Trouble cloning XP with Ghost 2003

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
Rod Speed wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote
Bob Davis wrote

This is very interesting. For years I've heard that you
can't/shouldn't have a clone of XP running together with
the normal boot drive housing the OS, although I've booted
many times with a clone attached with no adverse effects.

What you've said hear makes it more clear that if booted
with a new clone with the original boot drive attached, as
described above, the OS may think the old drive is the
boot device since the ID matches. However, after the new
drive is booted, new hardware installed, and the drive's ID
established as the proper boot device, all is well. Thus,
once this first boot with a new copy is accomplished without
the original attached, this original can be subsequently run
in the system with no ill effects.

It's more complicated than that.

Nope, he's right on the reason it gets its tiny little 'brain' scambled.

Bob Davis said:
"you can't/shouldn't have a clone of XP running together with
the normal boot drive housing the OS, although I've booted
many times with a clone attached with no adverse effects."

Sure, I was just commenting on the last bit of his, not that bit.

I should have said that more carefully.

One can certainly continue to boot the old OS with the new OS
in the system and visible to the old OS - and do it indefinitely -
with no advers effects. The problem arises when the new OS
(the clone) is booted for the 1st time and the old OS (the "parent")
is visible to it during that 1st boot. IOW, it's when the clone
is loaded and started for the 1st time that is critical, not just
being visible as a file structure (as it would be if the "parent"
were always the OS that was booted). This you and I know,
but it was not what the OP wrote.

Correct.

The "proper boot device" is established by the BIOS's boot sequence and the
"active" partition on the 1st HD in that boot sequence, not by having
successfully booted for the 1st time in isolation.

Thats just plain wrong with the boot after XP has got involved in the boot.

This was a comment on the term "proper boot device".
The "boot device" is, indeed, established by the boot
order in the BIOS and the 1st device in that order that
is capable of booting.

Not once XP gets involved in the boot. THEN it gets
complicated if you boot the clone with the original
still visible to XP in the first boot after the cloning.

In the case of hard drives, the "active" partition on the selected HD is
expected to have a boot sector and the files boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com,and
perhaps others.

Only if the OS is of the NT/2K/XP family.

The boot.ini contains the menu of partitions from which ntldr is to load
the OS from. In a clone, the boot.ini will be exactly as it was in the
"parent", and when booted in isolation, the clone will behave exactly
like the parent did because its boot.ini is exactly like its
"parent's" boot.ini .

Doesnt explain how XP gets royally confused on the
first boot after a clone has been made, with the original
still visible to XP, so you cant physically unplug the
original later and still have it boot properly. Essentially
because that boot involves the original drive and it goes
flat on its face if you remove the original later coz its gone.

Presumably, the "parent's" boot.ini had as a default an instruction like
"boot from the 1st HD in the boot order, and look in its 1st partition for the
OS". This boot.ini would be coded something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windo ws XP" /fastdetect

This says that the only optional OS is the same as the default,
and both are to be found on the 1st HD in the HD boot order
(i.e. at relative position 0), and the OS is in the 1st partition of
that HD. Since the timeout is set to 0, no menu will appear
on the screen and ntldr will attempt to load the default OS.

In fact a default install with only a single OS on the
physical drive gets a timeout=30 and you dont see
any menu at all, it just boots the only OS listed.

Now if you have multiple clones in multiple HDs, such as I have, you can
have the boot.ini file in partition 2 of HD 1 specify the OS in partition 4 of
HD 3 to load. IOW, the boot.ini doesn't have to be in the partition that
contains the OS. It can specify *any* partition on *any* HD in the system.

Sure.

If your story was correct, you wouldnt be able to boot the clone
by ensuring that the original wasnt visible on the first boot after
the clone, and be able to plug the original back in again after
XP has claimed to detect new hardware and been allowed to
reboot, and have it still boot off the clone entirely in the sense
that you can unplug the original again and have it still boot fine.

A clone booted for the 1st time with the "parent" in view
continues to function (in my experience), but it needs the
continued presence of its "parent" to do so.

Not if the original isnt visible on the first boot of the clone.

Of course! That's the point of the entire discussion.

