Question for advanced computer users.

martin57

Hi folks,

Although a long term computer user I am trying to get to grips as to whether my different Windows installations depend on each and for example whether a corruption of XP would lead to the other Windows installations unable to boot.

I have 2 large disks in my computer and Disk 1 (according to computer management) has all the OS on it.

Here are the entries copied from EASY Bcd copied from within a (windows 7 New) installation with additional information in brackets for each OS alongside



There are a total of 4 entries listed in the bootloader.


Default: windows 7 new
Timeout: 5 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: \


Entry #1
Name: Earlier Version of Windows XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: \
Bootloader Path: \ntldr (system, active, primary partition)


Entry #2
Name: Windows 8
BCD ID: {12660139-10a6-11df-87ec-caed900c25c4}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe (logical drive)


Entry #3
Name: windows 7 old
BCD ID: {12660136-10a6-11df-87ec-caed900c25c4}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe (logical drive)


Entry #4
Name: windows 7 new
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe (Boot primary partition)

1 If xp which is the active primary partition was to become corrupted
would it follow that some of the other windows OS wouldn't be able to boot?

2 is there a better way so as to prevent this or any other tips?

I do have Acronis backups of every OS and have found EASY Bcd invaluable for pointing towards a partition when problems do arise but as I don't understand the bootloader path and what OS depends on what, would be very grateful for any info as regards my particular setup?

Thanks very much for any help in this, for various reasons I do need all of the above OS installed.

Martin57

esuhl

The OSes are separate so if one becomes corrupted the others will still boot.

Of course, that's assuming that there isn't a problem which affects all the drives/partitions (e.g. you PC gets struck by lightning and all data become corrupted). And that the boot manager settings haven't changed.

Unless you have a particularly esoteric set-up, I wouldn't bother to back up the OSes with Acronis. If anything were to happen, you could just reinstall them (although you'd have to copy any personal data and reinstall any applications).

If you ever have any problems booting, the first thing I'd check would be the boot loader.

bluesnake

In answer yes they can interfere with each other, spread virus to other versions.

unless you are accessing non standard hardware, or where speed is the utmost importance, vmware or virtual box, etc could be the best way forward.

Many of these packages have snapshot/rollback capabilities too.

Another way is removable drives.

esuhl

bluesnake wrote: »

Another way is removable drives.

Something I was looking at a while back was making some kind of adapter with a rotary dial allowing me to select which hard drive to connect to the motherboard.

Initially I was going to switch the IDE cable (this was before SATA was popular), but I realised I could connect all the drives directly to the motherboard using a data cable, and could use the rotary dial to provide power to a single drive, thus only that drive could be accessed.

That way, you can keep all OSes physically separate, with a dedicated boot manager installed on each drive.

The only problem (apart from going to the effort of constructing such a device) was that it would be easy to turn the dial while the PC was powered on (which could potentially cause data loss).

I never bothered in the end, and just installed the three OSes I use on the same drive.

securityguy

esuhl wrote: »

I never bothered in the end, and just installed the three OSes I use on the same drive.

Virtualisation.

That is all.

bluesnake

esuhl wrote: »

Something I was looking at a while back was making some kind of adapter with a rotary dial allowing me to select which hard drive to connect to the motherboard.

Initially I was going to switch the IDE cable (this was before SATA was popular), but I realised I could connect all the drives directly to the motherboard using a data cable, and could use the rotary dial to provide power to a single drive, thus only that drive could be accessed.

This would have to be done when the pc was switched off. There just might be crosstalk between the connections. Also when a single pole on the switch goes faulty, could cause all your data to go very bad.

look here, as on ebay similar ones are £10-ish http://www.icydock.com.tw/English/mb448sr_frame.html these are not hot swappable, and you do not want hot swappable either.

To be honest, it would be hard to beat the free VirtualBox from sun and go virtual. however if you are runing a cctv board or weather monitoring hardware the you are stuck with physical, or the base platform runs them, while the vm's run the other multiple vannilla o/s

esuhl

bluesnake wrote: »

This would have to be done when the pc was switched off. There just might be crosstalk between the connections. Also when a single pole on the switch goes faulty, could cause all your data to go very bad.

If a single pole went, the drive would lose power. But... it shouldn't be any more risky than the cable becoming loose. And (unless the drive crashes), you should only lose open files and anything that was loaded in memory.

bluesnake wrote: »

To be honest, it would be hard to beat the free VirtualBox from sun...

It's owned by Oracle now.

The only reasons I don't use virtualisation are that 95% of my PC use is in Linux (so it's quicker/easier to have that installed natively), and some of the applications that I use in Windows XP and 7 require direct hardware access.

bluesnake

I have toyed with linux on virtualBox and vmware workstation and they both worked well for me.

I am fairly sure switching power off and on to individual drives connected all up together is not the way to go, or at best is a bad way, because there will be still multiple data paths and some inputs/output pins on the cable will be in one of three states.

What you want to is isolate some of the wires on the ide cable for each drive. Think the only ones you do not have to isolate will be the 6 ground connections, plus a few more out of the 40pin connector. Possibly will need some kind of circuit for each drive

I know open susse has a hypervisor that can be installed and is party of the installation CD.

esuhl

bluesnake wrote: »

I am fairly sure switching power off and on to individual drives connected all up together is not the way to go, or at best is a bad way, because there will be still multiple data paths and some inputs/output pins on the cable will be in one of three states.

What you want to is isolate some of the wires on the ide cable for each drive. Think the only ones you do not have to isolate will be the 6 ground connections, plus a few more out of the 40pin connector. Possibly will need some kind of circuit for each drive.

Well, I think my way would be better. If you switch the power instead you only need to have one pole per drive (or did IDE drives have two +ve & -ve pins...?). Anyway, I tested it and it worked fine, but I never got round to making a permanent switch.

It's not perfect, but it would be fine so long as you didn't turn the dial and switch hard drives while the PC was running. But there shouldn't be "multiple data paths" -- only one drive would be connected via the switch at any one time. The whole point was to isolate the OSes so they couldn't "interfere" with each other. If you were just enabling/disabling drives individually, you'd have to install a boot loader on each drive and (in theory) one OS could do something that affects another OS.