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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 jbullard » Thu May 06, 2010 8:53 pm

Well, I have tried absolutely everything that I can think of to get this working (without Win 7 DVD) and have come close but unfortunately I can't get the drive letters to swap. I can by swapping the boot order in the BIOS; however, booting to either entry within one store will not swap the drive letters. What I am thinking may fix all of this is to use a hack (or fix) to point the second entry (image) to that bootloader. I am not sure if it will work but in theory it does. :lol:

Because Microsoft does not allow us to use the bootrec tool outside of the WinRE environment then it means we can't make use of that tool. However, I can easily force the system to boot into the WinRE environment by using the generalized BCD entries but all that does is create new entries to point to the two installs. After this the BCD store is very ugly and I just dont recommend this method because it will get nasty. Probably will cause more issues than it solves.

I guess it will just take some more fiddling around to get it working. :yesnod: However, I have learned of a new feature in the Win7 BCD which may provide a solution. Unfortunately, it can only be accessed using WMI. So, I am going to write a C# app to see if I can make the changes. It is similar to the generalized BCD store; however, it forces Windows to just look for the entries and not recover them. I think this is a key part of what bootrec is doing. :yesnod:
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Fri May 07, 2010 1:03 pm

jbullard wrote:Well, I have tried absolutely everything that I can think of to get this working (without Win 7 DVD) and have come close but unfortunately I can't get the drive letters to swap. I can by swapping the boot order in the BIOS; however, booting to either entry within one store will not swap the drive letters. What I am thinking may fix all of this is to use a hack (or fix) to point the second entry (image) to that bootloader. I am not sure if it will work but in theory it does. :lol:

Because Microsoft does not allow us to use the bootrec tool outside of the WinRE environment then it means we can't make use of that tool. However, I can easily force the system to boot into the WinRE environment by using the generalized BCD entries but all that does is create new entries to point to the two installs. After this the BCD store is very ugly and I just dont recommend this method because it will get nasty. Probably will cause more issues than it solves.

I guess it will just take some more fiddling around to get it working. :yesnod: However, I have learned of a new feature in the Win7 BCD which may provide a solution. Unfortunately, it can only be accessed using WMI. So, I am going to write a C# app to see if I can make the changes. It is similar to the generalized BCD store; however, it forces Windows to just look for the entries and not recover them. I think this is a key part of what bootrec is doing. :yesnod:



OK, but I'm confused. How will looking for the entries, but not recovering them, help the situation? Unless you couple this with the generic boot loader I can't figure the purpose. However, you said the generic boot loader isn't working out. Also, I'm not sure how you got to the point of having the drives labeled for a specific drive letter assignment, if I'm not mistaken about what you're saying, when I already have the float and I thought you did as well. I'm SO confused! :question
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Fri May 07, 2010 5:34 pm

Locating and updating the information is different in the sense that it will just find the correct information instead of creating new entries within the store. This method is still considered a generalized BCD store but isn't to the point of what I was doing. :yesnod:

I never got the floating drive letter assignment because I didn't put in the Win7 DVD to recover the BCD. I just haven't found a way to do this outside of the WinPE environment. :no
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby John Campbell » Mon May 10, 2010 2:04 pm

jbullard wrote:Locating and updating the information is different in the sense that it will just find the correct information instead of creating new entries within the store. This method is still considered a generalized BCD store but isn't to the point of what I was doing. :yesnod:

I never got the floating drive letter assignment because I didn't put in the Win7 DVD to recover the BCD. I just haven't found a way to do this outside of the WinPE environment. :no


I'm totally pulling at straws now. OK, since I've seen so many other strange things with this boot loader as opposed to XP, is it possible to remove the drive letter assignment and then try the locate and update method? Frankly, I don't see how this would work myself, but ,............. :roleeyes
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Re: Can Dual Boot Pro clean up my Boot Loader?

Postby jbullard » Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:29 pm

John. I am at a total loss right now. I have tried everything that I can think of to get this to work without putting in the Vista/7 DVD and have gotten nothing. I can get close but unfortunately I am missing a small piece that only the DVD seems to be able to have. However, I have not given up on this. Some of the problems are from Ghost itself and until Symantec wises up on BCD it will be like that for some time. Unfortunately, my fix includes minimal user interaction but only after the restoration action has been completed by Ghost. This would include generating a new disk signature, restoring the MBR on each drive, and finally trying to fix the BCD store.

Other than that I can't seem to find that one piece of the puzzle I am missing. I know that I am close though. :yesnod:
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