TeraByte Unlimited

Current situation:
Two 500GB discs in RAID 0 configuration containing partitions created in this order 'Windows XP', 'Data', 'Windows 7', 'More data'
Dual boot XP or 7

Target situation:
Two individual discs of 500GB each. Disc 1 'Windows XP', 'Windows 7'. Disc 2 'Data', 'More data'
Dual boot XP or 7

Extra info:
The Motherboard/drivers raid implementation is not reliable, heavy use like video editing often causes system stalls for a while and sometimes data corruption necessitating partition restores.
The OS is Windows 7 professional.
There is too much data to restore everything to one disc and move partitions later though 'Windows XP', 'data' and 'Windows 7' would fit.
I'm using two new discs in order to be able to retain the originals as an extra safety measure.
Full disc backups are on external media.

What should I be prepared for and are there particular restore options I should set so that the dual boot still works?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Before you backup using Image for Linux or Image for DOS, use the F1 details
on each partition to see the required restore size, if it's a bit large then
use the compact option to reduce that requirement so it can restore the
image then resize after the restore (data has to fit because you're
restoring an image), then do the entire drive backup/restore.

Details:

you'd want to ensure the required restore size of XP < 490G
you'd want to ensure the final XP partition size + W7 required restore size
< 490G.
you'd want to ensure the required restore size of the DATA partition is
<490G
you'd want the final DATA partition size + More Data required restore size <
490G.

I'm not sure how you have your boot setup, if both are individual boot
partitions, then when restoring Windows XP, ensure you use the "update
boot.ini" restore option, if that was is the active boot partition, use 'set
active', also enter a new size in the new size box. if your boot is only XP
then after restoring XP and it's active, when restoring Win7, use the
'update boot partition' restore option.

The data partition doesn't matter, just enter a new size when restoring.

"Chriswmac" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Current situation:
Two 500GB discs in RAID 0 configuration containing partitions created in
this order 'Windows XP', 'Data', 'Windows 7', 'More data'
Dual boot XP or 7

Target situation:
Two individual discs of 500GB each. Disc 1 'Windows XP', 'Windows 7'.
Disc 2 'Data', 'More data'
Dual boot XP or 7

Extra info:
The Motherboard/drivers raid implementation is not reliable, heavy use like
video editing often causes system stalls for a while and sometimes data
corruption necessitating partition restores.
The OS is Windows 7 professional.
There is too much data to restore everything to one disc and move partitions
later though 'Windows XP', 'data' and 'Windows 7' would fit.
I'm using two new discs in order to be able to retain the originals as an
extra safety measure.
Full disc backups are on external media.

What should I be prepared for and are there particular restore options I
should set so that the dual boot still works?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks for the information.

The boot system is the one you get when Windows XP is installed first then Windows 7 is added in a new partition, a prompt appears asking for a choice between Windows 7 and 'Previous version of windows' when the system boots.

In disc management my raid array shows as 'Disk 0' 931 GB containing:
XP (System, active,primary partition)
Data (Logical drive)
Windows 7 (Boot, page file, crash dump, logical drive)
More data (Primary partition)

The sum of the used sizes of these partitions is greater than the size of a single drive.

Does this modify your advice in any way?

Thanks again.

It sounds like you are using the MS dual-boot setup. I did
that with Win 98 SE and Win 2000 a number of years ago and
it worked fine. I did not have a RAID setup though and am
not sure what difference that makes.

Mary

On 9/12/2011 7:51 AM, Chriswmac wrote:
> Thanks for the information.
>
> The boot system is the one you get when Windows XP is installed first then Windows 7 is added in a new partition, a prompt appears asking for a choice between Windows 7 and 'Previous version of windows' when the system boots.
>
> In disc management my raid array shows as 'Disk 0' 931 GB containing:
> XP (System, active,primary partition)
> Data (Logical drive)
> Windows 7 (Boot, page file, crash dump, logical drive)
> More data (Primary partition)
>
> The sum of the used sizes of these partitions is greater than the size of a single drive.
>
> Does this modify your advice in any way?
>
> Thanks again.

You'd restore the XP partition first and use set active to ensure active
(probably would be even if you didn't choose it) and perhaps "update
boot.ini), then when you restore the Win7 partition, use the "update boot
partition" option.

"Chriswmac" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Thanks for the information.

The boot system is the one you get when Windows XP is installed first then
Windows 7 is added in a new partition, a prompt appears asking for a choice
between Windows 7 and 'Previous version of windows' when the system boots.

In disc management my raid array shows as 'Disk 0' 931 GB containing:
XP (System, active,primary partition)
Data (Logical drive)
Windows 7 (Boot, page file, crash dump, logical drive)
More data (Primary partition)

The sum of the used sizes of these partitions is greater than the size of a
single drive.

Does this modify your advice in any way?

Thanks again.

Thanks for the advice, all is OK now. It took me a while to get the PC to recognise the new discs. With my particular BIOS either all the discs have to be part of a RAID setup or none of them, I can't mix and match, so the discs only appeared after the BIOS RAID was disabled.

Chris

in those cases the option to setup JBOD is the option you want when you want
just single disks.

"Chriswmac" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Thanks for the advice, all is OK now. It took me a while to get the PC to
recognise the new discs. With my particular BIOS either all the discs have
to be part of a RAID setup or none of them, I can't mix and match, so the
discs only appeared after the BIOS RAID was disabled.

Chris