cloned drive, lost dual-bootability

bonjonno

Member
I have a WD640GB black drive w/4 partitions. XP Pro on C, Win7 Pro on G and two are data(E,F). I bought another identical drive and copied the old to the new w/ Data Lifeguard. XP Pro is my default OS. The copy looks right but boots directly into XP Pro. No more choice. I ran EasyBCD and it showed both OS, with some odd info; like instead of XP being on C:, it said deleted partition. I tried to repair by backing up the settings on the original drive that works and restoring them thru EasyBCD on the clone. Same problem. Then I tried writing the MBR with Install Windows XP Bootloader to the MBR. That brought back my choice of which OS to boot. But neither will start now. XP shows a ntldr error and then subsequently other errors. I tried to boot using the Win7 disc and it went thru the repair startup rigamarole and gave up saying it couldn't fix. Any ideas? Please help. Thanks.
 
Why did you write the XP boot to the MBR ??
XP cannot boot later OSs.
You must have the W7 bootloader in the MBR and boot sector.
 
yes, I figured out later that that was a mistake. Anyhow, with the old and new drives hooked up simultaneously, I can boot the new drives XP (it must be loading thru the old drives win7 bootloader). But the copied w7 is a complete mess. It gets to a point where my desktop is being compiled. or some such thing, and then nothing happens. Eventually a message in the lower right corner says it is not a genuine copy of software. oh but it is. And if I could only get to a place to verify that i think i'd be set. I can run W7 from the old drive with both drives hooked up. Is there anything I can do to make the new drive independent? I've written the W7 bootloader to it a few times by now- ain't workin. Or is there a way to remove the entire EasyBCD from the new drive and only have XP? I can then try to reinstall W7 from scratch.
 
I cloned again using Partition Wizard. Once again XP Pro (the default) wouldn't boot. I was able to repair W7 using the installation disc this time. So in W7 I messed with some letter assignments in EasyBCD and now I'm back in business. Thanks.
 
PS every time i use windows backup or acronis I have to rerun WGA, thats pretty normal with a re-image. Also in windows 7 I had to install FROM inside windows xp to make it keep the correct drive letters.
 
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Windows Genuine Advantage ..... the exe that checks if your copy is legit or not.

Anytime you do a change to the DMI on the motherboard, drive clone, and sometimes editing the MBR or windows restore , and few others it will want you to check if you copy is legit. I think windows 7 will let the same KEY check 3-5 times before you have to start calling in.....
 
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Regarding the installing from within XP: that's correct. If you boot from the setup CD, regardless of which partition you install Windows it will name itself C:

If you install from within another copy of Windows though, it'll use the same drive letters as the OS you're in. Which is cool when you actually understand what it's doing... otherwise you'd smash your head against the wall wondering why 1 time out of 10 you get wrong drive letters! :smile:
 
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