Re: [gentoo-user] Dual booting Dell with Windows 7

[Peter Ruskin <peter.ruskin@dsl.pipex.com>]

On Tuesday 02 March 2010 14:31:46 Mick wrote:
> OK, from your partition scheme (received off list) I can see that
> Vista is the first primary partition and your installation does
> not have a separate boot partition for bootmgr.exe and BCD.  This
> makes things easier for multibooting and upgrading to Win7.
>
> >> This doesn't matter much to me at the moment, as I use Acronis
> >> OSS Selector for boot manager, but this doesn't work on
> >> Windows 7, so my free update to Windows 7 is gathering dust.
> >
> > As long as the upgrade to Windows 7 does not mess up the MS
> > boot partition then achieving this in Vista will be a good dry
> > run for when you install Windows 7.  However, I am not sure
> > that you will be able to achieve this test run while Acronis is
> > managing your boot session. My method implies that you use the
> > native MSWindows boot manager.
>
> I'ved had a quick look at the Acronis OSS product.  There is one
> thing worse than the MSWindows boot managers and that is other
> proprietary boot managers which follow the Microsoft design
> philosophy!  Ha, ha!
>
> :-)  Unfortunately, Acronis OSS is rather intrusive in how it
> : manages
> the boot process.  It moves all Vista boot files into a separate
> folder and then it takes over the boot process with its own
> (undocumented?) mechanisms.  Also, it does the same with other
> OS' boot partitions (i.e. writes files in their partitions and
> moves things around).
>
> If you wish to move on from Vista to Win7, or want to first try
> out my suggested boot method, then I suspect that the safest
> approach would be to first uninstall the Acronis OSS.  Hopefully,
> it will sympathetically restore the original Vista boot files and
> MBR and get itself out of the way.  If not, which is what I
> suspect will happen, then you may end up with an unbootable
> Vista.  Either way, I wouldn't worry about your Linux system
> because it will be easily made bootable again by installing GRUB
> in the MBR with a Live CD.
>
> I can see the following options open to you:
>
> 1.  Repair Vista:
>
> Essentially you want to restore Vista to its original condition
> as it was before you installed Acronis OSS.  Follow the Acronis
> instructions and uninstall Acronis, then boot into Vista.  If
> Acronis uninstalls cleanly and restore the MBR you should be able
> to boot into Vista and follow my instructions for setting up
> multibooting.  If the Acronis instructions ask you to use a Vista
> CD and run Startup Repair then it means that it will probably
> need to reinstall the Vista bootloader code (IPL) in the MBR and
> I suspect it may also rebuild its BCD file. If not and Vista does
> not boot, then you need to use your Vista CD to auto-repair your
> Vista boot system as detailed here:
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391
>
> or use bootrec.exe as described here:
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392
>
> or if you know what you need to do, run bootrec.exe /fixmbr,
> bootrec.exe /fixboot and finally BCDedit.exe to do it manually.
>
> Then follow my instructions and you should be able to multiboot
> fine. BTW, because your Vista partition is both your MSWindows
> boot and system partition, your do not need to redefine the boot
> device with a drive letter C: as in my last step.  Just define it
> once only as per:
>
> bcdedit /set {fda5ebf7-119b-11df-969c-f924691e8117} device boot
>
> and thereafter Vista bootmgr.exe should know where to look into
> to find boot.lnx, i.e. in your first NTFS partition.
>
> 2.  Upgrade straight to Win7:
>
> If you ask it to do a clean installation in your first partition
> (rather than back up all Vista files to allow you to downgrade to
> Vista later should you wish to) then it will format the Vista
> partition, blow away everything including the Acronis boot code
> from the MBR and install Win7.  If Win7 asks you to create a
> separate boot partition, then you say No (because you haven't any
> spare partitions and it may decide to wipe one of your Linux
> partitions and use that instead!)  When it completes installing
> Win7 in your first primary partition you boot into it and follow
> my instructions with the bcdedit command.
>
> 3.  If you are not worried about warranty claims and what not,
> then you can install GRUB in the MBR and chainload Vista or Win7
> from it, after you repair Vista or install Win7.
>
> BTW, disabling/deactivating Acronis OSS won't work, because Vista
> requires to access the original MBR code with partition IDs to
> know which partition to jump to.  I am not entirely sure what
> deactivating the Acronis OSS does, because it is still running
> from the MBR and it may or may not be able to interpret the BCD
> partition IDs.  Hope this helps.

Thanks for your help, Mick.  Here's the bcdedit /v before I started:
C:\Windows\System32\bcdedit /v >C:\bcdedit-orig.txt

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {f3aeff8d-e9d1-11de-8e2e-ca31a6066886}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Microsoft Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {f3aeff8e-e9d1-11de-8e2e-ca31a6066886}
nx                      OptIn

Resume from Hibernate
---------------------
identifier              {f3aeff8e-e9d1-11de-8e2e-ca31a6066886}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winresume.exe
description             Windows Resume Application
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {1afa9c49-16ab-4a5c-901b-212802da9460}
filedevice              partition=C:
filepath                \hiberfil.sys
debugoptionenabled      No

Windows Memory Tester
---------------------
identifier              {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \boot\memtest.exe
description             Windows Memory Diagnostic
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
badmemoryaccess         Yes

And here it is after I followed your procedure:
C:\Windows\System32\bcdedit /v >C:\bcdedit.txt

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
displayorder            {150a4189-2608-11df-b94d-00248cc04424}
timeout                 10

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {150a4189-2608-11df-b94d-00248cc04424}
device                  boot
path                    C:\linux.bin
description             Gentoo Linux
locale                  en-US

After reboot it reverts to the original - just as well, because the 
Windows Boot Manager looks suspect to me.

-- 
Peter
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