But not with your comments about that being a deliberate
attempt by MS to prevent cloning of a physical drive.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
"Rod Speed" wrote:
"Bob Davis" wrote:
.........if booted with a new clone with
the original boot drive attached, as described above,
the OS may think the old drive is the boot device since
the ID matches. However, after the new drive is booted,
new hardware installed, and the drive's ID established
as the proper boot device, all is well. Thus, once this
first boot with a new copy is accomplished without the
original attached, this original can be subsequently run
in the system with no ill effects.


Ignoring the term "proper boot device", and assuming
that the "new hardware installed" is the new HD itself,
it doesn't explain what causes the apparent "binding"
of the 2 OSes if the clone sees the "parent" on 1st boot.

In trying that very scenario, I got inconsistent results, but
on one occasion, I found that the clone that had been
started for the 1st time with the "parent" visible had its
My Documents folder pointing to files in its "parent".

That doesnt really make much sense, the english doesnt.

Wanna try that again ?

The clone ran OK, but if I removed the "parent", I
could no longer access the files in My Documents.
At that point, I concluded that Rod Speed's warning
about not starting the clone for the 1st time in the
presence of its "parent" had some truth. But neither
of us knows what the mechanism is that causes it and
how making the "parent" absent avoids it.

Wrong. The reason it works if the original isnt visible on the
first boot of the clone is because XP detects a change to the
hardware, claims it sees new hardware, asks for a reboot
to allow the changes it makes on the clone to take effect,
and that ensures that the files on the original a no longer
involved in the boot of the clone and so you can safely
physically remove the original drive and the boot of the
clone will still work fine.

"Rod Speed" wrote:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
Ignoring the term "proper boot device", and assuming
that the "new hardware installed" is the new HD itself,
it doesn't explain what causes the apparent "binding"
of the 2 OSes if the clone sees the "parent" on 1st boot.

In trying that very scenario, I got inconsistent results, but
on one occasion, I found that the clone that had been
started for the 1st time with the "parent" visible had its
My Documents folder pointing to files in its "parent".

That doesnt really make much sense, the english doesnt.

Wanna try that again ?


When I accessed the files in My Documents of the clone
system, I was actually accessing the files in the "parent"
system. IOW, My Documents was not a folder in the clone,
it was a pointer (or the equivalent thereof) to a folder in the
"parent" system. When I modified files in the My Documents
folder of the clone, I noticed that the corresponding files in
the My Documents folder of the "parent" system had been
changed. That is an example of what I refer to as the clone
"setting its pointers to point to files in the parent". Then, when
I removed the "parent" system (by shutting down, removing
the power to the "parent" HD, and booting up the clone again),
the files that had been in the clone's My Documents folder
were gone. Now I was upset by that, and all I could think was
"that friggin' Rod Speed was right!". And then I wiped out the
clone and remade it, started it up in isolation, checked
My Documents for its contents, modified a file, then shut down,
reconnected the "parent" HD, and booted up the clone again
with the "parent" visible to it, and checked the modified file in
the clone (it was still modified) and checked the corresponding
file in the "parent" (it was unmodified) - all as you'd expect.
And then I muttered again, "that frigging' Rod Speed was right!".
I must admit that I did not do that investigation slowly and
carefully. But it was enough to convince me that the procedure
of isolating the clone at its 1st startup was a Good Thing.


The clone ran OK, but if I removed the "parent", I
could no longer access the files in My Documents.
At that point, I concluded that Rod Speed's warning
about not starting the clone for the 1st time in the
presence of its "parent" had some truth. But neither
of us knows what the mechanism is that causes it and
how making the "parent" absent avoids it.

Wrong. The reason it works if the original isnt visible on the
first boot of the clone is because XP detects a change to the
hardware, claims it sees new hardware, asks for a reboot
to allow the changes it makes on the clone to take effect,
and that ensures that the files on the original a no longer
involved in the boot of the clone and so you can safely
physically remove the original drive and the boot of the
clone will still work fine.


That's not what I do. I remove the original drive BEFORE
I start up the clone system. And that is what you appeared
to have been saying for the past couple of years. Are you
actually now saying that you leave the original connected
when you start up the clone for the 1st time?

