Minor change to Win7 boot menu, now can't boot W2K

[TomC]

I changed a description on the Win7 boot menu with Easy BCD v. 1.7.1. Now I can't boot to W2K, just Win7 and the W2K repair console. I'm using 1.7.1 because of a problem getting 1.7.2. The problem is described in a posting on the Bug Report forum.

I had a smooth-working multiboot for several years, choosing between W2K and its Windows recovery console on a 40G drive. Last week I installed a 750G drive and loaded it with Win7 RC, retaining the old drive for now as the only system drive. The Win7 boot menu had three choices, as described in the excellent articles you cited: Previous Windows, Windows 7, and Windows recovery console. As it was supposed to, the previous Windows choice brought up the old ntldr menu. All was well. From the old drive's MBR, I booted either W2K or Win7. I started moving applications and files to the new drive. But, then, in a fit of neatness, I used EasyBCD v 1.7.1 to alter the menu description from the default "previous version of Windows" to "Windows 2000 SP4." Now I can boot into the W2K recovery console on the old drive or Win7 on the new drive, but when I try for Windows 2000, I get the message stating that ntldr is corrupt or absent.

I tried using the repair option from the Win7 DVD, but all it did (that I can see) was to remove all the apps I recently installed on the new drive. I went back to EasyBCD and ran it again, taking pains to specify that I wanted to boot from the BOOT drive, which happens to be C:, the system drive. At the end of this message I have posted the diagnostic data provided by EasyBCD.

The W2K recovery console shows that boot.ini, ntldr.com and ntdetect.com are where they have been, in the root of the W2K partition, alongside W7's boot manager. Their dates are earlier than my use of EasyBCD.

How can I regain the ability to boot W2K? Suggestons would be greatly appreciated.

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume4
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {ee2dc6bf-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
resumeobject {ee2dc6be-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
displayorder {466f5a88-0af2-4f76-9038-095b170dc21c}
{ee2dc6bf-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 30

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {466f5a88-0af2-4f76-9038-095b170dc21c}
device partition=C:
path \ntldr
description Windows 2000 SP4

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {ee2dc6bf-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {ee2dc6c0-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {ee2dc6be-5a35-11de-a5c4-ba1f60535d64}
nx OptIn

[Terry60]

What's the letter W7 assigns to the "system" partition Tom ?
From your post, W7 sees itself as C:\, but you said the bootmgr is on theW2k, so that's the letter that the W2k entry should be set to, not C: as you currently have it.
btw. In future use EasyBCD 2.0. It will automate the NT boot without needing the manual intervention of 1.7.

[TomC]

Thanks, Terry, for the prompt response.

As a matter of fact, Win7 did not assign any drive letter at all to the old W2K drive. As soon as you drew my attention to the matter, I assigned one. Then I used Easy BCD 2.0 as you suggested to repair the MBR and all is well again. Better than before, since I now have access to the old files through the new OS, which will facilitate conversion.

Apparently Win7's installer used its own identifier to create the MBR. Anything I did to the boot module would have destabilized it and produced the effect I experienced. The lesson for everyone who installs Win7 is to be sure that all drives do have letters.

Thanks again for the assistance!

[Terry60]

OK. You fell foul of the W7 habit of creating a "secret" unlettered boot partition. It does this if you point it at unallocated space and let it do its own thing. The reasoning is (because the Beta is "ultimate"), you might want to use bitlocker to encrypt the C:\ disk, so the boot files will need to be elsewhere.
If you install W7 to a formatted partition, it'll keep everything together.
This caused earlier builds of EasyBCD 2.0 problems because they couldn't auto-configure XP when the "system" partition didn't have a letter. The latest build manages to get round that problem and can even handle leaving the partition unlettered.
Welcome to NST by the way, glad you're sorted now.