Windows 7: Bad start to weekend - image failure

Hi guys,

Not been on these forums long but have been reading all your advice and tutorials ahead of a Windows 7 install this weekend.

Intention was to follow barefoot kids advice and create a new partition to the left of my vista os on my c: and then install 7 to it and dual boot till I'm happy with Windows 7 and then remove, erase and reclaim vistas space for 7

Ahead of this I investigated macrium reflect to image c: first as I thought this was a sensible plan. Followed super helpful bid tutorial here and set my c:/ image off and was browsing this forum when I got a cyclic redundancy check error and macrium failed. It suggested I run chkdsk /f /r so I elected my cmd and did so on a restart.

4 bad clusters found and fixed. Free space verification (stage 5 of 5 still running - 47% complete). No other issues found so far.

So. How bad does this sound? Is my hdd about to throw it's toys out the pram or ar 4 bad clusters nothing to worry about?

Eek



Matt

Download and burn to CD the HD maker's diag/repair CD, boot and run full scan and you will have your answer: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Back up your files first as it may need to surface repair sectors where there could be data loss.

Greg - thanks mate. I'm having a bit of a 'moment'. Once chkdsk finishes I'll run the samsung util. Drive is a 3 yr old 300gb spinpoint f1.

Maybee it's time is up. Still a new 1tb spinpoint f3 arrived today. So long as I can make that image or at least back up my user files.

Out if interest, if I manage to image my vista c: off my 300 gb and toss that image (macrium image, not a clone) onto my new formatted 1tb drive will I be able to boot into vista?

Hello Matt.



Here's an idea, let's see what others have to say about it.


After you get a good image of Vista and you're sure it's viable to use to reimage to the new 1TB HDD, use Vista to create and full format 2 partitions on the new HDD.

The first partition on the HDD = 100GB for the Windows 7 install.
The second partition on the HDD = 400GB to reimage Vista to, (enough to make sure the image will have no probs 'fitting' to the partition; after you have Vista reimaged to the new partition and all is booting good.

Disconnect the first (original) HDD and make sure that Vista still boots on its own from the new 1TB HDD.

Mark the 100GB partition on the 1TB as active and install Windows 7 to that; this way W_7 will be the "System, Active" partition and it will be very easy to wipe/remove the VIsta install when you choose to.

I'd like to 'hear' what others think of this plan myself.

The benefit of Barefoot's approach would be that Windows 7 will be in the first partition slot and will hold the boot files so you can easily remove Vista later. Be sure to mark the intended Windows 7 partition Active so that it places the boot-critical files there as first active partition.

I believe you'll have to leave the space to the right of Windows 7 partition unallocated to image Vista onto it. If you image Vista there first, then there is a good chance Windows 7 install will autoconfigure the Dual Boot. If not, use EasyBCD 2.0 from Windows 7 to add Vista later.

Just before you install Windows 7, unplug the old Vista HD once you make sure your Windows 7 partition has been set up correctly in Disk Mgmt and is marked Active.

To me, the plan sound so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a fox.

However, before i go for it I will wait to see what others think. in the meantime - my usual 50 questions, so Im straight about what Im going to do - oh and an update too.

Update:

chkdsk is now finished. 4 bad clusters found and fixed. no other issues found.

Got straight back inot Vista no problems and sucessfully created a disc image of C:
The image itself is about 75 Gb compressed - but will extract to around 125 Gb as this is the size of the current used space. Macrium apparently only creates images from used sectors and does not include the pagefile or suspend files.

Q1: will the lack of pagefile and suspend files be an issue? Im guessing not.
Q2: In a different thread i queried about separating user data (photos etc) from OS drive. General agreement seemed to be to keep the OS and programmes together and user data seperate. You suggested only 100Gb for Windows 7 partition. My definition of programmes is anything I install and therefore also includes games - which can be huge. Is 100Gb enough?
Q3: Under your cunning plan of creating the 100Gb active Windows 7 partition before I install it, will Windows 7 then create the 100Mb SysRes partition or will that vanish? All in all it sounded like a sensible plan for that partition to end up existing? your thoughts?

Matt

Q3: Under your cunning plan of creating the 100Gb active Windows 7 partition before I install it, will Windows 7 then create the 100Mb SysRes partition or will that vanish? All in all it sounded like a sensible plan for that partition to end up existing? your thoughts?



No, you would have to use Vista to create the "System, Reserved" partition as the first partition and that would have to be marked as active before the install instead of the W_7 partition. It would be better if you create it to make it about 300MB instaed of the default 100MB.

Make the (now second) Windows 7 partition how-ever big you need though W_7 has issues installing to VERY large partitions so keep that in mind.

Greg: just to clarify regarding the new 1TB drive....

Im going to use PWBD to:

1) Partition the drive into 3 partitions? 1x100Gb, 1x400Gb, 1xthe rest approx 500Gb?
2) Leave all 3 partitions unallocated
3) Re-Image Vista from my D: to the 2nd 400GB partition

I presume the act of re-imaging that to the 2nd partition will set it to Primary and Active or do I need to do that with PWBD before I unplug my old C: and try to boot to Vista from the 1TB drive?

Once I can boot into Vista ok from the 1TB drive - I go back into PWBD, set partition one to a primary partition and then set it to active. (does this de-activate the vista partition?)

And then install Windows 7 to partition 1?

Just a mental checklist. Please correct my errors before I do this - as this is quite techy for me

thanks to both of you too for help and advice. Ive been using those lil scales Least i can do!

Matt

Unallocated space is what partitions are created from.

Create the first two partitions as Primary NTFS, label them System Reserved and Windows 7, format then rightclick on 100mb to Modify>mark Active.

Next reimage Vista to the unallocated space to the right of your two partitions. If you're using Macrium it may want a partition, but most want unallocated space - it will prompt you.

You can restart after imaging to see if Vista starts, but if it doesn't I would go ahead and install Windows 7 as it may autoconfigure the Dual Boot placing Vista's boot-critical files onto the Active SysReserved partition. If it doesn't, use EasyBCD 2.0 to Add Vista to Windows 7, giving the 100mb a drive letter if necessary so it autocompletes.

Or you can follow the repairs I posted to start Vista first but before installing Windows 7 make sure from PW CD that 100mb is still marked Active, then rightclick Vista to Modify>Set Inactive so it will be certain to place all boot files on 100mb.

Since you're using PW boot CD unplug your old Vista HD and place your image on external.

Greg and Barefoot Kid - thanks loads for the continued help and support.

Greg: Its amost 1am for me now and I cant face physically installying the 3rd HDD and doing all the tech partitioning stuff tonight. Ill just make mistakes and regret it.
Im going to ask a couple more questions, hit sack and do this 1st thing in the am.

Im fine with all that...

This however lost me. If ive set the 100MB partition to active in your 1st quote, and then re-imaged vista to the unallocated space - how will it boot? I thought my computer will boot from the partition set to active...which is the 100MB partition with nothing in it. Im so sorry im being slow here - but this is new to me and i do want to understand things rather than blindly follow instructions as i wont learn anything otherwise.

If vista dosnt boot - im fine installing Windows 7...i understand that during the install it may autoconfigure the dual boot and should also copy vistas boot files to the sysres drive. Im just not sure how the paragraph above is likely to work.

Ideally i would like to try to get Vista booting from my 1Tb drive before I go on to install Windows 7. So if thats my goal - am i setting the imaged partition of vista to active or the 100mb sys res (which in my slow on the uptake mind is still empty) partition to active before trying to boot vista?

Sorry for so many questions
Matt