BTW, the hardware detection phase for WinNT, Win2K and
WinXP occurs in NTDETECT.COM, one of the files below
the root of the system partition. Since that partition needn't
contain the OS that is loaded by ntldr, it's not actually part of
Windows XP per se, but it is used by ntldr so that ntldr can
tell ntoskrnl.exe what hardware is present. And it is ntoskrnl.exe
that is part of the boot partition, i.e. the partition that contains the
operating system to be loaded by ntldr, so by the time that WinXP
(or WinNT or Win2K) are started, the hardware detection has
been completed. My guess is that ntoskrnl.exe, using information
from NTDETECT.COM, does the bad stuff to the clone.

*TimDaniels*

"Rod Speed" wrote:
Timothy Daniels wrote:
This was a comment on the term "proper boot device".
The "boot device" is, indeed, established by the boot
order in the BIOS and the 1st device in that order that
is capable of booting.

Not once XP gets involved in the boot. THEN it gets
complicated if you boot the clone with the original
still visible to XP in the first boot after the cloning.


Yes. The above comment was not an explanation of
how the clone gets bolloxed, but merely an explanation
on how the "boot device" is chosen.


In the case of hard drives, the "active" partition on the
selected HD is expected to have a boot sector and the
files boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com,and perhaps others.

Only if the OS is of the NT/2K/XP family.


Yes, and I believe only that family experiences the
phonomenon of bolloxed clones when the clones
are started up for the 1st with the "parent" OS
visible to it.


The boot.ini contains the menu of partitions from which
ntldr is to load the OS from. In a clone, the boot.ini will be
exactly as it was in the "parent", and when booted in isolation,
the clone will behave exactly like the parent did because its
boot.ini is exactly like its "parent's" boot.ini .

Doesnt explain how XP gets royally confused on the
first boot after a clone has been made, with the original
still visible to XP, so you cant physically unplug the
original later and still have it boot properly. Essentially
because that boot involves the original drive and it goes
flat on its face if you remove the original later coz its gone.


It wasn't meant to be an explanation of how the clone
"gets confused". It's an explanation of why the clone
can boot up at all when the "parent" is absent.

*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
Rod Speed wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote

Ignoring the term "proper boot device", and assuming
that the "new hardware installed" is the new HD itself,
it doesn't explain what causes the apparent "binding"
of the 2 OSes if the clone sees the "parent" on 1st boot.

In trying that very scenario, I got inconsistent results, but
on one occasion, I found that the clone that had been
started for the 1st time with the "parent" visible had its
My Documents folder pointing to files in its "parent".

That doesnt really make much sense, the english doesnt.

Wanna try that again ?

When I accessed the files in My Documents of the clone
system, I was actually accessing the files in the "parent"
system. IOW, My Documents was not a folder in the clone,
it was a pointer (or the equivalent thereof) to a folder in the
"parent" system. When I modified files in the My Documents
folder of the clone, I noticed that the corresponding files in
the My Documents folder of the "parent" system had been
changed. That is an example of what I refer to as the clone
"setting its pointers to point to files in the parent". Then, when
I removed the "parent" system (by shutting down, removing
the power to the "parent" HD, and booting up the clone again),
the files that had been in the clone's My Documents folder
were gone.

OK, thats what I thought you meant. I might try it and see.

Now I was upset by that, and all I could think was"that friggin' Rod Speed
was right!".

I NEVER frig and I never do that in the riggin either.

And then I wiped out the clone and remade it, started it up in isolation,
checked My Documents for its contents, modified a file, then shut down,
reconnected the "parent" HD, and booted up the clone again
with the "parent" visible to it, and checked the modified file in
the clone (it was still modified) and checked the corresponding
file in the "parent" (it was unmodified) - all as you'd expect.
And then I muttered again, "that frigging' Rod Speed was right!".
I must admit that I did not do that investigation slowly and
carefully. But it was enough to convince me that the procedure
of isolating the clone at its 1st startup was a Good Thing.

Yeah, I might check what XP actually does to the clone
drive when it claims to detect new hardware when you
boot with the original not visible and allow it to reboot.

The clone ran OK, but if I removed the "parent", I
could no longer access the files in My Documents.
At that point, I concluded that Rod Speed's warning
about not starting the clone for the 1st time in the
presence of its "parent" had some truth. But neither
of us knows what the mechanism is that causes it and
how making the "parent" absent avoids it.

