Folks,
I have just rebuilt a 3-year old Toshiba Satellite Pro A30 laptop (replete with a replacement Seagate 7,200 80GB hard drive and 2GB of memory) so that I can use it on-stage for music-making purposes (a fast hard-drive and plenty of 'proper' memory is an absolute necessity, together with the turning off and/or removal of certain CPU-hungry services and CPU-cycle stealing apps).
Unfortunately, as I still need to use the same laptop for work purposes too, I decided to create a dual-boot device, with BOTH partitions having a Windows XP implementation: one optimised for 'Work', the other optimised for music-making software.
Before removing the old drive, I backed it up to a network-based PC on my home Windows XP-based network using Acronis True Image (and verified that image).
Subsequently, I re-imaged the new drive with the original Toshiba-supplied CD-ROMs which contained Windows XP SP1, which went relatively smoothly, and then re-partitioned the new drive with the Acronis Disk Director Suite into a C- and a D-partition (both Primary partitions).
Unfortunately, several things were (and are) not quite as I had hoped, probably as a consequence of my limited technical ability. I will highlight the second of the issues here (and detail the others in separate questions on this forum so as not to confuse anyone):-
The new image works correctly, save for a few minor annoyances, such as having to download all the SP2 updates! However, once I had loaded Acronis Disk Director Suite to repartitioin the new 80GB Seagate drive into a C- and a D-partition, I found I became unstuck:-
If I loaded the previously backed-up Acronis image (the one I had stored remotely) onto the D-partition (using the True Image software to manage this 'restore'), it would not allow the laptop to be boot up from it: the laptop would eventually become stuck after hanging for several minutes after the Windows Log-On window had been processed. Presumably, from what I was able to read and understand, because it was ecpecting to be on a C-drive and not a D-drive and therefore certain files were 'missing' or not where they should be.
Each time I tried, I was presented with a different message, all to do with missing files and/or services. The Acronis Boot Manager appeared to be doing its bit ... but the simplest of things was subsequently foiling it!
After working with the Acronis Disk Director Suite (and reading their fairly unhelpful web-site) to try to sort matters, I eventually ended up with a "missing or damaged Hal.dll" message and a completely un-bootable laptop.
After reading all about this specific message on-line, and attempting to recover and/or rebuild either / both the disk or partition's MBR, the BOOT.ini file, and attempting to restore the Hal.dll from the Windows recovery console (it would not extract from either the Toshiba CD-ROM or a Windows XP Pro SP2 CD), I decided I had probably 'damaged' too many sensitive files and would be better starting again.
I thus re-imaged the entire drive using the Toshiba back-up CDs once again.
Unfortunately, the Toshiba image CDs will ONLY allow me to re-image an entire drive, not one that is partitioned and certainly not onto a D-partition (unless I am missing something!) so that meant re-installing all the SP2 downloads too!
Firstly, I have an extremely naive question:
1) On a multi-boot (dual-boot) Windows XP machine, does the second Windows XP installation have to reside (or be installed) onto a partition without the drive letter assigned as a "C", that is a D-named partition (or E or F or G, etc.) if the original installation is on the C-drive (or C-partition)?
1b) In other words, can my laptop not be booted up (with the Windows XP install choice made at boot-up time via either the Windows Boot Manager or the Acronis utility) into either the 'Work' or 'Music' Windows XP installation I've outlined, but with one of the "C" partitions effectively 'hidden' so that BOTH XP implementations indicate to the user that they have actually been installed on the drive's "C"-labelled partition?
I genuinely thought that this was what meant to occur when I purchased the Acronis partitioning and imaging tools, including their boot manager utility - Heaven knows how ... but I did. However it now appears that one XP install has to reside on the C-partition and the other on another individually named partition - which is certainly not "C" - and this is reflected to the user after the laptop has booted up.
2a) Given that I have no choice but to employ the Toshiba CD-ROMs in the first instance (which means their installation of Windows XP SP1 will always be to a partition labelled as the C-drive), am I only able to re-partition this hard-drive into a second partition (named "D") and then restore the previously saved Acronis Image onto that partition?
2b) If so, what happens to this Windows XP installation ... given the fact that the Windows installation on that back-up (as well as all the applications and user files) were installed on a C-Drive? (I have all the original application CDs and, barring a problem with re-authorising MS Office again, there should be no problems other than the amount of time it will take). Do I have to 'repair' this Windows install using, perhaps, a spare Windows XP Pro disk I have available?
This may sound incredibly simple and obvious, but I wish to be certain and clear as to what is and is not possible so that I do not have to trouble you guys again!
3a) Should either implementation (that is the C:\Windows and D:\Windows folders) be visible to and from each other after boot time once Windows has loaded? Because they are!
3b) The reason I ask is that a desktop PC I have been 'practising' dual-boot Windows XP implementations on will boot up correctly from EITHER installation (once again, a C-drive and a D-drive install of XP) yet both installations remain visible to one another.
This seems peculiar to say the least, especially as I wanted the dual-boot process to effectively protect each installation of XP from the other (the 'Work' laptop has anti-virus, firewalls and other tools installed, whereas I did not wish to install these and wanted to turn off all the Windows embedded tools (such as the in-built firewall) on the 'Music' PC (as well as its System Restore function and Virtual Memory).
4) Is there only a single BOOT.ini file present, irrespective of whether there are 2 or more Windows XP implementations, or is there actually 1 file per installation on each implementations' Windows' partition? Either way, where does this hidden file reside and how can I access it directly (to edit it) from a command line, should the need arise ... again?
I just know that this information is present somewhere - so please don't shoot me for asking the same boring old questions again, albeit in a more Toshiba- and application-specific fashion - but I simply cannot find it in a version which I understand ... and I've so far had 5 pretty sleepless nights trying to get my laptop working again!
So, can anyone help?
Thank you in advance ...
PS Whether you know or like Acronis should, I believe, be pretty immaterial as I understand their tools differ little in practice from what their competitors offer. The only advice I've received (which I didn't actually require!) was to steer clear of all Symantec's Norton tools ... which I have and will continue to do! Once bitten, twice shy!
