Get Vista imaged and booting before you mark the created SysResv as active.
The image of Vista will be "System, Active" and boot on its own; then mark the created SysResv active and install W_7 to the second created partition.
Then you may need to add a boot entry for Vista using EasyBCD to get back into Vista but that's the least of your concerns right now.
If you reimage Vista to the HD then it will still be marked System Active and if it starts up will likely override any other 100mb Active flag.
Barefoot's solution to wait til last thing before installing Win7 to mark 100mb partition active should do it.
I think the only wild card here is the 100mb System Reserved partition. Barefootkid has conducted tests lately that show it can be constructed during partitioning and will install correctly including the Repair console it writes to F8 Advanced Boot Tools. Before it was thought it can only be issued by the installer during partitioning of blank HD.
One concern is that 100mb needs to NOT have a drive letter to keep from writing anything to it, yet sometimes it requires one to add an OS manually using EasyBCD 2.0. Another concern is whether constructing that partition from scratch will cause the installer to configure Dual boot there since normally when Win7 configures a dual boot as it does when installed last there is no SysReserved partition.
In either case, EasyBCD 2.0 should do the job to add Vista if required.
Last edited by gregrocker; 08 Oct 2010 at 20:09.
Cheers. All clear now. Will do all this when I wake up now - typing from my iPhone in bed lol.
Must sleep. Will report back with outcomes in morning (approx 9 hrs from now as I really need a lie-in)
Thanks,
Matt
That's correct, if the SysResv is active for the Windows 7 install behind Vista it is necessary to use EasyBCD to add an entry for Vista and it not having a drive letter does not bother (or hasn't) in my experience.
Morning barefoot kid and Greg. Not sure if either of you are awake yet. 2pm here.
Your right barefoot kid - I didn't sleep too good - lots going through my mind. Anyhow here's an update from my iPhone:
Dismantled my pc and installed the new 1Tb drive. Of course no self building computer enthusiast can open ulna pc and see dust inside and then close it. It breaks all known laws so I had to Hoover the inside down so it was spotless again. No dust has gotta be worth another few GHz right? Anyway I digress.
Booted into PWBD and created a 300mb primary ntfs labeled system reserved and a 400gb primary ntfs labeled windows 7. I left the rest unallocated
Tested all was ok and booted to vista from my old drive and vista now seeing all 3 physical drives and all partitions
Re booted from my macrium rescue disk and then started it copying the vista c: image to the unallocated space to the right of the win 7 partition. It just finished as I'm typing this. I'll post this and see if it will boot from the vista image. Need to unplug the old c: to make sure!
Matt
Im in mild shock at the moment.
Typing this from Vista, which is the re-imaged vista on the new 1TB drive. My old C: is currently unplugged.
The only thing Vista did when it first booted was to install the device driver for the new Samsung drive and ask for a re-boot. Aside from that its as if nothing has happened.
in Vista disk manager my new drive is showing the following:
So that all seems rather good then yes?
Now I guess i can re-boot from PWBD again and do the following:
Set Vista system partition to not active
Set the 300 Mb System Reserved partition to active
Stick in the Win7 install disk and install it to the 400 Gb Win 7 partition.
Few quick questions:
should i format the 300Mb partition and the 400 Gb win7 partitions through PWBD before installing windows? or should i let windows install take care of all of that side of things?
I should leave my old C: drive with Vista on it unplugged throughout?
Im guessing i should avoid registering Win7 for now?
A HUGE thankyou to you and greg for helping me through all this. Im sure though Im now approaching the bit you are most curious about which is how W7 is going to handle my constructed 300Mb System Reserved partition.
I dont really understand that bit. Why would it put any files in there? Wont it just totally ignore it and put all the boot files etc in the partition its installing into? or is it the fact that the flag on the sysres drive is set to active that triggers all this? in which case wont it error on me and say it cant fit W7 into a 300Mb space?
I guess what im getting at here is fine the active flag is on the SysRes drive, but why, from the partitions available to it:
400Gb primary labeled W7
280Gb primary system Vista
220 Gb unallocated
would it choose to install W7 to the place I want it too?
Im so curious about all this, as so far i fully understand what ive done and why which is awesome! just want to be sure im understanding the rest
Matt
So many questions.
Now I guess i can re-boot from PWBD again and do the following:
Set Vista system partition to not active
Set the 300 Mb System Reserved partition to active
Stick in the Windows 7 install disk and install it to the 400 Gb Win 7 partition.
Yes
should i format the 300Mb partition and the 400 Gb Windows 7 partitions through PWBD before installing windows? or should i let windows install take care of all of that side of things?
Use Windows Vista disk management to do the formats, I thought they were formated when created; the W_7 installer will format the partition for the install.
Im sure though Im now approaching the bit you are most curious about which is how Windows 7 is going to handle my constructed 300Mb System Reserved partition.
I'm not at all concerned about this, mark the SysResv as active before you start the install and install W_7 to the partition you created for it not the SysResv partition; Windows will add the boot files to the SysResv partition during the install;
More later, I'm cooking food now and have to go.
Do not put a check in this box during the Windows 7 install, leave it un-checked.
click to enlarge
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