Clone Windows 7 - 64 bit for dual boot?

Hi Bill Hart,

It is very possible to triple-boot Windows 7, However, Acronis will not do the job.

You will need the Windows 7 Disk to install the operating system on the Hard Drive, for it will properly fix the Boot Loaders, where when Windows 7 Boot Manager comes up, you can select the partition to boot into.

Note: Windows 7 will always operated as if it is Drive C:, regardless of partition.

Acronis True Image Home 2010, will not restore from within the operating system. In fact, I was told to use the Bootable Rescue CD by Ilya, so you can use an older version of Acronis True Image Home with Windows 7, but do the imaging from the Bootable Rescue CD from the older version, you have.

Cloning C to D is probably a bad idea. Windows remembers which partition it is supposed to boot from. If you clone the two installations and leave them on the same machine both installations will try to boot from the partition the original version was installed on and you will thus never get to your cloned partition. You are better off installing windows again targeting the third partition.

Thanks thecreator and Lester Francois

A little history may be in order here.

In Windows XP on another computer I had Multi boot system. Using Ghost I cloned any WXP partition to any other partition and then could boot from any of the WXP partitions.

Used Boot magic or windows multi-boot to set the multiboot. Worked without any problems. Unfortunately Ghost and Partition magic do not work for Vista and W7.

The reason I mention this is to show that this is feasible and should not be difficult to do.

Could the big issue here is the 64 bit? Acronis True Image Home 2010 has a cloning program built in. Perhaps its not ready for the 64 bit W7?

Vista and Windows 7 are different than WXP in booting (and cloning?). So my question is what do I do to accomplish that which was so simple in WXP but using Windows 7.

Here it is again slightly modified for the sake of a better explanation.

My current HP laptop has Windows 7 Professional. 64 Bit. Partition C with W7 Boots just fine. I want to triple boot W7.
I partitioned Disk 1 with (3) 60 GB partitions.

To test the feasibility I installed W7 in the D partition.
When I booted I was automatically given the option to boot from C or D
I was able to boot from C or D without a hitch
However when I cloned (using other cloning programs) C to D when choosing to boot form D it would not do so.

Will the Acronis True Image Home 2010, using the built in cloning program clone one bootable W7 partition to another bootable partition in the same HDD so that I can boot from it?

Is the problem in the cloning or the booting?

Bill Hart,

You are correct. You can have multiple "identical" OS booting from the same HD. When you used Boot Magic with WinXP, one OS would have been Active and the other Hidden. But you can't use BM with Win7.

If you wanted, you could have ten Win7 64 bit OS all booting from your HD. Each would be C: drive when booted and the others would be hidden. I don't think Acronis TI 2010 does partition clones but you could restore an image, multiple times.

You will need a good boot manager.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

>Is the problem in the cloning or the booting?

Hi Bill Hart,

The problem is not cloning, because as you said, you can indeed have multiple copies. The problem is with installation.

You installed for C:\ then added D\:, but forget to install E:\, so therefore Windows Boot Manager, does not see the third copy of Windows 7.

Also, if you wanted to move Windows 7 to the C:\ partition, you can't, because you would be wiping out the Boot Loader, to have access to the other copies.

Ideally, you need to start all over. You need to start with an clean Hard Drive. Using Windows 7, create the first 60 GB partition. Note it creates a small Unallocated partition, which must be formatted, so Windows 7 can use it to install the Boot Loader. You will need to repeat the process two additional times.

Now you will have three copies of Windows 7, which would be interchangeable, because the Boot Loader would not be included in the images.

I know, because that's what I have done.

Hello BrianK,

Correct he booting partition is always named C and is active. I have been doing multi-boot and cloning on several computers with WXP and Window 98. I am no expert but mastered these techniques very easily. Apparently Vista and W7 has changed how things are done.

Are you saying that Acronis True Image Home 2010 only clones complete hard drive and not partitions? It would be great to confirm this. Will Acronis True Image Home 2011 do this?

I do not want to back-up and restore to another bootable partition. Waste of time. I want to clone.

It seems that a boot manager is already installed since it detected my D - W7 drive and booted fine. However when I cloned my C – W7 to D it would not boot to D.

This boot manager http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm will is for WXP not W7.

Hello thecreator,

Even though I cloned C to D I am not convinced that cloning was properly done. I believe it takes a cloning program that will clone W7 64 bit. There may be other issues in W7 that cloning software have issues with.

