Backup dual boot loader

[water spirit]

I have installed Win 7 and Vista, both 64bit, as a dual boot on the same HDD same as in the tutorial. Win 7 is OEM on the Laptop and installed first and Vista installed second and it is working properly. I have left space at the end of the drive for a linux install I will use one with grub 2. I have triple booted before with one install of Windows and 2 of linux and grub 2 always picks up the other installs OK. Has anyone done what I propose and did it work? But more importantly how can I backup or restore my current boot loader as it is, with both, in case something goes wrong? I have the Toshiba recovery Disc's for Win 7 and the installation disc for Vista and the System Repair Disc from Win 7. But I do not want to reinstall. I know you can modify grub 2 manually but I have not done this before and it looks difficult, any advice please.

 

[gregrocker]

Save externally a WIn7 backup image of Win7 and Vista so you can at any time wipe the HD of GRUB (essential) and reimage using the Repair CD and stored image.

As Vista likely holds the System MBR, it will need to be included in the image anyway if you use Win7 built-in imaging app. Otherwise use free Macrium Reflect.

 

[water spirit]

Save externally a WIn7 backup image of Win7 and Vista so you can at any time wipe the HD of GRUB (essential) and reimage using the Repair CD and stored image.

As Vista likely holds the System MBR, it will need to be included in the image anyway if you use Win7 built-in imaging app. Otherwise use free Macrium Reflect.

Thank you, I used Win 7 and created a system image and a new system repair disc. I will install Ubuntu 10.04.1 when it is released.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello water spirit, welcome to Seven Forums!


There is this from the tutorial at the link below.


How to Use the BCDEDIT Command Line Tool

IMPORTANT: make a backup of your bcd file first. To do that, type:

bcdedit /export C:\SAVEDBCD

​

This will create a file c:\savebcd which is your boot entry backup.

If you mess up, you can always undo changes by:

bcdedit /import c:\savedbcd
​

 

[water spirit]

Thank you for your replies, I followed your advice and done the backups. I installed Linux Mint and the Triple Boot is working.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Glad to see you sorted it; thanks for the update.