Complete drive image Mac, including windows.
It looks there are many..like me, that are still trying to keep their windows xp up and running in bootcamp.
I need it, because I still have some important apps that I can only run in windows xp.
Even more people are running into the "chkdsk" not running at windows boot, and, you can forget it to try to run it from windows itself...wind-hose.
And trying to use winclone, also fails.....many...many times.
Can't make a backup to fix, so, can't fix the backup, and, cannot fix the original.
After a couple of days of trying to survey the internet, with all kind of stuff like: make a bootable usb windows stick, that should boot
....but doesn't, and all kind of stupid ideas, I came up with the following:
In the past, I used to use winclone to make a backup of my windows xp partition. But, the partition should be intact, and not contain any errors, otherwise, it just won't copy.....wat happens a lot of times with winclone.
In the past, like many, the bootcamp partition was changed into ntfs, and there is were the real problem starts.
Windows will give chkdsk errors when used at startup, but you can't fix them, because you need to startup from an external windows cd that has the same service pack installed as what you are running. Now try this on a macbook-pro that has no cd drive.
External fails all the time as well.
Now, lets stop telling what does not work, and go to the solution.
I usually use ( not trying to make some advertisement for a product ) r-drive image in windows, to make images from important customer drives.
I have to do this on the windows (bootcamp) side, because they contain bootloaders etc. etc. and mac cannot do this.
Here we go......I thought.....lets try to make a copy to an external usb drive...using r-drive image.
Don't laugh...I imaged my entire drive. Mac and windows !!!!!!!!! I copied the entire drive.
Sure, it took a while to copy, but I managed to make a copy, that I then installed instead of my original internal macbook pro drive, and, everything worked.
Next, start your mac from the image you created, and connect your former original drive to a usb port.
You now, can fix the windows partition from the active windows on your mac. It will be as good as new, and, most important, you will have a full bootable drive of your complete system.
Yes...I noticed, the chkdsk at windows startup will still not run, but we know the drive is fine, because we fixed it.
Have fun, and use xp as long as you need it.
Marc
Macbook Pro 2,2
OsX 10.6.8
Bootcamp 3.0.4
Windows XP Pro SP3