The Partitions were properly made as my test proved. “To test the feasibility I installed W7 in the D partition”

Having E without a W7, data or blank does not matter as the test proved that.

Keep in mind my C boots just fine so why start all over again? I do not want to install W7 to D and E. I want to clone C to D and E. This I do periodically.

Unless I misunderstood all the advice the question still remains.

How do clone W7 and have it boot from any bootable partition in a manner that was easily done in Windows XP. Will the Acronis True Image Home 2010 clone a W7 partition to any other partition so that it will be bootable.

Is the problem I am experiencing in the cloning or the booting or both?

Bill Hart wrote:

I do not want to back-up and restore to another bootable partition. Waste of time. I want to clone.

It seems that a boot manager is already installed since it detected my D - W7 drive and booted fine. However when I cloned my C – W7 to D it would not boot to D.

The earlier Acronis TI versions did not do partition clones. I'm not sure about the latest.

Have another look at Dan's web site. He uses image /restore. I prefer it to clones. You image the first OS and restore the same image several times.

You don't use the Microsoft boot manager. You need a third party one. This is explained in Dan's web site. There will be no OS with the D or E drive letter. All will be C drive.

Hi Bill,

If you haven't created a formatted small partition using FAT32 in front of the first large partition to contain Windows Boot Manager files.

Then you must manually install Windows 7 in all 3 partitions to have access to all three partitions using Windows 7's Boot Manager.

Otherwise, you need a third-party Boot Manager.

Cloning or copying Drive C to Drive D then to Drive E is not cloning, but copying for storage. You can't boot to those partitions.

Hi Brian K,

It seems that Acronis True Image Home 2010 only clones a hard drive to another hard drive. It will not clone one partition to another partition. If this is correct then this program is not for me.

I use backup to an image for backup purposes. I clone one partition to another partition because it is faster and does not need space to store the image.

You are right that when I boot form D all the software see it as C.

This boot manager at Dan's web site http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm is for WXP not for W7. I was able to boot from C or D. Apparently there must be some type of boot manager installed somewhere that recognizes the operating system in the partitions and offers a choice which partition to boot from.

Hello thecreator,

I installed W7 in C and later installed W7 in D. I was able to boot from C or D. Since I did not have an O.S. installed in E I was not given a choice to select E. Apparently there must be some type of boot manager installed somewhere that recognizes the operating system in the partitions and offers a choice which partition to boot from.

Then I cloned (or ghosted) C to D. I did not copy and paste C to D. I cloned C to D. I continued to be given the option to boot from D but I was not able to boot from D.

Will any Acronis products help me accomplish this? Let me remind you I have Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Perhaps some other products will do a proper job cloning.

Bill,

I suggest BootIt NG as the boot manager. It will also allow you to do partition clones.

Hi Bill Hart,

You can only clone Hard Drives. You cannot clone one partition to another partition. That's why you can't boot to D after you clone C: to D:

It might be possible to use Acronis to create an image of D: then restore to E:, but you will need to install to E:, otherwise, you can't boot to E: which takes the Drive Letter C: once you successfully boot into that partition.

You can't image C: to restore to D: or E: because you won't be able to boot into them.

BootIt NG is great for booting multiple Hard Drives, not a single Hard Drive.

thecreator wrote:

You can only clone Hard Drives. You cannot clone one partition to another partition.

I'm afraid that is quite incorrect. There are many apps which can do partition clones, the Ghost range, TeraByte imaging apps and certainly BootIt NG.

thecreator wrote:

BootIt NG is great for booting multiple Hard Drives, not a single Hard Drive.

That is incorrect too. BootIt NG allows you to boot multiple OS on a single HD. You can have up to 200 bootable partitions on a single HD with BootIt NG. Each OS is independent of the others. It does this by storing partition information in an extended MBR, outside of LBA-0. Even though you can have up to 200 primary partitions on a single HD, only four primary partitions are in the partition table at any one time. So there are multiple MBR choices depending on which OS you want to use.

thecreator:

The key to successful multibooting besides having a good understanding of what goes on "beneath the hood" is having a good boot manager. Doing a multiboot installation "The Microsoft Way" whereby you install multiple Windows installations on the same disk, one after the other, is non-optimal but it may suit your purposes just fine.

In order to do anything "outside the box" you need a good boot manager. A good boot manager will load when the PC boots and then manage the handoff to the desired OS, unhide the partition for the operating system being booted while hiding the others, and will have provisions for booting from logical partitions, or even directly from ISO image files.

