Mirroring partition to VHD

[Tails5]

Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to copy a partition entirely (including boot record) onto a VHD file I made using diskpart.

EDIT: I went out and got Norton Ghost to do the job... because no internet search was turning up how to do it without Ghost.

 

[limneos]

For VHD:

While attached, go to either diskpart or Disk Management and make it "active".

Then, make sure you have \bootmgr file and \boot hidden folder in the VHD image.

That's it. It should work just fine.

 

[Tails5]

Do you mean simply copying everything will work, aslong as I get \boot\ and \bootmgr aswell?

 

[limneos]

Yes , but you need to have bcdedit's {bootmgr} set to this partition too.

 

[Tails5]

Would I have to do that if I just add the .vhd file as a boot item? And how do I unhide \boot\ and \bootmgr? I've turned off hiding protected system files and hidden files but it's not appearing.

 

[limneos]

You will find \bootmgr and \boot in the hidden partition of W7, the small 200MB one. You need to assign a drive letter to it first, from Disk Management, and then you can access it.

 

[Tails5]

Uhm.. the partition I want to copy to the VHD is a Vista install, not Windows 7...

 

[limneos]

Then you should be able to see the \bootmgr file and \boot folder in the root partition of Vista.

 

[Tails5]

They aren't there - even directly typing D:\boot\ says that the folder does not exist. The files DO exist in my Windows 7 partition though. Does this mean that there IS no boot record on the Vista partition?

 

[limneos]

Yes, after the Windows 7 installation, they have moved to the w7 partition probably. I don't think W7 keeps the Vista ones , it switches to its own for both OSes, if it finds Vista during install. Just a thought, not sure. But if you don't have them in Vista's partition, that's the case

 

[Tails5]

So should I be able to simply copy all files and add the .vhd to the bootloader? (And uh.. I dont think it was 7 that deleted Vista's bootmanager, I think I did that when I deleted the partition that was at the start of the drive to install 7)

 

[limneos]

ok, we need to be thorough on this one, to make it work.

1. Copy the \bootmgr and \boot stuff from your Win7 Partition to your VHD image's root \
2. start elevated CMD
3. type :

bcdedit /store X:\boot\bcd

where X: is your VHD's drive letter.

You will get a {bootmgr} listing, among others. You will also get another UUID in {} which will be your W7's location.

4. Change the {bootmgr} path to match your VHD's one. I'd set it to C:, since booting with VHD only, it will be discovered as C: by default.

bcdedit /store X:\boot\bcd /set {bootmgr} device partition=C:
remember to change X: above with your VHD's drive letter again.

5. Change the W7 listing on VHD to be C: as well:

bcdedit /store X:\boot\bcd /set {your_windows_7_UUID} device partition=C:

bcdedit /store X:\boot\bcd /set {your_windows_7_UUID} osdevice partition=C:



That should make it work.

 

[Tails5]

So, just running that should let me choose 7(real partition) or Vista(vhd on 7's partition) on booting, or should I then add the .vhd as a boot item? And would I be able to use bitlocker and still expect the vhd to boot?

Edit: The Windows 7 entry just shows up as {default} without any other UUID can I just use that and continue?

 

[limneos]

These are settings you need to make in the VHD's partition.

To have Triple Boot with Vista, Windows 7 , and VHD, you need to make other settings.

on your current BCDEDIT config, you need to add the VHD entry. While in Windows 7:

BCDedit /copy {current} /d "VHD Boot"
This will give you a new {UUID} that was just created.

Bcdedit /set {new_UUID_resulted_from_above} device vhd=[C:]\yourvhdfile.vhd

Bcdedit /set {new_UUID_resulted_from_above} osdevice vhd=[C:]\yourvhdfile.vhd

 

[Tails5]

Thanks very much, I've done all that you've said - I'm just waiting for the file copy to work (I did a CTRL+A with all files unhidden on the drive, and then just pasted into the mounted VHD file.)

 

[Tails5]

Uhm. There's been a slight problem, I left the copy going over-night, and after I copied the BCD store from the Seven drive, the OS thinks that it's Windows 7 and has corrupt system files, when actually it's Vista with the wrong BCD... Will Ihave to re-install Vista to the VHD to fix this? If so, how do I go about installing Vista to the VHD?