Partition Magic 8: New active partition will not boot

My goal is to copy a working Win XP OS installation to a new drive with multiple partitions. On the new drive, I want XP to boot from its partition. There are no other OSes on the new drive.

What I did: Used Partition Magic 8 to partition brand new 1TB disk. I set the first 500GB as Unallocated. (Long story, but I will need that initial space later. I want XP on the second partition.) I set the next 25GB as a primary partition, set as active. Then I used PM's Copy Disk function to copy WinXP from a working XP drive to the active partition. Set it as bootable. When I install this new drive as first drive in my pc, it will not boot. Error says "Missing operating system." How do I get this partition to boot XP? Thanks for any insight and advice!

My goal is to copy a working Win XP OS installation to a new drive with multiple partitions. On the new drive, I want XP to boot from its partition. There are no other OSes on the new drive.

What I did: Used Partition Magic 8 to partition brand new 1TB disk. I set the first 500GB as Unallocated. (Long story, but I will need that initial space later. I want XP on the second partition.) I set the next 25GB as a primary partition, set as active. Then I used PM's Copy Disk function to copy WinXP from a working XP drive to the active partition. Set it as bootable. When I install this new drive as first drive in my pc, it will not boot. Error says "Missing operating system." How do I get this partition to boot XP? Thanks for any insight and advice!

Thanks,  Brian. I set up my new 1TB disk like this, using PM8, beginning at the left:

 

| 100GB Unallocated | PARTITION: 25GB NTFS (Primary, Active) holds copy of XP | PARTITION: 50GB NTFS Program files from my old drive | Rest is Unallocated |

 

I left the first section (not a partition) empty (Unallocated) so I can install Win7 on it later. Second partition holds a copy of XP from my production drive -- PM8 copied it okay, but the pc will not boot from it. Balance of drive is unallocated.

 

BACKGROUND, which makes it all sound much more complicated:

The whole point is to install Win7 on this new drive and to migrate my current Office XP config successfully. It's a multi-step process: (1) Leave space at beginning of new drive for Win7 (to be installed later). (2) Copy my XP install to a partition on new drive so I can boot from it. (3) Copy my Program Files -- lots of programs -- from logical partition on existing drive, including Office XP, from old drive to new drive. (4) Upgrade Office XP to Office 2007 on new drive, preserving as much as possible of my Office XP config/user settings/macros, etc. (5) Use Microsoft's Win7 MigWiz wizard to save my old config settings offline (on thumbdrive). (6) Install Win7 on new drive. (7) Install fresh copy of Office 2007 on new drive. (8) Use MigWiz to migrate my saved Office XP settings to the new installation of Win7 and Office 2007. (I'm told there is no way to migrate Office XP user settings to Office 2007 under Win7 without upgrading Office first. Lots of work! I'm telling you all this to explain why I need room on the new drive to install Win7 later...

 

Back to copying Win XP to the new drive:

I understand what you mean -- if the entire drive were formatted but had no partitions on it (all "Unallocated"), using PM8 to copy my XP install to it would result in a bootable drive.

 

With my new drive set up as I described above, the unallocated sections do not show up in PM8. So I cannot copy my XP install from my old drive... PM8 needs to know where on the new drive I want to put it... and PM8 does not list "Unallocated space" as a target for the copy.

 

Sheesh. I need a drink! Thanks again for your input. Does all this make sense?

 

 

 

Nick, I need a drink too. I have information overload. If WinXP is Active it should boot. Is the HD data cable plugged into the same MB SATA port that the old HD was using? The old HD shouldn't be connected at present.

 

If that doesn't help, reconnect the old HD to a "secondary" SATA port. Boot from your PM floppy or CD. Select disk 0 and in the 100 GB of unallocated space, create a primary partition. This will be deleted later. Delete the WinXP partition so you will now have 25 GB of unallocated space sandwiched between two partitions. Click the drop down arrow to get Disk 1. Right click your old WinXP and click Copy. The next window should be your Unallocated Space on Disk 1. Make sure it is the 25 GB one. Click OK, Apply, Yes. When it's finished delete the 100 GB partition you just created. Shutdown. Disconnect the old HD and boot the new HD. You will probably have to edit out a boot entry from boot.ini later.

Nick,

 

<< I left the first section (not a partition) empty (Unallocated) so I can install Win7 on it later. ..

 

You probably know this but installing WIN 7 after XP is not as straightforward as the other way round because of the change to BCD from boot.ini. It can be done but it requires a lot of juggling if you want to dual boot. It's not clear whether that is what you want to achieve or not.

 

This is old but it goes on for 12 pages ....

 

http://www.pronetworks.org/forums/install-windows-xp-in-dual-boot-with-pre-installed-windows-7-t104890.html

 

Microsoft have some extremely well written step by step guides on installing/upgrading to Windows 7 including from XP where you end up with a clean install of Windows 7 and if you use the version of Windows Easy Transfer that you can download form Technet -- there is a link to it in the XP to WIN 7 guide -- and not the one on the DVD it is much more flexible and powerful than the original one. If you invoke the Options when you start it up you get a tree structure of all your drives and can select and deselect what you want to transfer. You have to install applications of course.