Wrong. The reason it works if the original isnt visible on the
first boot of the clone is because XP detects a change to the
hardware, claims it sees new hardware, asks for a reboot
to allow the changes it makes on the clone to take effect,
and that ensures that the files on the original are no longer
involved in the boot of the clone and so you can safely
physically remove the original drive and the boot of the
clone will still work fine.

That's not what I do. I remove the original drive BEFORE I start up the
clone system.

Thats what I was saying there, tho the
sentance is a tad long and complicated.

And that is what you appeared to have been saying for the past couple of
years. Are you actually now saying that you leave the original connected
when you start up the clone for the 1st time?

Nope, the exact opposite of that. What you say there
I have been saying for the past couple of years, again.

BTW, the hardware detection phase for WinNT, Win2K and
WinXP occurs in NTDETECT.COM, one of the files below
the root of the system partition. Since that partition needn't
contain the OS that is loaded by ntldr, it's not actually part of
Windows XP per se, but it is used by ntldr so that ntldr can
tell ntoskrnl.exe what hardware is present. And it is ntoskrnl.exe
that is part of the boot partition, i.e. the partition that contains the
operating system to be loaded by ntldr, so by the time that WinXP
(or WinNT or Win2K) are started, the hardware detection has
been completed. My guess is that ntoskrnl.exe, using information
from NTDETECT.COM, does the bad stuff to the clone.

Could be.

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 22:47:16 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
Ignoring the term "proper boot device", and assuming
that the "new hardware installed" is the new HD itself,
it doesn't explain what causes the apparent "binding"
of the 2 OSes if the clone sees the "parent" on 1st boot.

In trying that very scenario, I got inconsistent results, but
on one occasion, I found that the clone that had been
started for the 1st time with the "parent" visible had its
My Documents folder pointing to files in its "parent".

That doesnt really make much sense, the english doesnt.

Wanna try that again ?


When I accessed the files in My Documents of the clone
system, I was actually accessing the files in the "parent"
system. IOW, My Documents was not a folder in the clone,
it was a pointer (or the equivalent thereof) to a folder in the
"parent" system. When I modified files in the My Documents
folder of the clone, I noticed that the corresponding files in
the My Documents folder of the "parent" system had been
changed. That is an example of what I refer to as the clone
"setting its pointers to point to files in the parent". Then, when
I removed the "parent" system (by shutting down, removing
the power to the "parent" HD, and booting up the clone again),
the files that had been in the clone's My Documents folder
were gone. Now I was upset by that, and all I could think was
"that friggin' Rod Speed was right!". And then I wiped out the
clone and remade it, started it up in isolation, checked
My Documents for its contents, modified a file, then shut down,
reconnected the "parent" HD, and booted up the clone again
with the "parent" visible to it, and checked the modified file in
the clone (it was still modified) and checked the corresponding
file in the "parent" (it was unmodified) - all as you'd expect.
And then I muttered again, "that frigging' Rod Speed was right!".
I must admit that I did not do that investigation slowly and
carefully. But it was enough to convince me that the procedure
of isolating the clone at its 1st startup was a Good Thing.


The clone ran OK, but if I removed the "parent", I
could no longer access the files in My Documents.
At that point, I concluded that Rod Speed's warning
about not starting the clone for the 1st time in the
presence of its "parent" had some truth. But neither
of us knows what the mechanism is that causes it and
how making the "parent" absent avoids it.

Wrong. The reason it works if the original isnt visible on the
first boot of the clone is because XP detects a change to the
hardware, claims it sees new hardware, asks for a reboot
to allow the changes it makes on the clone to take effect,
and that ensures that the files on the original a no longer
involved in the boot of the clone and so you can safely
physically remove the original drive and the boot of the
clone will still work fine.


That's not what I do. I remove the original drive BEFORE
I start up the clone system. And that is what you appeared
to have been saying for the past couple of years. Are you
actually now saying that you leave the original connected
when you start up the clone for the 1st time?

BTW, the hardware detection phase for WinNT, Win2K and
WinXP occurs in NTDETECT.COM, one of the files below
the root of the system partition. Since that partition needn't
contain the OS that is loaded by ntldr, it's not actually part of
Windows XP per se, but it is used by ntldr so that ntldr can
tell ntoskrnl.exe what hardware is present. And it is ntoskrnl.exe
that is part of the boot partition, i.e. the partition that contains the
operating system to be loaded by ntldr, so by the time that WinXP
(or WinNT or Win2K) are started, the hardware detection has
been completed. My guess is that ntoskrnl.exe, using information
from NTDETECT.COM, does the bad stuff to the clone.

