multi boot on vista

Put simply, Vista is placing partitions on the hard drive using different starting and ending positions from the recognised conventions. This means that when most other partition altering applications are used they are likely to re-align the partition during operations to the default norms, which can change both the starting and ending sectors of that partition. This causes a problem because Vista uses the starting sector value (the offset) in its boot process, so a re-aligned Vista OS will not boot. (See Vista's Boot Files).

 

If you only have Vista on your computer and don’t mess with imaging or cloning then you have nothing to worry about. However if you do image or clone your drive or have a dual or multiboot configuration with OSes other than Vista, then there are various serious problems that can arise. For now the best solution is to not let Vista create partitions, but do it with previous Windows OSes or with third-party tools. When installing Vista you should create the partition yourself beforehand and point the Vista install to that partition. Vista is perfectly happy to follow the standard conventions and I have not seen any issues when everything has been done by the old rules using XP compatible tools. Many current apps that worked with XP can be used with Vista, however many might not install inside Vista but they can be used from inside another OS or boot disk. When there have not been any Vista created partitions on the drives I have successfully used several non-Vista versions of partitioning, imaging and cloning tools. I obviously can’t test all the functions of all such apps in all possible OS, drive and hardware combinations, so test your own apps on your own setup before relying on them. There are of course issues with the BCD store and the Disk Signature when imaging and cloning, but these are not always related to partition structure and are dealt with on other pages of this site.

 

 

References:

 

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html