Disk Utilities, Dual Boot and XP

[MikeH]

There was a similar thread on this subject in Jan 2002 so this is a followup to see if Drive Image has actually worked!

I am running a dual boot Windows98SE and Windows XP Home Edition system.

I have previously had good success with both Norton SystemWorks and PartitionMagic to maintain and backup single operating system setups - Windows 98, Windows 98SE and Windows XP.

However, I found out the hard way that there are several “issues” with Disk Utilities on a dual boot system. Specifically, critical boot files can be moved or altered so that either one or of the operating systems may become unbootable.

If anyone is interested in my disasters:

-- Norton Speed Disk should not be used on a dual boot partition that had been manipulated by PartitionMagic. (I even tried the Symantec workaround of “locking certain boot files” without success.) The Windows Disk Defragmenter is okay.

-- The first boot partition (Win98SE) can be backed up and restored using PartitionMagic’s Copy mode. However, the second operating system (WinXP) can not be done with PartitionMagic -- it will not boot since some essential files become “missing”. PowerQuest Support advised that I needed Drive Image 2002 to properly make a backup IMAGE of WinXP on a dual boot system -- a disk copy would not work.

I have purchased and used Drive Image to make a backup image of XP’s partition. Thankfully, I have not yet needed to find out if the backup image will properly restore a damaged dual boot WinXP partition.

Has anyone actually used Drive Image (or even the similar Symantec Ghost) to backup and then restore either or both operating systems in a dual boot setup with WinXP as the second OS? If so, did it work? Any problems or helpful advice? Thanks for your help. Mike

[not important]

I have ME and XP on a dual boot configuration. I can use Ghost on XP and it will work fine. However, if I Ghost ME, then all I get is a black screen when I try to reboot.

[MikeH]

not important,

It definitely appears that dual booting is a problem for anyone wanting to have system backups. I posted the same thing at Smart Computing's Forum and heard similar problems from another "dual booter". Mike

[ssahl]

I have a dual boot setup (win98_SE/winXP) but I dont use system backups hardly at all. I have used norton ghost on 98/2000/XP it works on 98 just about everytime, but the times I used it on 2000 or XP I would say half the time it worked and the other half it didnt.

[Justin26k]

I use 98SE and 2000 Server and I use DriveImage 2002 restored 10's of times never 1 problem

[nightfishing]

I run a triple boot (98micro, 98lite and 2k).

All my partitions were made with PM6.x.

I use Norton's Speed Disk on all three OS's.

I Ghost all three OS's.

Never had a single problem.

In fact after building this box one of my RAID drives went clunk, clunk on me and I replaced it, set up my array, partitioned the new drives and pasted all my Ghost images back on and have been running that setup for the last 10 months.

I run all three OS's on the same drive; each non-booted OS is hidden when the other is booted.

9x OS's can be manipulated at will with PM and Ghost; nt's (2k/XP) are a bit more "delicate" and a whole lot more harware-dependent.

For instance, I can paste a Ghost image of a 9x OS on any drive/partition on my box and boot to it w/o any concerns.

My 2k images are a bit more complicated to move around (mft doesn't like relocation very much :-)