Since you're interested in getting to the bottom of this conundrum,
let me suggest the following course of action:
1. Make the clone.
2. Save the MBR of the clone drive using the DOS version of MBRWizard
http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/asm/mbr/BootToolsRefs.htm#TOOLS.
3. Boot from the old disk with the clone drive attached.
4. Save the MBR of the clone drive again, and compare the Disk
Signatures
http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm.
The Disk Signature of the clone has been changed, because Windows
cannot operate with two identical drives.
5. Boot from the clone with the old disk attached, and run Disk
Management to see where the Page File is located. The old disk remains
as drive C:, and the Page File is on the old disk, because the
registry points to drive C:.
6. Remove the old disk and boot from the clone. You may get a "cannot
create Page File" error, or it just won't boot, because the Disk
Signature in the MBR does not match the ones in the registry.
7. Using the DOS version of MBRWizard restore the original MBR to the
clone disk, and boot from the clone disk without the old disk
attached. It boots okay and runs as C:.


*TimDaniels*

Where did you come from 24hoursupport.helpdesk?? 207 lines and you
don't say anything/

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
"Bob Davis" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
"Bob Davis" wrote:
"Rod Speed" wrote :
You basically have to unplug the original drive for the first
boot after the drive has been cloned and boot off the copy.

XP will claim to have detected new hardware and ask to
be allowed to reboot. Once you have allowed that, you
can put the original drive back in the system if you want,
if you say want to use it for video capture etc.

If XP can see both the original and the copy during
the first boot after the original has been cloned, it
gets seriously confused, even if you boot off the
copy and it uses files off the original for the boot.

This is very interesting. For years I've heard that you
can't/shouldn't have a clone of XP running together with
the normal boot drive housing the OS, although I've booted
many times with a clone attached with no adverse effects.

What you've said hear makes it more clear that if booted
with a new clone with the original boot drive attached, as
described above, the OS may think the old drive is the
boot device since the ID matches. However, after the new
drive is booted, new hardware installed, and the drive's ID
established as the proper boot device, all is well. Thus,
once this first boot with a new copy is accomplished without
the original attached, this original can be subsequently run
in the system with no ill effects.


It's more complicated than that. The "proper boot device"
is established by the BIOS's boot sequence and the
"active" partition on the 1st HD in that boot sequence, not
by having successfully booted for the 1st time in isolation.
A clone booted for the 1st time with the "parent" in view
continues to function (in my experience), but it needs the
continued presence of its "parent" to do so. This seems
to be a feature added my Microsoft to thwart copying of
it OSes, starting with the WinNT/Win2K/WinXP family of
OSes.

I've booted XP successfully with a clone in the mobile rack,
marked by XP as drive G:, both with SATA and PATA drives
as the main boot device. The reason I'm apparently avoiding
trouble is that I always boot with C: (system) as the drive that
made the clone (G. The actual cloned drive (G is never used
to boot from.


Yes.


I assume, therefore, that the crux of the issue is to make sure
the new clone isn't the new C: and the "parent" (source of the clone)
isn't in the system when booted.


I'm not sure what "the issue" is, but the crux of cloning a
system and assuring that the clone will be bootable in the
future alone (such as when it is used as a replacement for
a failed hard disk) is to boot it alone when it is booted for
the 1st time. Note that "booted" does not mean "recognized
and included in part of the system as a file structure". "Booted"
here means having a Master Boot Record that takes control
from the BIOS and which then passes control on to the boot
sector of the "active" partition where the ntldr program loads
the system that resides there. If the old system was drive C:,
the clone system will also call itself C: if it is loaded. As drive
C: it will find and name other drives in the system with other
letters. The old Local Disk C: may become Local Disk D:,
but as long as no shortcuts in the loaded system refer drive
letters other than C:, it doesn't matter.


With my old Win98SE machine I cloned C: to D: once per week
and left D: in the system at all times. It would then seem that you
could still do this with XP since the hardware configuration will
not have changed. Does this make sense?

