![:)](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png)
In Vista I partitioned and formatted a brand new 120 GB USB LaCie HD to test Windows 7 USB install on it as per karyonix tutorial.
I created three primary NTFS partitions WIP (20GB), ONE (16GB), TWO (16GB) plus two logical partitions in the extended partition, BACK1 (20GB FAT32) and BACK2 (48GB NTFS).
I used WIP to install Windows 7 on a VHD, ONE and TWO to host two clones of the VHD content which I subsequently personalised with the drivers of two different notebooks, and BACK2 as a backup of WIP.
To enable booting from ONE and TWO I had to fix the MBR created by Vista on the USB HD to make it Windows7 compatible.
I used MBRFix.exe /drive 1 fixmbr /win7. Everything OK.
![;)](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.png)
The way I used this USB HD was:
On Disk Management in the Vista PC marked ONE as active, then successfully rebooted from USB in Windows 7.
On Disk Management in the Vista PC marked TWO as active, then plugged the USB HD to another (WinXP) notebook and booted from USB in Windows 7 there.
Everything worked well till when, working on the WinXP notebook, I used its Disk Management to mark ONE as active to prepare the USB HD to boot the Vista notebook in Windows 7.
At that point all of a sudden BACK2 disappeared and lost everything was in there.
![:clap:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/clap.gif)
I then replugged the USB HD to the Vista notebook to recreate BACK2 and its content but its Disk Management lost also ONE and BACK1.
![:cheers:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)
I've therefore been obliged to recreate the lost partitions, but Disk Management refused to format them (both the primary and the extended) with an error message.
![:clap:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/clap.gif)
Besides completely reformatting the whole USB disk, which I can't do before backing up WIP and TWO (and don't have other disk space available right now), I wonder whether something can be done to try and recover what remains of my work.
Is this another known Vista/XP incompatibility?
![:)](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png)
edborg