Solved How do I restore my Dual-Boot Win7 setup from backups, to a new HD?

[justsomeguy]

My old HD worked fine as a dual-boot HD: whenever I started the computer, I would see Windows Boot Manager, allowing me to specify which system drive I wanted to boot into (Drive C, or drive Z).

I carefully made three separate NTFS partition backups of my HD before it crashed:
(1) I backed up the 100MB "System Reserved" partition;
(2) I backed up the Drive C (800GB) Win7 Pro 64 partition with various applications;
(3) I backed up the Drive Z (77GB) Win7 Pro 64 partition with various other applications.

I now have a brand new 1TB HD - How do I restore it to a dual-boot HD from my 3 partition backups?

I tried doing it manually (re-partition the new HD to three partitions sized as described above, format each partition for NTFS, then restore each individual partition from its respective backup.) But when I rebooted, I was no longer getting Windows Boot Manager, and the drive would only boot from the restored Drive C partition. It didn't even recognize the Drive Z at all, despite its having a fully restored Win 7 system on it. HELP!

 

[samuria]

You have backed up partitions but did you backup the boot sector? Is the disk MBR or gpt if it's MBR is a partition set active?

 

[justsomeguy]

Boot sector???

I backed up all the partitions on the HD: i have no clue how to access a boot sector, much less back up a boot sector - I would expect it to be part of the 'system reserved' partition, which was backed up. As far as how the original HD was formatted, (MBR, GPT, whatever they are) there is no way to tell since it no longer exists...all i have is complete backups of all three partitions. The original HD was NTFS. That's the only acronym I've seen presented to a user when partitioning and formatting a HD in Windows.

 

[samuria]

Can you do a screen shot from disk manager so we can see

 

[mjf]

Also in addition to the DM screenshot,
What backup software are you using? What are the OSs you are dual booting?
If you had imaged all the partitions using Macrium Reflect (free) the image restore should work without the need to manually partition the destination drive.

[Normally for an MBR boot the boot sector (or volume boot record) should be the first part of your system reserved partition. The dual boot function relies on the BCD (Boot configuration data). All this lives in your System reserved partition.]

 

[justsomeguy]

I have marked this thread SOLVED, and greatly appreciate all the concerned responses. But it's really Abandoned. Today I rebooted with my Win7 install disk and ran a boot repair, which brought back Boot Manager and allowed me to choose which partition(s) I wanted to boot from, on the offending drive. However, one of the two system 7 Pro 64 bit partitions, that used to boot just fine, now stalled with, "Windows 7 build 7601: This copy if windows is not genuine".

So I researched THAT, and followed various posted fix-it advisories, which didn 't work for various reasons.

At this point, I've had enough. I've wasted a month and a half on this issue and shouldn't waste any more time of the kind users of this forum.

I've been using ShadowProtect/ShadowRestore for several years. Their 'swiss army knife' products are ingeniously, heroically detailed and work well; they have enabled me to restore files and even individual system HD images in the past, but their acronym-filled, cross-reference-crammed help manuals can be very difficult to follow. I've done a trial of Macrium, and it appears much more user-friendly. And, I'm not going to be creating any more dual-boot Windows drives in the future.