Boot Sector Problem

Lucrin

Member
Alright so here is my situation. I have two hard drives, lets call them drive 1 and drive 2. Previously I have a Vista x64 Partition on Drive 1 and I used Drive 2 as a storage drive. When Windows 7 came out I backed up up everything on Drive 2, formatted it and installed Windows 7 on it. I left my vista partition on Drive 1 because I had no need for the extra storage yet. Recently I started a programming class in college and we will be using ubuntu linux as our operating environment in class. So, I wanted to put a ubuntu partition on my personal computer so I can work outside of the lab using the same environment.

Now my problem is that it appears part or all of my windows 7 boot sector is on my Vista drive (Drive 1). So if I shut down my computer and unplug the power to Drive 1 and try to boot Windows 7 I get an error that the boot sector is missing and I can't load it up. So my problem then is I can't format Drive 1 to use for ubuntu because if I do I won't be able to get into Windows 7. Is there a way for me to move the boot sector or something? Also why on earth doesn't the boot sector install to the same hard drive that you install windows to? Seems very dumb to put it anywhere else to me.

The best resource I have found so far is from this link:
http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2568
Would this work for me on windows 7?

Thanks!

EDIT:
Thought I would post more specifically the problem. As you can see from the screen capture below my system partition is on D, my old vista drive (which I want to reformat). I need to move it to C so I can still boot into Windows 7 (On C) if I format D

systemboot-1.jpg
 
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Windows is designed to do that specifically.
If you install a new version of Windows with an older version already visible, the new (W7) sees that the old (Vista) is "system" (the location of the boot files), so it adds its boot information as an automatic dual-boot into the pre existing "system" partition.

Use EasyBCD 2.0 latest build / Diagnostics / Change boot drive, and point it to W7.
That will copy all of the boot files across.
Then set the W7 HDD to come before the Vista HDD in the BIOS boot sequence.
 
Under the diagnostics center in EasyBCD the options are:

Recreate missing/deleted boot files
reset BCD storage
Copy Debug info to clipboard
Repair OS X"HFS+ Partition Error"
Check Boot Drive for Curruption

Which option should I use to reassign the drive letter?

EDIT: Nevermind I just noticed you linked to a beta build with new options :tongueout: Thanks I will give it a try.

UPDATE: It worked! Thanks for the help that is exactly what I needed. I am off to install ubuntu! :smile:
 
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