Jonbouy


This might help simplify the Boot creation process too.

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

Although there's plenty of info out there as you say on how to get it working.

Thanks for the link. I'm not planning to do the set-up myself - I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here as you can probably tell by the dumb questions !

paulo

Jonbouy


I have a 0.5 Gb drive with both OS's on.

The point being is that only one partition is in use at any one time so there's no performance hit from just using a single drive.

According to what I've just been reading, there does seem to be some potential issues re restore points though (one overwriting the other) ? Would this still be the case with seperate drives ?

If you use system restore it wouldn't matter if you use separate drives or partitions the result would be the same.

I don't use system restore anyway as it is a malware breeding ground and incurs some system overhead when it's running in the background.

I just image my OS partitions when needed and can completely restore from an image in a matter of minutes.

Jonbouy

paulo

Jonbouy


I have a 0.5 Gb drive with both OS's on.

The point being is that only one partition is in use at any one time so there's no performance hit from just using a single drive.

According to what I've just been reading, there does seem to be some potential issues re restore points though (one overwriting the other) ? Would this still be the case with seperate drives ?

If you use system restore it wouldn't matter if you use separate drives or partitions the result would be the same.

I don't use system restore anyway as it is a malware breeding ground and incurs some system overhead when it's running in the background.

I just image my OS partitions when needed and can completely restore from an image in a matter of minutes.

OK, I thought System restore only affected the OS, so I don't really understand how it would overwrite a different OS on a different drive, but I'm sure you're right - I really have no idea how these things work.

As for the malware breeding ground, my daw PC is and never has been hooked up to the www, so not and issue in that case I assume ?

I'm just discovering that the part of my dual pc plan A that involved switching my monitors between the two is not quite as straightforward/inexpensive as I'd assumed - this week just gets better and better !

OK, I thought System restore only affected the OS, so I don't really understand how it would overwrite a different OS on a different drive,

Apparently this is a housekeeping/safety measure that is programmed in to XP to make it search the drives/partitions that are mounted (made accessible) to XP on booting, and delete volume shadow copies (restore points, previous file versions,  and some backups etc.) that are defective. XP sees shadow copies created by newer versions of Windows as being defective, since the format they are saved in by later versions is unknown to XP. There is a workaround that basically denies XP the right to mount some partitions/drives that may contain shadow copy data that you want to preserve. Since those drives and partitions are not available to XP it will not destroy the restore points there, but you will not be able to access those partitions from XP for any other reason either.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-system-restore-points-stop-xp-dual-boot-delete.html

If you are only using shadow copies (restore points) located on the boot partition of Windows 7, you can just make that partition marked as offline on XP boot. Another perhaps simpler but more expensive way to achieve a "dual boot" would be to load each OS on a separate drive and swap them using a removable drive rack. In that case the other OS is physically unavailable for mischief when booting. If you are using shadow copies to keep backups on other partitions, they need to be protected as well.

IMO Windows System Restore sucks whether you use a dual boot or not.  It's a crap-shoot as to whether it fixes what needs fixing when you need call on it and it runs in the background writing to disk when you don't necessarily want it too.

Get yourself an imaging solution such as Acronis, Active DiskImage, et al and do all your imaging from an optical boot disk, you don't need any of that garbage installed on the OS.  A full image restore will take you back to EXACTLY where you were before things went wrong and takes less than 10 minutes on an average OS drive.

The dual boot has been bullet-proof for me since Vista came out which is when I first set it up, it doesn't need maintenance or seperate drives and it is simple to set up if you follow the instructions out there.

The first Google hit I got on the subject covers setting it up simply and highlights any caveats (which for me are none).

http://www.sevenforums.co...tion-windows-7-xp.html

I'm running basically the same dual boot setup as Jonbuoy, with XP (64 in my case) and Win7 x64 installed on separate boot partitions on a single drive, and it works fine. 

XP should be installed first, and then when you install Win7 just select the other empty partition (or create it in unpartitioned free space on the drive) and Win7 will create a boot menu so you can select which OS to boot when you start up the PC. 

One thing to note: Win7 supports "AHCI" mode of SATA, but XP doesn't. The SATA controllers on most recent motherboards can be configured in BIOS setup as IDE (legacy) mode, SATA (enhanced) mode, AHCI (advanced SATA features) mode and SATA RAID (Windows software RAID) mode. 

