Multibooters
Dual and Multibooting with Vista


This site’s main aim is to understand Vista’s boot requirements,
particularly with regard to third-party boot managers and cloning.
Site Motief

Home
Vista Quirks and Bugs
Vista's new Partitioning
Rules
Vista's MBR DIsk
Signature
Vista's Boot Files
bootmgr and BCD
Installing Vista
Cloning Vista
Drive Letter Problems
Vista Tested
Boot Managers
Vista Boot Floppy
The Multiboot Process
The Windows System
and Boot Partitions


Windows Seven LogoWINDOWS
SEVEN

Much of the Vista material on this site will apply to Seven, but there have been a few notable changes which can make some of the information here not applicable or not entirely safe for use with Windows Seven. See the new Win-7 page for current updates.



 


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    Multibooters This page last reviewed or updated - Jan 2010.   

Warning icon DISCLAIMER:
 The information on this site is offered in good faith and no responsibility can be accepted for misuse that leads to loss of data or damaged hardware. There are any number of ways that the slightest mistake in procedure could trash a system. If you have a mission critical OS that you cannot restore, or data that is not fully backed up, then you should not be experimenting with such things.

Info iconThis web site was never intended as a complete how-to guide on the subject of multibooting or cloning. The focus has been to publish information about Vista that was not seen elsewhere. Effort has been made to keep articles as non-technical and concise as possible.









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Site Map

 

Home Page

Vista Quirks and Bugs
Disappearing partitions
Third-party partitioning, imaging and cloning tools
SATA hard drives can be numbered out of sequence
Vista may unexpectedly take the C: drive letter as its own
System restore points
Vista prefers creating logical partition
You may see several primary partitions on a drive
Windows Setup [EMS Enabled]

Vista's New Partitioning Rules
Vista Partitions
Goodbye to Cylinder Boundaries
Mixing the Old With the New
More Hidden Sectors

Vista's MBR Disk Signature
Disk Signature
The Vista MBR
A Larger IPL
The Disk Signature and Drive Letters

Vista's Boot Files
bootmgr and BCD
Method of Operation
Moving Vista
There are GUIDs and there are GUIDs
BCD is Always Open
The Wrong BCD

Installing Vista
When is Dualboot Configured?
Drive Letters
The Changes Vista Makes to a Previous Windows OS - and How to Reverse Them
How to Install Vista and Avoid Changes to Other Operating Systems
Bootmanagers

Cloning Vista
Off Boundary partitions
Winload.exe.........is Missing
Prepare the BCD
Other BCD Boot Objects
ntldr........is Missing
Don't be Fooled
Generalize a BCD while Working from a Different OS
Generalize a BCD From the Vista DVD
Re-Specialize a BCD
Manually Set the Hibernation Object
Hibernation and Third-Party Bootmanagers
Turning Hibernation On and Off
Backup and Restore a BCD with bcdedit.exe
Whole Drive sector-by-sector Cloning

Drive Letter Problems
Recovering From a Changed Drive Letter
Resetting the MountedDevices List

Vista Tested Bootmanagers
XOLS
GAG
OSL2000
Boot-Us
BootMagic
Paragon Boot Manager
Acronis OS Selector
BootIT Next Generation

Vista Boot Floppy
Adding XP to the Floppy
Bootable USB Stick

Guide to the Multiboot Process
The Boot Sequence Programs
Dual-Boot Sequence
Multi-Boot Sequence
The Limitations of the Microsoft Bootmanager
A Smarter IPL
MBR Bootmanager
A Word of Caution About IPL Bootmanagers
Dedicated Partition
Inside a Curent OS
On a Floppy
Linux and Lilo or Grub
It's Not Logical

The Windows System and Boot Partition
System and Boot
Independent Windows Installs
You Say Tomato

Windows Seven
Installing Win7
Generalizing the Windows7 BCD
winload.exe is no longer missing
The ntldr Boot Object in the BCD
Windows Recovery Environment

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Copyright © 2007 - 2010 www.multibooters.co.uk

These pages are not guaranteed to be free of errors. I cannot offer support but if you can answer any of the questions on this site, or correct any mistakes, then please let me know by using the feedback form.   McTavish_January_2007
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