Wrong Drive Letter Booting Vista 64

M

max53000

Member
I triple boot C:\Vista 32, D:\7 64, and E:\Vista 64 as seen by the Vista 32 on one hard drive. Originally I single booted only Vista 32 and it was the primary and boot partition.

Each one thinks it's the C: drive after booting into it. I just upgraded the 7 64 from build 7048 to build 7057 from within 7 64. Now I can boot into Vista 32 and 7 64 normally, but when I boot into Vista 64, I have to bring up the task manager to get any access at all.

By going to File\Run and typing "cmd" and enter, after a couple of error messages, I can get an administrator's command prompt which shows the system drive is now E:\ not C:\. I can also get access to a windows desktop with administrative privileges.

Below is the debug output from Easy BCD v1.72, which I ran from within the Vista 32:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {99b33eb9-dcc2-11dd-aa7a-ee99c7cccea1}
resumeobject {86c8e2e4-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
displayorder {99b33eb9-dcc2-11dd-aa7a-ee99c7cccea1}
{9ab41e78-0a2d-11de-932c-dd5ee881f92d}
{86c8e2e5-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 5
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {99b33eb9-dcc2-11dd-aa7a-ee99c7cccea1}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista Ultimate 32
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {99b33eba-dcc2-11dd-aa7a-ee99c7cccea1}
nx OptIn
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {9ab41e78-0a2d-11de-932c-dd5ee881f92d}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Ultimate 64
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {9ab41e79-0a2d-11de-932c-dd5ee881f92d}
nx OptIn
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {86c8e2e5-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
device partition=E:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista Ultimate 64
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {86c8e2ea-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=E:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {86c8e2e4-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
nx OptIn

For completeness here is the regular bootloader information:

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista Ultimate 32
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate 64
BCD ID: {9ab41e78-0a2d-11de-932c-dd5ee881f92d}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #3
Name: Windows Vista Ultimate 64
BCD ID: {86c8e2e5-ec2b-11dd-b7b9-cd41e09dbf30}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

I can't see anything wrong with the bootloader information. Is there a simple fix or do I need to give up and reinstall Vista 64? Please forgive this newby if my post is not up to this forum's standards.
 
Hello Max,

Go to change settings in EasyBCD, select the entry that is incorrect, than change the drive letter and hit save settings.
 
Jus, Max is saying that Vista 64 boots, but incorrectly sees itself as E internally, where it used to be C.
There's nothing in the BCD that's wrong, V64 has gone strange.
Luckily, Vista is capable of fixing itself in this situation, it lets you get far enough in, to execute regedit and fix the problem.
Give me a few minutes to search Max, and I'll find the link for you.


Addendum:


OK this is what you want. (Thank your lucky stars it wasn't XP - It can't get far enough to fix its own registry, a new install would be needed.)
 
Last edited:
Terry60 said:
(Thank your lucky stars it wasn't XP - It can't get far enough to fix its own registry, a new install would be needed.)
Click to expand...

You don't need to re-install for XP either. You can load its registry from pre-installed enviornment with the right tools.
 
Thank you so much Terry. I'm back in. I'm sending this reply using my repaired Vista 64.

Forgive me for digressing slightly. I was really dreading having to reinstall any operating system clean, since I have to physically pull three 2 GB sticks of memory from my Asus Striker Extreme Motherboard to get it down to only one 2 GB stick in order to avoid numerous BSOD's which would otherwise prevent a successful installation.

However, I didn't have to pull out any memory to upgrade Windows 7 64 Beta build 7048 to just leaked build 7057 since I didn't have to boot the 7057 installation DVD to do it. By the way build 7057 rocks, is totally stable after the trivial "notepad opening desktop.ini" fix, and my build 7048 beta product key successfully validated my 7057 install with Microsoft.
 
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