56 replies to this topic

[iONik]

MY final question would be this. If I Hiren's bootCD then boot into TinyXP, can I run EasyBDC to make changes to the default boot OS?
I assume it will run, but am not sure.

[Michele13]

I Never tried. That would be awesome. If it runs. Open the file called "bcd" that you can find on your Hardisk: C:Bootbcd. you can also set a custom timeout so before bootmgr boots the default Operative System you can chose another os entry. This timeout is enabled only if there are more than one boot entry.

[Praise the LORD]

is windows7 bootmgr capable to load winxp.vhd which is non-contigious (fragmented), if so then this will helpfull.

[Michele13]

I'm not sure. Homeware EasyBCD is able to defragment the file before it adds it to the boot menu

[Praise the LORD]

can bootmgr mount and boot fragmenyed vhd ?
g4d cant mount fragmented .vhd without --mem
and its difficult to defragment large file
so if bootmgr can mount its very usefull

[gcapp99]

Thanks for this functional solution to a problem I had with an older ThinkPad. I had a drive fail and restored a cloned image to a different drive- WD Scorpio IDE. I'm not sure but I believe ThinkPads have a "whitelist" of drives that they'll work with. When I tried to boot up, the laptop would post then hang at a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner.

 

I tried all the usual fixes from the XP Pro install disc repair console. Lots of wasted time with no joy. Booted from a Hirens disk and found I could simply choose "Boot from Hard Drive" at the opening screen. I really don't know alot about Linux or how to install a bootloader, but I did know if I could boot the drive from Hirens there had to be a way to write similar instructions directly to the hard drive.

 

It took a couple of tries but I finally got it right; Your solution worked like magic on my ThinkPad.

 

Again, my thanks for your time & effort to figure it out and share it. 

[Sha0]

can bootmgr mount and boot fragmenyed vhd ?
g4d cant mount fragmented .vhd without --mem
and its difficult to defragment large file
so if bootmgr can mount its very usefull

That is one problem that Experimental NTBOOTDD.SYS tries to deal with. It doesn't care about fragmentation of the disk image file.