Windows8 is installed in my old Vista partition on Disk0. Disk1 is data and Disk2 is the SSD with my Windows7 (see picture below).

Whenever I boot into Windows8 (via the BIOS boot sequence), I end up with one or more of the other partitions mucked up. And I am not doing anything in those partitions from the Win8 side.

When I then boot back into Wun7, it wants to do a chkdsk for one or several partitions. When I let that go, I get a real mess. So I now stop it each time. A couple of times I lost a whole partition (was no more accessible). Last was the X partition which is really empty and hardly ever used.

Does anybody have a clue what could be happening here. I really do not fancy rebuilding and restoring those partitions. One time the Win8 partition itself was mucked up and I had to reinstall it (because I could not get any imaging program to work yet, so I had no images).

Originally Posted by whs

Windows8 is installed in my old Vista partition on Disk0. Disk1 is data and Disk2 is the SSD with my Windows7 (see picture below).

Whenever I boot into Windows8 (via the BIOS boot sequence), I end up with one or more of the other partitions mucked up. And I am not doing anything in those partitions from the Win8 side.

When I then boot back into Wun7, it wants to do a chkdsk for one or several partitions. When I let that go, I get a real mess. So I now stop it each time. A couple of times I lost a whole partition (was no more accessible). Last was the X partition which is really empty and hardly ever used.

Does anybody have a clue what could be happening here. I really do not fancy rebuilding and restoring those partitions. One time the Win8 partition itself was mucked up and I had to reinstall it (because I could not get any imaging program to work yet, so I had no images).

Hi there

Before installing W8 you should have taken partition images of all your partitions so you could restore them in the event of this type of scenario.

Remember this version of W8 is presumably pre beta software or even pre alpha so ANYTHING could happen.

These days it doesn't take long to do this operation.

Also as another safety precaution - set the partitions you DON'T want W8 to have access to or even see to "Hidden".

(Don't forget to unhide these again when reverting back to W7).

Use any decent stand alone partition management tool to perform this operation such as GPARTED or equivalent.


Acronis (paid for) or Macrium should work for imaging. For W8 run these in "Stand alone mode" -- I.E boot from bootable recovery media (including USB sticks) - these type of packages give you the facility to create bootable recovery media which contain both BACKUP and RESTORE facilities on them.

IMO if one is testing and developing this type of Software the small cost of a robust backup / recovery program will be TINY compared to the amount of time you will spend if you have to re-create / re-install apps and recover your data.

Honestly the 65 or so USD you spend for a GOOD solid recovery program will be one of the best investments in computer software you are ever likely to make.

Cheers
jimbo

I am not getting that on my system - weird.

I tried a couple of imaging apps.

TODO installs and works great.

Paragon refuses to run - unidentified o/s it says .

Macrium doesn't have a clue and loads up the mounted devices from the first o/s it finds - pretty inconvenient.

Haven't tried Acronis.

Thanks guys. I have images of everything (except the Win8 partition). So restoring the stuff is always possible. But it is a pain. Every time I boot into Win8 it destroys one or more of the other partitions. I think it has something to do with the security settings. But I wonder why Win8 touches partitions that do not get accessed by me via Win8.

In the meantime I have erased Win8. Will try my luck with vBox - where I first had difficulties too. But I will figure it out. Too bad that there seem to be no guest additions.

This is a good time to use a separate HDD. Unplug all other hard drives, plug in another HDD for Win8 and install there. After you're done, plug the other drives back in. You will have to change Hard drive boot priority to get in and out of the Win8 system - not so bad if you know your motherboard's keyboard shortcut for this at boot. Worth doing so this buggy Win8 Preview doesn't muck with your other drives. It's worked well for me.

Possible, the partition table's getting screwed somehow (how? don't know). Maybe you can try a fix mbr after booting into 8.

debugged, thanks for the tips. I did install on a seperate HDD (into my former Vista partition) and change the boot sequence with the BIOS. Disconnecting the other disks would be nice, but on one HDD the plugs are "frozen". And since those cheap Dells do not even have disk bays (disks are bolted to the chassis), I cannot even get at it with tools.

Bill2, I might try that. Thanks. I will probably use the bootable Partition Wizard CD.

Hi, did you try installing in VHD instead of partitions? Here you have a great tutorial.
Windows 8 VHD - Create at Boot to Dual Boot with

Thanks jygoro. I'll have a look.