No. Under WinXP, you can do this with no problem as long
as the new OS (the one in drive D hasn't been loaded and
started. You can start up the old OS all you want, and it can
see the files in drive D: with no problem. The problem appears
when the new clone OS in drive D: is started up with the old
OS in drive C: visible to it. Somehow the new clone recognizes
its "parent" and that it's a "child" in this world. But if it
starts up
in isolation for the 1st time that it's started, it decides it's
a
different beast and becomes an "adult".

This is a bit confusing. By this description, my situation should be
problematic (see above), but I've never had a problem.


No. In your system, you start up the cloned system, not the clone
system. The clone system does not "boot" - it merely sits there
and becomes part of the old cloned system as an added file structure
in the form of another "Local Disk".


If the drive in the mobile rack (clone) is in the system, it will boot
as any other drive attached to the system unless it is the first time
the OS has seen that particular device, in which case XP sees it
as new hardware and "installs" it. From then on, even after a new
cloning, XP sees that drive as G: and the system boots normally.


You misunderstand the term "boot". "Boot" does not mean
being included in a loaded system as another Local Disk having
an accessible file structure (e.g. D: drive). "Boot" means to "load
itself in stages, starting from practically nothing". A "booted"
system is a system which has loaded itself, starting with the exe-
cution of its own partition's boot sector. A "booted" hard drive is
a hard drive which has had control passed to its Master Boot
Record by the BIOS and which in turn passes control to the boot
sector of the its "active" partition. Since this "active" partition's
boot.ini file might designate that its ntldr program load a system
on some other partition on any hard drive in the system, the loading
of that system is not "booting" per se, but its loading is part of the
process which began with "booting", so sloppy terminology includes
that loading as part of the "boot" process - which began with the
CPU passing control to the BIOS when the CPU felt the power
come on. Since the clone system (e.g. D: drive) does not get
loaded nor partiticipate in the boot process in your scenario, it is
not "booted" nor is it "loaded". It just become accessible as a
file structure that contains data.


I only boot with the clone in the system if I need to retreive specific
files, as when I delete something accidentally from C: and have no
backup elsewhere, which I usually do. Now that I've installed a
USB mobile rack I can insert the cloned drive (G and it is instantly
recognized, something I couldn't do before with the old IDE-type
interface, which needed to be inserted when powered down and
rebooted.


Be careful with your terminology. "Booted" does not mean
"accessible". You have only booted the old (i.e. cloned) system,
not the (new) clone system.


I assume the USB type of arrangement would never be a problem
since it isn't in the system when booted.


The external USB drive does not contain a bootable system,
i.e. it cannot be booted, it cannot be used as the system drive.
It can only act as another Local Disk with a file structure. If you
have been using an IDE drive in a mobile rack in the same way,
you have not ever booted from the drive containing the clone.



Microsoft doesn't document this behavior and it offers no
method (such as initial isolation) to get around it, and the
MS Professional Volunteers in the MS newsgroups don't
know much if anything about it. At least they seem to avoid
writing about it. The MVPs even get quite abusive and hostile
if you so much as say that running two installations of one OS
CD in *the same machine* is legal. Obviously, MS has them
toeing the company line when it comes to gray areas in its
EULA. I expect that cloning Longhorn will be even more
difficult.

I do clones for backup purposes only, and I see no more ethical
problem approaching backups in this manner than using MS's
own backup program.


It is not the cloning of a system as an archive that MS seems
to object to. It's the cloning of a system with a Master Boot Record
and boot sector and its boot files (e.g. ntldr, boot.ini,
NTDETECT.com,
etc.) on an IDE hard drive so that it is bootable as a system drive
that MS doesn't like.


The fact that I have four or five clones with the OS in each that
I rotate for cloning shouldn't violate the spirit of the EULA, if
perhaps
the letter thereof.

In public, MS argues that the letter of the EULA is the spirit
of the EULA. Privately, I doubt that it cares about multiple
installations derived from a single installation CD existing on
a single PC. After all, WinXP won't work on another PC unless
that PC is identical in hardware,

Thats not true of the versions of XP that dont require validation.

and only one copy can work at any one time, anyway.

All cloning activity is performed on one machine, which is the one for
which the OS is licensed, and none are ever run on any other
computers. So what could possibly be wrong with that practice?


Don't ask that question in a microsoft.* newsgroup unless
you're prepared to argue with half a dozen Microsoft MVPs
and their shills for a week.