Changing the Windows Vista Boot Drive or Partition

Windows Vista uses a number of files and folders stored on a boot partition on your PC to start up the EasyBCD bootloader and from there, get to whatever OSes you might have installed and configured on your PC.

What's the Boot Partition?

By default, Windows setup will install the boot files to the active partition on the boot drive. The boot drive is picked depending on how the BIOS is configured and the physical order of the drives in your PC. The active partition depends on how the disk was formatted.

On most PCs, the boot drive picked during Windows Vista setup will be the first NTFS partition on the first drive.

Why Would I Change Want a Different Boot Partition?

Imagine your PC has two hard drives, one with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista. Since XP was installed first, the boot partition is the partition Windows XP is on.

You want to remove that hard drive from your PC, leaving just Windows Vista.. But if you did that, you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows Vista anymore! The Windows XP drive - since it contains the boot partition - has the files Windows Vista needs to turn on.

This guide will help you change your boot drive so that you can remove drives as you like.

Changing the Boot Partition

1. While in Windows, launch EasyBCD, and select "EasyBCD Power Console" from the "Utilities" page.
2. Type the following at the command prompt window, replacing "D:\" with the letter of the drive or partition you want to become the new boot drive. Replace "/drive 0" in the second line with the number of the drive with the new boot partition. If you're not sure of the number, repeat that line each time using a new number from 0 to 5 (it won't hurt anything if you run it for the wrong drive).
   bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force mbrfix.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /vista /yes xcopy %systemroot%\Boot\PCAT\* D:\Boot\ /K /Y /R /H /E /I move D:\Boot\bootmgr D:\bootmgr bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot bcdedit /export D:\Boot\BCD exit
3. Open the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
4. Click on "Disk Management" in the sidebar on the left.
5. Right click on drive D:\ (or whichever drive it is you want to become the new boot drive) and choose "Mark Partition As Active". If this option is grayed out, don't worry - that means its already active and you can skip on ahead to the next step.
6. Close EasyBCD & restart your computer.
7. If the new boot partition is on a different physical drive, enter your BIOS setup and change the "first boot device" to the hard disk the new boot partition is on. If you want to remove the old drive, you may do so now.

Troubleshooting

The above steps should work for most people without any problem. If your PC won't boot thereafter - don't panic. Stick your Vista DVD in the drive (or download NeoSmart Technologies' Vista recovery CD for free), and follow the instructions on this page to recover your bootloader and get back into Windows.