Seperate, independent, xp paritions & registries: I need help.

[optofonik]

Wow, this was so easy before XP. I recently read Dan Goodell's fine piece on multibooting but I'm still having proplems. The last attempt went something like this:

Create two partions with Partitionmagic boot disks, a FAT primary at the beginning of unallocated space labeled "C" and a logical NTFS at the end labeled "DATA".

I install xp on the "C" partition to create a foundation install that has the drivers and applications (Partitionmagic being one of them so I can switch active partitions without a boot manager - tedious, I know, but it has worked in the past) that will be common for three separate XP environments: audio recording and editing, video editing, and graphic design.

Boot from Diskimage boot disks, create an image of my XP install, then save that image on the "DATA" partition.

Reboot from the Partitionmagic boot disks, delete the "C" partition.

Reboot from Diskimage boot disks and restore the XP partition at the beginning of the unallocated space.

I reboot from Partitionmagic boot disks then convert the restored partition to NTFS and resize to one third of the unallocated space. I do this three times and label the partitions accordingly and in this order: Audio, Video, Graphics and the "Data" partition is left as is.

Now, I reboot from Partitionmagic boot disks and hide the partitions I will not be working on, setting only the video partition active thinking I now have three seperate independent partitions whose registries are hidden from each other.

I begin installing some basic disk burning software and do a test burn that works.

At this time I think it may be a good idea to test the independence of the registries so I open Partitionmagic, set the "Graphics" partition as active and reboot when prompted.

I begin to install an AV program I have used before (which will remain nameless) with no problems. When prompted to register it tries to connect to the internet (hardwired) and the connection fails.

I check my other computers, wireless and hardwired connections, and they connect with no problems.

Back on the new computer I switch back to the "Video" partition and encounter the same problem.

Just to be sure I set the "Audio" partition active and it too is unable to connect. I then I check the "Audio" partition registry with CCleaner and find entries for the AV software AND the disk burning software.

WTF.

I'm lost and I don't get lost easy. I'm not a professional IT person by any stretch but I thought I knew my way around what I consider an intermediate skill level installation. Multi-booting has been around for awhile, its not very esoteric these days, and I've been multi-booting since before XP.

I need help.

 

[optofonik]

No one?

 

[sturm]

You are making things too hard on yourself.
Easiest way to do this is to wipe the drive clean. Install xp 3 times on 3 different partitions. Each install will use its own registry. Only thing you may have to watch is if each install makes the C: drive the main drive for each install or not.
You can edit the boot.ini file to name each install what you want.
Make sure that if you have a program that each install will use to install it separately for each OS. Don't install it to the same place 3 times. Although this might work for some programs.

 

[optofonik]

The reason all this started is that I have several old programs that I use, no longer available but still part of my workflow, that insist on installing on the "c:" drive.

All my common apps are part of the "starter" partition, ie., once all my common apps are installed I make a drive image that I will use as the basis for all three partitions. Since inactive partitions will be hidden the active partition will always be "c:". There should be no way for any subsequent installations to write to the registry of an inactive, hidden, partition but in XP this is what happens. If I install an app to the active partition it writes info to the hidden partitions which means XP isn't actually hiding the inactive "hidden" partitions.

I'm mystified.

 

[sturm]

Something in the process you are doing is messing things up.
I now have a dual boot on two systems. Each os makes the drive it is running off of the C: drive. The other partitions are different letters. So anything that is written to C: will only goto the active OS drive and not the others.
There is no need to use partition magic or anything else.

 

[optofonik]

Removable hard drives have solved my problem so simply I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Why bother with separate partitions and boot loaders and all that other crud? A caddy and dock is only about 20 bucks and a 320 gig hard drive for the OS only is 50 bucks - my music, photo and video data each remain on their own dedicated drives. So simple. Wow. More time being a musician and less time being an IT guy - there's a thought.