[congenic]

Hi,

I've run into some hardware problems coincidentally after going from Vista 32 bit (not upgrading, but clean install) to 7 Pro 64-bit.

My machine was backed up on my WHS with Vista 32-bit. ANd my machine has been backed up after 7 pro 64-bit.

I was thinking because I have this luxury that I can pop in my restore CD and go back in time and run Vista 32-bit on my machine again to quickly convince myself that it's a hardware issue and not a driver/software issue.

Afterwards, I would like to go to back to 7 pro 64 bit... Does anyone forsee any potential problems that I would be running into?

Thanks so much.

[John-D]

Since you did a clean install of Win7 it is likley a hidden (no drive letter assigned) 200mb WinRE/boot partition was created which is not used by Vista. The problem you will have is that the primary drive partition is now smaller (200mb worth) than when you backed-up Vista so the WHS Restore will likely fail.

If you reformat the drive back to a single MBR partition before the Vista Restore it should work. However, you will then have to recreate the 200mb partition before you try the Win7 Restore. There are a few threads on this forum that describe how to do this.

Note: there are various scenarios where the 200mg partition is not created ( http://www.mydigital...7-installation/ ), so you should check your system to be sure.

Bottom line, if you have the 200mb hidden partition you may be better off looking for 64-bit compatible drivers for the devices that are not working. The Win7 install should have identified these for you.

[congenic]

John-D, on 10 February 2010 - 03:08 PM, said:

Since you did a clean install of Win7 it is likley a hidden (no drive letter assigned) 200mb WinRE/boot partition was created which is not used by Vista. The problem you will have is that the primary drive partition is now smaller (200mb worth) than when you backed-up Vista so the WHS Restore will likely fail.

If you reformat the drive back to a single MBR partition before the Vista Restore it should work. However, you will then have to recreate the 200mb partition before you try the Win7 Restore. There are a few threads on this forum that describe how to do this.

Note: there are various scenarios where the 200mg partition is not created ( http://www.mydigital...7-installation/ ), so you should check your system to be sure.

Bottom line, if you have the 200mb hidden partition you may be better off looking for 64-bit compatible drivers for the devices that are not working. The Win7 install should have identified these for you.

Yikes, I'm glad I asked! Thanks for heads up. Let me look into this more closely. Gosh I was hoping i can switch between the two easily. I wonder why WHS restore CD/program doesnt automatically set up this 200mb partition to restore win 7... the entire point of whs was to make our lives easier after a catastrophic fail!

Will let you guysknow how things go.