Except for IDE mode, installing Windows using these SATA modes requires first setting the desired SATA mode in the BIOS setup and then, when installing Windows, hitting F6 and then installing the appropriate SATA driver from a floppy disk or USB flashdrive because without the driver XP won't see the SATA drive. 

For an XP/Win7 dual boot setup, if your mobo uses an Intel chipset supporting SATA RAID, I would recommend configuring the SATA controller as SATA RAID mode in XP using the latest driver from Intel's site for your chipset's SATA controller (Intel now refers to its software RAID as "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" but it used to be called something like "Intel Matrix Storage Technology", all the same thing with different confusing names). Get the F6 installation driver from Intel's support site under "chipset" software. You only need to use the F6 installation method or XP - Win7 shouldn't need it and should install in SATA RAID mode if it is set in the BIOS, without needing the driver. 

Windows SATA RAID mode offers basically the same performance as AHCI mode, and is supported by both XP and Win7, so it allows a dual boot setup without it becoming necessary to reconfigure the SATA mode setting in the BIOS when booting to a different OS. Running the SATA controller in RAID mode works just fine even without actually setting up a RAID array, so you don't need to set up any RAID drive(s), and if the RAID setup screen appears during boot you can just ignore it and let it time out and the boot process will continue after a few seconds (your boot drive should show up as a "Non-RAID" drive, which is just fine, no problem whatsoever). And that's it, no SATA hassles when dual boot is set up. 

If your chipset does not support RAID mode then it may also not support AHCI mode in Win7, so then you will have to configure basic SATA mode (enhanced mode) for XP, (don't use IDE legacy mode, too slow) and then let Win7 detect the SATA mode aet in the BIOS and install it

(Edit: fixed the formatting)

(sorry, duplicated post)

The easiest way I found of doing the SATA thing under XP is just to boot in IDE mode install the SATA drivers in XP then change the BIOS setting to the right mode before the next boot.

Windows 7 just configures itself after the BIOS change anyway.

slartabartfast

OK, I thought System restore only affected the OS, so I don't really understand how it would overwrite a different OS on a different drive,

Apparently this is a housekeeping/safety measure that is programmed in to XP to make it search the drives/partitions that are mounted (made accessible) to XP on booting, and delete volume shadow copies (restore points, previous file versions,  and some backups etc.) that are defective. XP sees shadow copies created by newer versions of Windows as being defective, since the format they are saved in by later versions is unknown to XP. There is a workaround that basically denies XP the right to mount some partitions/drives that may contain shadow copy data that you want to preserve. Since those drives and partitions are not available to XP it will not destroy the restore points there, but you will not be able to access those partitions from XP for any other reason either.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-system-restore-points-stop-xp-dual-boot-delete.html

If you are only using shadow copies (restore points) located on the boot partition of Windows 7, you can just make that partition marked as offline on XP boot. Another perhaps simpler but more expensive way to achieve a "dual boot" would be to load each OS on a separate drive and swap them using a removable drive rack. In that case the other OS is physically unavailable for mischief when booting. If you are using shadow copies to keep backups on other partitions, they need to be protected as well.

Thanks - I understand that better now - I assumed that each OS drive would not see the other if that OS were not in use.

Jonbouy


IMO Windows System Restore sucks whether you use a dual boot or not.  It's a crap-shoot as to whether it fixes what needs fixing when you need call on it and it runs in the background writing to disk when you don't necessarily want it too.

Get yourself an imaging solution such as Acronis, Active DiskImage, et al and do all your imaging from an optical boot disk, you don't need any of that garbage installed on the OS.  A full image restore will take you back to EXACTLY where you were before things went wrong and takes less than 10 minutes on an average OS drive.

The dual boot has been bullet-proof for me since Vista came out which is when I first set it up, it doesn't need maintenance or seperate drives and it is simple to set up if you follow the instructions out there.

The first Google hit I got on the subject covers setting it up simply and highlights any caveats (which for me are none).

http://www.sevenforums.co...tion-windows-7-xp.html

Thanks JB - Acronis sounds like a plan - I presume I would store the image on an external drive in case of HD failure ?