Besides the ones mentioned by BrianK you can also use the Linux boot managers GRUB or Grub4Dos. Grub4Dos is a personal favorite especially because of its capability to boot ISO images directly.

Hi Brian,

I stand corrected. However, why would anyone want to clone a partition for placing a partition on the same Hard Drive, where if the Hard Drive has a Hard Drive Hard Error, where it can't boot at all. You lose everything on the Hard Drive, unless one pays a lot of money to recover the Hard Drive.

Hello,

I tried BootIt NG. Worked for a while on my Vista computer but then failed after a few boots.

Let me reiterate: In the old days, just a few years ago with Windows XP Multi booting and cloning an O.S. from one partition to another partition was very simple. So lets not go there again saying this is not possible. It worked even if both partitions were not identical in capacity.

Obviously some has changed. I did not fully understand the mechanics of how it used to work and not interested in learning the all the details of the new mechanics for W7 Multi-booting and cloning. All I want is the bare minimum to get me the mission accomplished.

Here is the mission and need your help to accomplish this

My HP laptop.
Windows 7 Professional - 64 Bit is installed on C
I want to triple boot W7 on HDD 1.
I partitioned HDD 1 with (3) 60 GB partitions.
I want to clone C to D so that I can boot from D.
Next I may want to clone C or D to E and boot occasionally from E.
Later still I may clone E to C.
This was possible in the good old days. Is this no longer possible?

Apparently there is already a boot manager installed in my HP laptop. This HDD was not a HP drive. I bought it new and installed a store bought (not from HP) Windows 7 - 64 bit to C. So where is the boot manager come from? As soon as I installed W7 to D after booting the screen came up and offered a choice to boot from C or D. (while in D all was as if I was in C) Will you all agree this is what a boot manager does?

I know that the current booting works because as mentioned earlier I was able to boot from D. I had installed W7 to D and worked just fine. So it seems the current boot manager is adequate. However when I cloned C to D was unable to boot from D. So I suspect it is the cloning software that is at fault. Does this make sense to anyone?

thecreator wrote:

However, why would anyone want to clone a partition for placing a partition on the same Hard Drive, where if the Hard Drive has a Hard Drive Hard Error, where it can't boot at all. You lose everything on the Hard Drive, unless one pays a lot of money to recover the Hard Drive.

Hi thecreator,

No problems. We are not doing cloning for backup. Bill wants 3 Win7 partitions on HD0. The easy way to do this is to install Win7 once, then copy (clone) that partition twice into unallocated space on HD0. Now he would have 3 identical Win7 partitions and with a boot manager he could choose to boot any of the three. But not the Microsoft boot manager.

Hi Bill,

I can tell from your last post that you haven't read and understood Dan's tutorial. There is a lot of study ahead of you as there is much to understand.

Bill:

In your example the boot manager was the Windows 7 boot manager, which has the file name bootmgr. When you installed your second copy of Win 7, the installer wrote the necessary entries into the Boot Configuration Database (BCD) to enable a menu so that you could choose to boot from either OS. If you then cloned the first copy to the second partition, the BCD entries after cloning were incorrect. A simple edit of the BCD would have fixed you right up.

If you expect this to be automatic with no thinking required then you are bound to be disappointed. However, there are graphical tools available like EasyBCD that make BCD editing simpler. With a little research you should be able to accomplish your goal of installing three copies of Windows 7 on your disk and booting any of them.

Hello,

Dan's tutorial is useful for pre Vista O.S. As I said in those days I had no problems with either the Windows multi-boot boot or third party Multi-boot managers. There is useful information that still applies to W7.

I spent several months on BCD editors. This is what is required for W7.

Yes I do have a problem. The old fashioned way was robust and took very little knowledge to multi-boot and clone. I assume improvement means easier. Well this time it wasn’t. I have difficulty with the BCD editors. After trying a few that occasionally worked I tried the BootIt NG and had better luck but again it failed. It seems that I will have to give up this project. I do not want to become W7 cloning expert to do something that was at one time simple enough even for me to understand and accomplish. Progress is not always better. I am a little frustrated that I am incapable of figuring this out even with all the help being offered.

Let me try one perhaps a final time. KOLO, if you can help me it will be great. What is the simple edit of the BCD that would solve my booting into D?

Bill:

The edit is to display the BCD and look for entries marked as unknown and to change them so that they point to the desired partition.

If you still have the dual-boot system with the installation on C: working properly and the one on D: not booting, then could you do the following? Boot into Win 7 on the C: partition and go to an elevated command prompt. Change to your desktop directory:
cd \users\username\Desktop
Enter the following command:
bcdedit \enum all > bcd.txt
This will create the file bcd.txt on your desktop. Attach the file to your next post.

