Just out of Curiosity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Anderson
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Bill Anderson

Does anybody know exactly what might have happened to require me to
use my Vista installation disk to "fix" a Vista boot problem? Here's
the situation:

I have five OS installations on one hard drive -- each in a separate
partition. When I boot, the Microsoft boot "loader" gives me a choice
of "Older Windows Installations" (a separate screen from which I can
choose either of two XP Pro installations), Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-
bit, and Windows 7 Beta.

Over the weekend I realized I was running out of room in my Vista 32-
bit partition, so I ensured all the partitions were backed up
individually with Ghost and deleted all the OS partitions but my C:
partition (one of the XP installations) using the Windows disk
manager. Then I rebuilt and resized the partitions and reinstalled
the OSs using Ghost. So far, so good.

But while the XP installations would boot and run just fine, not so
for the Vista and Windows 7 installations. I got a message telling me
to use my Vista installation disk to fix a boot problem. So ... I did
what I was told and now everything is running properly.

The question is -- what got broken and how? How did the boot loader
in the untouched C: partition know that anything had been changed in
the Vista partitions? The boot loader process looked just fine --
looked just as it always has -- but it didn't work until I re-
connected it to the Vista partitions using "fix" on the installation
disk. And one "fix" took care of all three Vista installations, if
you allow for sake of argument that Windows 7 beta is a Vista-like
installation.

It just seems that if I put a partition back with all the files the
way they were originally, the boot loader shouldn't notice a problem.
But it did. How does that work?

Just out of curiosity.
 
The Windows Vista and Windows 7 bootloaders are entirely different to that
of XP you will find that only XP's bootloader remained after you removed
your partitions, therefore no other operating system could be access.
Repairing the bootloader, as you did, solved the problem.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

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The Windows Vista and Windows 7 bootloaders are entirely different to that
of XP you will find that only XP's bootloader remained after you removed
your partitions, therefore no other operating system could be access.
Repairing the bootloader, as you did, solved the problem.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond, John. But it appears
I didn't explain the situation very well the first time, so I'll try
again.

Both the XP and Vista bootloaders appeared to remain after I removed
the partitions. I didn't touch the C: partition, where my guess
(correct me now if I'm wrong) is that both the XP and Vista boot
loaders reside. Certainly I know that when I booted the system, all
the boot options remained visible -- for both XP and Vista. Of course
the options remain visible -- they sit on C: and I didn't touch C:. I
could choose any of the five OSs that I wanted. The problem was that
even though the boot options appeared for the Vista partitions, they
wouldn't work without the fix (repair).

I didn't touch the C: partition at all and I Ghosted the other
partitions back to their original states. So what got broken? How
could the link between the Ghosted partitions and the untouched C:
partition get broken? What might Ghost not have restored and where
would it reside? What exactly got fixed, where does it sit, and if it
sits in each of the three Vista partitions, why didn't Ghost put it
back where it belongs? Why did it take a repair to put it back?

I know the link was broken and I know I repaired it. My question
involves the mechanics of how the link could get broken. If all the
files were where they were supposed to be, it seems to me it should
have worked. Clearly something got lost -- but I can't figure out
where and how.

Thanks.
 
You didn't need to touch the C: drive you will probably find that the mix up
arose out of the drive letters changing when you ghosted back. The drive
letters appear differently in the pre-windows environment than they do in
windows itself. As an example, you know that XP is situated on your C:
drive, but as soon as you ghosted back, say Vista, then Vista took on the
drive letter of C: and XP took the drive letter of D: Don't worry it even
confuses me at times, but that is probably the reason. By using the boot
disk repair option all the drive letters were changed to what they should be
for you to boot properly.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
You're Welcome, Bill

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..


Bill Anderson said:
SIW2 said:
Hi Bill,


It's because you resized the partitions.

BCD uses unique identifying numbers to locate winload.exe.

When you changed the partition layout, those unique identifiers
remained pointing to the original locations.

Running startup repair corrected that.

Hope it helps

SIW2
Click to expand...

Ah. Well, even though I don't understand why it has to be that way, at
least the explanation is logical. Thanks to both you and John.
Click to expand...
 
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