 

And it puts into a folder called Windows.old on your WIN 7 drive the bulk of your XP installation again preserving the C: drive tree form.

 

I've been doing this several times on my test bed which is the new desktop on which eventually I will do a final install of XP dual booted with WIN 7 Home Premium although I've been doing my testing with the free 90 day trial of Windows 7 Enterprise that you can download in 32 bit and 64 bit from Technet without having a subscription.

 

It's worth doing a test run. If you don't want to go the ENTERPRISE route you can of course use the version of WIN 7 you purchased, delay activating it when you install it and before the 21 days expires you can "rearm" and get a total of 120 days before you activate it. Not that I've had any problems in reinstalling an already activated copy of WIndows.

 


huwyngr wrote:
but installing WIN 7 after XP is not as straightforward as the other way round

 

 

huwyngr,

 

This is the beauty of NOT installing a second OS the Microsoft Way. If you use a third party boot manager such as BING, Win 7 can be installed as if it were the only OS on the computer. No shared boot files. So you could already have Win98 and then install Win7 and they would happily coexist without seeing each other. Or Win7 first and Win98 second.

I know Brian is correct about the partition size limit and that you had to copy the partition into unallocated space.

But I really didn't think PM could support a 1TB drive?

 

If you want to try something else you can use "partition wizzard" I only mention it because PM is no longer supported and Symantec doesn't have a competing product.

It's free for home use and I'm positive it supports drives that large. You can also get a bootable ISO.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/

 

You might want to just start over and copy the partition to the front of the new unallocated drive, then after you make sure it boots you could always slide the partition down the drive and see if it still boots.

 

But you might want to think about what your going to do when it's time to install Windows 7. (if you haven't already).

Xp is going to be the C drive and if it's still a primary bootable operating system then 7 is going to end up as D.

If your going to leave it like that you might as well just have XP as the first partition and install them as a standard dual-boot.

 

If your planning on making XP unbootable and changing the drive letter so 7 ends up as C, then you might want to just have XP as the first partition, do your office stuff, copy everything onto a second partition and let 7 reformat and use the first partition.

 

Or if you really have a lot of time on your hands, image your existing system and turn it into a virtual PC that you can run on your new Windows 7 install.

 

Best of luck,

Dave

 

 

 


DaveH wrote:

 

Xp is going to be the C drive and if it's still a primary bootable operating system then 7 is going to end up as D.

 

 


Dave,

 

That won't happen if you avoid using the Microsoft Way of dual booting. Tony could install Win7, Vista as well as Win2000 and they would all be seen as C: drive when booted. I agree with his leaving the 100 GB of unallocated space for future OS. But future OS could be installed in that space or in space at the end of the HD and it wouldn't matter. The OS would still be seen as a C: drive when booted and would be just as fast where-ever it was placed.

 

I have about 10 C: drives on my computer's HD0.

Yes, but they can't see each other. Wouldn't that be like the old "boot magic" program?

If the partitions are hidden or otherwise can't see each other, it defeats the purpose of what he's trying to do.

He would still need a common partition to transfer the files and then he might as well be transfering the files onto another partition and dumping the XP install.

 

Your very right, it is a good option but for me I would rather keep a dual boot if I wanted to be able to access the old OS in the future, or do all the office upgrades, move all the data and dump the XP install.

 

I was actually serious about the virtual pc suggestion too, I did that before to be able to access both OS at once, keeping them both as C and using a shared folder to move anything back and forth.

 

I will have to try Bootit NG, I see that you use it all the time and it does look very useful.

 

 

 


DaveH wrote:

Yes, but they can't see each other.

 


 

 

Dave, exactly. You don't want different operating systems seeing each other and cross-talking. You know what happens when Vista (or Win7) sees a WinXP partition.

 

The common data partition you mention is an excellent suggestion and that's where I keep my data. I don't keep data in any OS and that keeps them small. Fast to image and restore. There is nothing in another OS that I need to access when I'm booted elsewhere.  It is easy to backup the data partition by non imaging methods. The backup remains synchronized with the source. Files in native format.

 

Dan Goodell's site on Multi-Booting is excellent. I do it slightly differently with BING as all my OS are in primary partitions.

 

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

 

I like Virtual PC too. Very handy.

 

 

This is an example of cross-talk that I referred to above.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185

 

There are other examples where an installed app puts registry files in one OS and program files in the other OS. What happens if you subsequently remove one OS from the HD? You can expect what will happen.

 

 

Edit... In my previous post I referred to having my OS in primary partitions. I use the unlimited primaries feature of BING and have over 15 primary partitions on HD0. Only 4 primary partitions are loaded into the MBR at any one time.