Windows 7 help

[mixx666]

I have three partitions from my 2x500gb drives that are in RAID 0. 1st one is a small partition of windows 2000. 2nd is Windows XP and the 3rd is most important, my storage drive. The third partition has all my videos, music, pictures and documents. What I would like to know is if I install 7, will I be able to access the storage drive ok? I am sure the answer is yes, but just want to make sure before I do anything.

Also just for future reference, is it possible to do the same thing with a 64bit version of 7 and still have access to any 32bit partitions on the drive?
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[ThunderRd]

There shouldn't be any problem accessing any of those partitions, but TBH keeping your important documents and things you really need to archive on a RAID 0 is really, really dangerous.

You are aware that if something goes wrong (and it can) with the RAID array, you will lose all data on all of those partitions? It becomes a big problem to retrieve it, if it can be retrieved at all.

Before you install a new OS it would be prudent to back up everything on your storage partition, so in case something goes wrong and you have to rebuild your RAID scheme nothing important is lost.

I am a big fan of RAID 0 (which really isn't RAID, actually) for its performance benefits but I have a regular backup routine and I'm religious about it. I also don't put any data on it that I can't afford to lose.

Where do you intend to install Windows 7? Maybe we can help you to work out a safer partitioning scheme.

[cw823]

Originally Posted by ThunderRd

There shouldn't be any problem accessing any of those partitions, but TBH keeping your important documents and things you really need to archive on a RAID 0 is really, really dangerous.

You are aware that if something goes wrong (and it can) with the RAID array, you will lose all data on all of those partitions? It becomes a big problem to retrieve it, if it can be retrieved at all.

QFT. What RAID are you using, by any chance is it Intel's Matrix Raid? Of course, you'd have to nuke your Win2K & WinXP installs, but that's for the best once you install Win7.

[mixx666]

Dont worry I back all my stuff up from the storage drive all the time. but when you have nearly 700gb of data it can take hours if not days to put that stuff back. I need another spare drive but cash is a little tight at the moment. Yes just using jmicron and intel drivers for the RAID 0 setup. I was going to place it on the second partition which is my windows xp folder and I am worried that it will corrupt or delete my boot.ini file on the 2000 partition
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[chrisbard]

We're talking about W7 which is the latest one. All your previous windows versions are safe and W7 will just add itself to the boot option. But I suggest you create another partition just for W7.

[ThunderRd]

Originally Posted by chrisbard

...W7 will just add itself to the boot option. But I suggest you create another partition just for W7.

Actually, that's nearly correct, but not quite. The Win 7 bootloader system is different from the ntldr/boot.ini system used by xp and w2k, and it must be in charge, so it adds the other OSes to itself.

As Chris says, creating another partition is almost surely the best way to do it, though. I've not personally done it with w2k but I'm sure others here have. If not, there are plenty of tutorials out there. A search revealed pages full of them...

[chrisbard]

BCDEDIT - Boot Configuration Data Store Editor

The Bcdedit.exe command-line tool modifies the boot configuration data store.
The boot configuration data store contains boot configuration parameters and
controls how the operating system is booted. These parameters were previously
in the Boot.ini file (in BIOS-based operating systems) or in the nonvolatile
RAM entries (in Extensible Firmware Interface-based operating systems). You can
use Bcdedit.exe to add, delete, edit, and append entries in the boot
configuration data store.

For detailed command and option information, type bcdedit.exe /? . For
example, to display detailed information about the /createstore command, type:

bcdedit.exe /? /createstore

For an alphabetical list of topics in this help file, run "bcdedit /? TOPICS".

Commands that operate on a store
================================
/createstore Creates a new and empty boot configuration data store.
/export Exports the contents of the system store to a file. This file
can be used later to restore the state of the system store.
/import Restores the state of the system store using a backup file
created with the /export command.
/sysstore Sets the system store device (only affects EFI systems, does
not persist across reboots, and is only used in cases where
the system store device is ambiguous).

Commands that operate on entries in a store
===========================================
/copy Makes copies of entries in the store.
/create Creates new entries in the store.
/delete Deletes entries from the store.
/mirror Creates mirror of entries in the store.

Run bcdedit /? ID for information about identifiers used by these commands.

Commands that operate on entry options
======================================
/deletevalue Deletes entry options from the store.
/set Sets entry option values in the store.

Run bcdedit /? TYPES for a list of datatypes used by these commands.
Run bcdedit /? FORMATS for a list of valid data formats.

Commands that control output
============================
/enum Lists entries in the store.
/v Command-line option that displays entry identifiers in full,
rather than using names for well-known identifiers.
Use /v by itself as a command to display entry identifiers
in full for the ACTIVE type.

Running "bcdedit" by itself is equivalent to running "bcdedit /enum ACTIVE".

Commands that control the boot manager
======================================
/bootsequence Sets the one-time boot sequence for the boot manager.
/default Sets the default entry that the boot manager will use.
/displayorder Sets the order in which the boot manager displays the
multiboot menu.
/timeout Sets the boot manager time-out value.
/toolsdisplayorder Sets the order in which the boot manager displays
the tools menu.

Commands that control Emergency Management Services for a boot application
================================================== ========================
/bootems Enables or disables Emergency Management Services
for a boot application.
/ems Enables or disables Emergency Management Services for an
operating system entry.
/emssettings Sets the global Emergency Management Services parameters.

Command that control debugging
==============================
/bootdebug Enables or disables boot debugging for a boot application.
/dbgsettings Sets the global debugger parameters.
/debug Enables or disables kernel debugging for an operating system
entry.
/hypervisorsettings Sets the hypervisor parameters.

[ThunderRd]

I used BCDEdit to make changes to the boot configuration when I tried Win 7, and it was easy and quite useful. When the license expired on the beta I was using, it allowed me to revert back to XP/ntldr/boot.ini with no trouble.

I forgot about that utility...