Multi-Boot Nightmares

[Trailerman]

OK - all drives are now back in the machine. Cloned OS volume seems to be running fine from what I can tell.

Below is a screen-grab of my Disk Management window, as requested previously:

- Drive C is my cloned OS volume which I'm booting into.
- Drive Z is my original Windows 7 volume, which I can no longer boot into because of the autochk errors listed ad nauseam above
- Drive L is my old Windows XP volume which I no longer use.

Currently no dual booting is enabled - the system boots into drive C by default.

If anybody had any advice on how to reliably clone Drive C, into the unallocated space on Disk 0 (or even replace the old Win7 volume), and set things up to safely dual-boot I'd be hugely grateful. I'm still unclear on whether the autochk error which prevents me from booting into that volume is a boot issue, or something at an OS level, so I could do with some guidance on how to make that partition safely bootable again. I still need a second Windows 7 partition for some software testing I've been asked to do, but I need to be sure I can create a clone and not have the boot issues detailed in this thread.

Thanks again to all for the help.

Jules

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I don't have time to think right now, have alook at this one.

Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console



Though you could safely move stuff from old to new with this one in Windows Explorer.

Context Menu - Add Copy To Folder and Move To Folder

 

[Trailerman]

Thanks Bare Foot - no hurry on this one as I at least have a working system for now.

Out of interest, are you saying that you can create a complete clone of an OS using copy and paste in the recovery console? I would have thought you'd need something more specialist for this kind of operation, like Acronis or whatever Drive Image became.

I'll try and look into it further myslef. I just want to make sure I avoid the issues I've had this time around.

Jules

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Jules, no those were to recover data from the old HDD if needed.



You really ought to have a look at this, you can't beat the price.

Partition Manager 11 Personal
​

Advanced Backup FeaturesCreate backup images without leaving Windows with Paragon Hot Backup™ technology.

Restore system and data even from bare-metal state.

Restore partition with resize.

Restore separate files and folders.

Power Shield™ technology - resumes critical partitioning operations after a power failure.

 

[gregrocker]

Use Paragon Rescue CD to change back drive letters which slip during cloning or repair: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/51503-moving-win7-partition-another-drive.html

If you have any WD or Seagate HD's involved then you can use their free Acronis cloning apps which are the best. Find them on the support Downloads webpage for your WD/Seagate or we have links. Ifnnot, us free Macrium Reflect to save externally an image and reimage onto the target HD. Then boot via BIOS boot order or BIOS Boot Menu key which is the preferred method rather than interlocking HD's using Windows dual boot manager.

As I stated earlier all bootrec and bootsect commands are automated in Win7 Startup Repair so it is the random commands run which likely borked the OS.

Does an installation still appear to repair when you boot into Recovery console? If so, it should repair. If not, then it is sometimes useful to then run bootrec /fixboot and bootrec /fixmbr to goose them to be seen by Repair.