Yes, it was easier with WinXP to simply edit the boot.ini file to point to the right partition. The boot method used by Vista and Windows 7 is more difficult to understand at first, but once you understand it's not too bad.

Bill,

When using BING as a boot manager and cloning partitions as I suggested you only have to look at the BCD once. You would have to do a BCD Edit in BING on the two cloned partitions but that is only clicking a few fields. It is easier than multi-booting WinXP.

KOLO,
I decided to first try cloning and booting with BING since I already had this program. I do not know how to work with DOS.

Brian K,
Ok I used BING booting form the CD and cloned C to D.
Then I rebooted from D. I changed the desktop on D to Blue.

I then rebooted to C. Now the desktop is also blue on C.
Déjà vu. Had this problem before. That is unless my memory is failing me.

Check the Disk Management and C and D have nearly identical percent free space.

BTW In explorer D and E are not hidden. It’s ok but prefer for them to be hidden just to prevent accidental tempering.

How do I clone so that C and D are completely independent?

Bill,

This is what I'd do. Boot from the BING CD and delete the second two Win7 partitions. You should now have only your original Win7 OS. Make sure it boots as C: drive.

Install BING to the HD. It will create a Boot Item for Win7. Do a BCD Edit on Win7 to make sure it is OK. You probably have left over entries from the other OS so be careful. Just do what TeraByte suggest. No more.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

In BING, clone your Win7 to the adjacent Unallocated Free Space. This involves using the Copy/Paste buttons.

Now clone the first Win7 (the original again) to the Unallocated Free Space next to the second Win7.

You will now have 3 Win7 partitions. You should call them Win71, Win72 and Win73 so change their names to these names in Partition Work so you can identify each OS. You can change names by clicking Properties.

Open Boot Edit and click Edit for Win71. Hide Win72 and Win73.

In Boot Edit click Add and make a Boot Item for Win72. Hide Win71 and Win73.

In Boot Edit click Add and make a Boot Item for Win73. Hide Win71 and Win72.

Open Partition Work.

Run BCD Edit on Win72.

Run BCD Edit on Win73.

I hope I've covered everything. You should now have 3 independent OS. Each will boot as C: drive.

Questions?

Hello again,

I had gone through with using BING before with success then failure early 2009 so gave it up. I will try it again and hop it is robust. I am sure it is but I do not have the knowledge or time to devote to learn every little detail to troubleshoot. I want to clone freely C to D, E to C, D to E etc. and this where I had trouble before. I will give it a try again shortly when I find time

Meanwhile I thank everyone here for their persistence to help me.

Bill Hart wrote:

I want to clone freely C to D, E to C, D to E etc. and this where I had trouble before.

Bill,

I'm sorry but I have to be blunt. While ever you continue to think like this, you are just going to waste your time.

Hello Brian K,

I have been here before in early 2009 with BING and failed. Perhaps or I should say very likely I did something wrong. I do not have the time to constantly tweak BING. So the best course of action is to abandon the multi-boot W7 project.

Ah! To return to the good old days when flexible multi-booting and cloning was so easy and robust.

Thanks again.

Bill,

Don't give up. The instructions I outlined for BING will only take you 5 to 10 minutes. The cloning might take an hour or two but you can have a beer while that is happening.

I'm sure we can get you through this. BING is extremely reliable but difficult to operate until you get used to its quirks. Ask questions if you don't understand my instructions.

Hi Brina K,

Thanks for the offer. I really appreciate it and I may take you up on it. I feel that you understand a lot about my issues and that you have a mastery of BING.

Unfortunately I am in the middle of other projects now and this will have to wait.

Thanks again.

Bill,

OK. Just post to this thread if you need assistance. I'd like to hear that you have mastered this issue.

At one stage I was booting 4 Win7s. BING does make multi-booting easy, once you learn how to drive BING.

To continue somewhat on the BING thread, how does one clone an entire drive including the BING EMBR, all partitions for multiple OSs, and all other data. It does not seem apparent to me that any of the backup programs do that, and while BING tech support says that it does, their answers are so cryptic that it's very hard to make sense of them. I want an ultimate copy, bit by bit, of my hard drive so if the current drive in use fails I can restore it from the ultimate copy and then go on to update the data with conventional backup and restore programs. Does an Acronis programdo that, does BING do it, (and how), or do I have to use some other program.