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Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:08 am

John Campbell wrote:OK, I'm starting this entry over again because I'm getting confused. Could you give me a run down of what you have for drives and partitions on the machine you're working with?


Pardon me for quoting myself, but I'm checking out something that may be causing my problem. You used the DBP with a success. That got me thinking what use to be referred to as the MBR. I'll let you know what I find as soon as I'm done.
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:16 am

OK, I'm trying to rethink my entire process. It's hell getting older. Emphasis on the old[ER]. I am NOT old!

Anyway, can you give me in exact detail the string to put together to automate the generic BCD? It needs to be one script to do the BCDEDIT and the DISKPART in the order that it should properly occur and with the command to execute one item and then automatically execute the next item. This goes into a text document, stored on the drive, and then browsed to from within Ghost to be opted for before the snapshot sequence is taken.

If you can put this together you need to test it with Ghost in the advanced area while in the setup for creating an image. Then, after done, it should be stored in Ghost automatically for that particular creation of a backup which will show up later on simply by clicking on the already created and ran backup which tells it to repeat the same process again. Thus alleviating the need to start from scratch each time. That's the Ghost part.

Here's what I'm afraid might be adding an additional problem, or maybe not. These questions are in sequence. Since the ID mark is gone at that time, what is recreating the ID after the image is recovered to the backup drive? Would it not create the same ID mark? If not, how is it determining to make a different ID mark? Is having the hidden files contained in a separate partition instrumental to having a different ID created? If you can put together that string for Ghost and make it work I can then test it on my machine which doesn't contain the separate partitioning. If it works for me as well we've killed two birds with one stone and without concern for having the files separately partitioned. Make sense?
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Fri Apr 30, 2010 6:41 pm

I'm still working this. I definitely understand what is going on a lot better now having run into the same issue. It has to do with the MBR so I am just trying to get the right commands together in order to switch which MBR is active. There are a lot of issues that Norton Ghost has and I will explain those in a little bit. :yesnod:
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Fri Apr 30, 2010 7:20 pm

This is not going to be possible. Well, not the way you are looking for it to work. What I mean is this:

- Yes, I have successfully booted to the secondary drive that was created from the primary drive using Ghost
- It was a matter of assigning a new disk signature, using mbrfix to write the signature to the MBR, and then using the BIOS to set the secondary drive to boot first (pretty simple)

- I booted directly into windows and noticed that my desktop and everything was the same as on the primary. This is because all the registry settings are set to the C: drive. Doesn't matter what you do there is not getting around this. You can't float a drive letter like you are trying to do. The only way this would be possible is to run a registry tool to change C: to D: and then you still have to worry about individual file settings.

Ghost really does not have anything to do with drive backup. It is mainly used for partitions. I know that it says "Copy Drive" but this actually means Copy Partition. It is just the fact that most people only have one partition per drive. I have about 10-15 per drive so I would have to select all of these partitions in order to get an accurate and correct backup of the entire disk.

Why Ghost chooses to copy the disk signature and insert that I have no idea. It is bad form. Reason is that they say drive but really mean partition. If I do a disk copy, then yes, the signature should be included so it would restore when I restored the disk. Unfortunately, if I use a second partition on a drive, and move that over to another drive then it will set that drives signature the same as the source. Not suppose to happen.

Also, Ghost, upon restoring an image automatically adds the boot entry into the BCD store. Another bad thing because the information is already contained in the image. They are not taking into account those individuals who do not have the 100MB hidden partition. Even if someone did, they are only restoring a single partition and the boot entry is already there. No need to replicate it again.

Those were just a few of the problems that I noticed. I would suggest finding another piece of software to accomplish what you are trying to or maybe settle with the option I spoke about earlier. Leaving the 100MB hidden partition alone and only imaging the C: partition. Use Copy drive to copy your C: over to D: and add a boot entry for D:. This copy drive is the only method that seems to really change the settings (i.e. C: file paths turn to D: file paths).

Other than that I really don't know what to tell you except what you are trying to do will not work. :no Sorry. I tried and succeeded but not to the result of what you were hoping for.

If something doesn't make sense please let me know and I will explain it further. :yesnod:
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:37 pm

I'm confused. Did you use an image for this or the drive to drive copy feature?
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:49 pm

I used an image for this drive. So what I did is create the image of C: and placed it on E:. I then used the custom restore feature and restored drive D: off the image that was saved to E:. If that makes sense.
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:09 pm

I'm going to stick with Ghost. It's served me well for at least 6+ years using the very same method I'm trying to use now and I'm quite sure that we can make this work somehow. Just missing something. Symantec should be working on this as well and it would appear after talking with their tech people that they are aware of the problem and agree it is being caused by the ID mark. Unfortunately beyond that I'm getting little to nothing for answers. Seems no one is allowed to actually speak with Engineers/developers anymore. I think these companies are keeping space aliens locked in rooms and do not want the world to get wise as to where they really get their software programing from. :shocked:
These days when I call I get someone who looks like this ---> :fro: trying to sound like someone who looks like this -----> :geek: and end up with myself looking like this -----> :bashhead

Going back to what you earlier said about creating a generic, are we now saying that method doesn't work? As I understood what you were saying, if I'm not mistaken, we were relying on SYSPREP to put things back in place upon reboot. Is that still viable? If so then the same should occur when booting to the image created drive, yes? No? Can we retrace steps to see if we might already have the answer and are just missing it being in front of us?
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:12 pm

jbullard wrote:I used an image for this drive. So what I did is create the image of C: and placed it on E:. I then used the custom restore feature and restored drive D: off the image that was saved to E:. If that makes sense.


Makes perfect sense and appears to be correct. Just out of curiosity, the drives you mention, are these on different physical drives as well or just partitions?
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:16 pm

I'll return shortly. Duty calls.
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Fri Apr 30, 2010 11:36 pm

Yes, for this test I used all physical drives instead of using one drive split into partitions.
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