Problem cloning a HDD with 2 OS [Acronis]

[Jota.Ce]

Well, there's 15 new PCs in my education center.

I have profiled one, and the provider have to clone it to the other 14 computers.

He installed WinXP & Win7, and he has to install Edubuntu on it. So there's many partitions.

• One for Win7 boot manager [100MB] -> I seriously think this is not needed at all, but he insists it's the only way to put XP&7 in the same HDD.
  
• One for Win7 [100GB]
  
• One for WinXP [70GB]
  
• One for Linsux swap [5GB]
  
• One for Edubuntu [40GB]
  
• One for data [250GB]
  

He tried to clone a HDD with an Acronis Boot CD, it didn't worked since it didn't show any installed HDD (SATA). Then i told him to use my Hiren's BootCD v10.5 in USB, it worked.

BUT

When he tried to run WinXP, he got an error, and te same with Win7. An error about NTLDR in WinXP case. So he determined he needs to repair boot record.

But if he needs to repair it, then he should repair WinXP boot record, then Win7 boot record, then Edubuntu boot record for each 14 computers.

So...

• Is there any way to clone without problems?
  
• That 100MB partition is 100% needed? Can it be fixed now?
  

Thanks to all in advance ^_^

[Atasas]

http://pcsupport.abo...drmissingxp.htm

but as for Acronis.. dont play with no more- cant advice much

[toyo]

I don't know about the 100MB Win 7 partition - the first time I have seen it was when I have installed the OS on a SSD. It should be left alone and cloned together with the others.

As for Acronis, use the clone disk, not just partitions, so the whole HDD is processed. Cloning to different hardware requires the Plus pack, I think.

[Jota.Ce]

That 100MB partition is suposedly needed. The person who provided us with the computers told me he had to do that thing to install Win XP and Win7 in the same HDD (different partitions):

- making partition layout with Win7 disc.

- then installing WinXP in the 40GB partition..

- then installing Win7 in the 70GB partition.

Windows 7 refused to install when he made the partition layout with Acronis and one more partition tool. So he had to create the partitions with Win7 disk, and that's why there a 100MB partition (it contains files with "boot" string in their names).

---

Acronis was used to clone entire disc, not only partition layout, not only partition data. All disk, as-is. And it was cloned to another computer with identical hardware.

And we have 15 as i said. There's no much sense of losing boot records for 14 computers.

The curious thing is that it seems to lose the partition boot records, not the master boot record itself. The system selection screen appears, but when you choose an OS, then it fails (missing NTLDR in XP's case).