Dual Boot and recovery partition

[camioneur]

Whilst trying to install XP onto a Vista laptop so i could have a Dual Boot machine I was following some instructions I found on the web which seemed very concise and achievable by someone of my meagre ability. First thing that went wrong was that I managed to delete the recovery partition in my laptop so I now don't have the luxury of falling back on that if I really mess things up. My first question then is can I create a recovery disk of some sort (Vista) now that I can't reboot to factory condition. Second thing to go wrong was that when it got to the point where I needed to boot from my XP CD it wouldn't boot from it. The disk worked fine in an XP machine but won't in lappy so i never got the XP in either. Second question then is why won't it boot from the CD, the "install XP" is greyed out when I load the CD and if I try to boot from it it says non bootable CD but it was perfectly bootable with XP machines and I used in many times successfully.

[chas2008]

not sure if this is of help but i recently had mega problem installing XP on a Toshiba laptop, like you found loads of advice etc on the web sounded so easy..wrong
No matter what i did it wouldnt boot from the CD, i posted the question on here and someone suggested the F4 key while booting up,bingo it worked !!

[camioneur]

Thanks for that chas, just tried the F4 after reading your post but it didn't work for me, I wish I'd never started this!!

[trish432]

I`m not sure if a recovery disc would work, if you`ve deleted the files.
I deleted the files from my medion pc by mistake, when I tried to use the recovery disc, it booted from cd, but I got a message that it couldn`t restore the factory settings as the files were missing or corrupted.
It may be different with your`s.
Mine was an xp comp and I managed to sort it out by doing a format and new installation from the windows xp disc.
I`m interested in any answers to your question as I`m not sure if I`ve deleted some recovery files from this vista laptop.

[camioneur]

I may have misled you trish, the only thing I've deleted is the recovery partition. The laptop still works perfectly well on Vista but with HP you get a "D" drive which is recovery only. When creating a new partition for the XP to live in I formatted the "D" drive by mistake. The "C" drive is still fine. Why can't I just leave things alone? Briefly the reason behind all this is the son in law has software which won't run on Vista. there is no Vista update for it and this software controls a refuelling system which cost thousands of pounds. His XP machine is defunct, he bought a new lappy with Vista on and found the software didn't work . In an effort to sort his problem I practiced on my own laptop to save messing his new one up.

[VHG]

To get round the problem of you losing your recovery partition.

Contact the company who made your laptop and see if you can get a Windows recovery DVD from them.

Just say your hard disk crashed and you had to put a new one in, and there should be no problem getting a recovery disk.

They may charge you a few pounds, but as you have a Windows license for the laptop they should be able to supply a recovery CD.

[VHG]

Re your sons laptop.

One of the problems with instaling XP on a new laptop is finding the drivers.

Most laptops need special drivers to make certain components work properly, like sound, graphcs and other hardware.

If no XP drivers are available for the laptop then even though you may be able to install XP on it, some components wont work.

[VHG]

One option for your son is to install a product called Virtual PC. This is a Microsoft product and is free, more here

http://tinyurl.com/d4e8yc

Basically you install Virtual PC on his laptop. As you can guess from the name of the product, this creates a "virtual" computer under Vista.

You then install Windows XP "inside" this Virtual computer.

To all intents and purposes this Windows XP then acts and behaves just like a "normal" Windows XP (you can logon, install programs and so on).

So get him to then install his fancy bit of software on this "virtual" Windows XP.

Here is a screen shot showing it in action. The picture shows a Vista PC with an XP desktop "on top" of the Vista desktop.

http://www.techiequest.com/pic/virtualpc2007-1 .jpg

[camioneur]

now that looks promising VHG, I'll try it on mine first

[VHG]

Couple of extra things about Virtual PC.

It does require a fairly powerful PC or laptop as you are running Vista, AND Virtual PC AND the second operating system.

Also you have to be careful about using the keyboard to operate the "second" operating system. Keyboard commands are slightly different dependng if you are working on the master operating system or the virtual one (the Virtual PC documentation explains it all).

Also you are sharing things like the CD and DVD drive between both operating systems, so if you insert a CD or DVD you have to make sure the right operating system is using it.

It sounds complicated but it isn't once you get used to it.

I used to do software testing using Virtual PC and we did the testing "inside" Virtual PC as it was a controlled environment.

Of course you can run other operating systems under Virtual PC such as Windows 98 or ME, and also Linux.

[VHG]

It is a bit late for your laptop now, but before playing around with partitions it is a good idea to take a complete "image" of your hard disk so your can recover it at a later date.

A product like Acronis True Image can take a complete "snapshot" of your hard disk and save it to another hard disk (maybe an external hard disk plugged into a USB port).

More here

http://www.acronis.co.uk/promo/ATIH/true-image -2009.html/?source=uk_google&ad=ati&gclid=CMjp __H195gCFQECGgodE14Klg

I have 2 hard disks inside my PC desktop.

After I have done a new "clean" install of Windows I use Acronis to save an image of the Windows hard disk to the second hard drive.

If at any point my main Windows hard drive gets a problem (virus or whatever) or I just want to "start again" I just use Acronis to restore a "new" version of Windows in place of the old one.

That way I can "reinstall" Windows in about 10 minutes.

As I said, bit late now as you have lost your recovery partition, but it is not too late to do a "backup" of your Vista partition in case something goes wrong.

[ACtheTROLL]

cam ... I thought you were such a clever boy ... knowing all about watts and things .... seems not

basically you've messed up big time
the only way out is get the manufacturer to send you a recovery disc that will recreate the mtce partition ...

the rebuild trigger is linked into a bios call ... and you can't recreate that link without the HP tool ...

if you continue the bodge and use acronis ... son in law is in breach of the oem guarantee ... so if hardware fails ... HP will see the maintenance partition is missing and won't repair. If they also find a gash copy of XP on there as well....

[camioneur]

AC - a number of things here, you don't know I'm a boy, mine is the HP, not the son in laws, and you have no idea that his Operating System is OEM.

Like you said last night...

'y know my last brain cell seems to have given up the ghost .... 'course I meant sp2 .... chuff

gob in gear ... let my foot slip off my clutch on reality and slip into my mouth!

[ACtheTROLL]

are you saying it's not oem ... or just that I don't know it is?

most bought laptops are... especially when there is a maintenance partition involved ... because the smaller operators don't generally use them - and the big suppliers .... all use oem

and if you intend to install XP - did you check that there are XP drivers available for that model - often if an OEM version is used there is an extra discount given if the manufacturer contracts not to provide drivers

so the original statement stands ... you've done it on yours - if you continue with the bodge on your sil's machine you invalidate the oem guarantee
(yours or son in law it's immaterial .. just read THE machine you do it on)

on a machine that is running an important piece of business software!!!

yep I screwed up that particular post you refer to...
nothing for me to do but admit it (then and now)... I didn't check before or after I hit the enter button. - so shoot me.
(I didn't try to claim a PC uses only 10w and I wasn't deleting a partition at the time either..)



>>>>Why can't I just leave things alone? (oh why oh why?)
however despite your mess - you are obviously in total control cam.
I'm just glad you didn't train as a surgeon
(I don't KNOW that either ... but I hope it's true)

happy fixing big man

[trish432]

Thanks for reply camioneur, my laptop is running ok too, at the moment.
It`s the same as yours, with recovery on D, but where it showed the files before is now just the vlc player traffic cone like symbol.
I`m worried that if laptop starts to go wrong that the recovery disc won`t work.

[ACtheTROLL]

two for two
good going cam