Re: partitioning and use thereof

On 10/8/2021 7:50 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 10/8/21 4:56 PM, Paul wrote:
>> It would be near impossible to do that on GPT, because the installer has "weed-like" behavior then.
> Ah.  So the difference is how Windows installer works with PC/BIOS/DOS partition tables vs GPT partition tables.  That makes sense.  If memory serves, I think that GPT became the default with Windows Vista.
> 
>> To do it on GPT, requires a sacrificial install and some cloning-over. Which is cheating, but might still be do-able. The above procedure was more straight-forward.
> 
> I don't know if it's cheating per se, or if it's just outsmarting Windows and making it do what you want it to do.
> 
> Aside:  I wonder what the fixboot / fixmbr commands would do after such a clone.

Fixboot/fixmbr are WinXP utilities.

They no longer exist in Vista+.

There are other utilities now.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/use-bootrec-exe-in-the-windows-re-to-troubleshoot-startup-issues-902ebb04-daa3-4f90-579f-0fbf51f7dd5d

    bootrec /FixMbr /FixBoot /RebuildBcd

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdboot-command-line-options-techref-di

There was some other command that could put a selected
version of the boot loader back. And you could control
whether a WinXP one, or a Vista+ one was used. But I
never got that to work properly when I tested.

I just use a Macrium Reflect Free emergency boot CD and
its "boot repair", to stitch together things. I haven't tested
whether it can put an intelligent 440 byte boot loader on the
MBR or not. Normally, just a few GUIDs need to be corrected,
and the "boot repair" does that for me. What it should not be
doing, is putting any necessary files back. If missing files
prevent boot, it's not intended to fix that.

You can't be too careless with multiboots, because you
might inadvertently replace the Linux MBR boot loader with
the Windows one. That's why I'm not "fixmbr" all that often
these days :-) "Measure twice, cut once" :-)

    Paul