista contain some new boot technology
that will not work as before?

 

[John Barnes]

Bootmagic is not compatible with Vista. Get BootItNG or Disk Director10.
You can use the Vista boot manager with your 3 XP installs except you will
lose your Vista Restore Points each time you boot to XP.

 

[Don]

...You can use the Vista boot manager with your 3 XP installs
except you will lose your Vista Restore Points each time you boot to XP.

That sounds like a horrible bug to me -- are you speaking from personal
experience, or is this documented somewhere by MS?

 

[John Barnes]

It's well documented. And personally observed. Covered many times in this
and Vista.general newsgroups.