Booting Problem

Boot W7
Run EasyBCD
Delete both XP entries
Add two XP entries manually (not auto configure), point them at their respective Explorer letters.
Don't change what EasyBCD sets up even if you think it made a mistake.
The BCD entries won't point to the XP drive, they'll point to the copies of the XP boot files EasyBCD puts on the boot disk (W7)
They, in turn, point to the correct drive.
 
Perfect Terry!

All 3 choices in the Boot Menu go to where they should now.
It was a good thing you told me not to change what EasyBCD set up because I probably would have, seeing as they all point to the C: Drive.
But I understand it now.

Now, if at some point in the future I replace the XPF with a fresh install of Win7 on that 3rd drive (for a maintenance copy) (disconnecting the first 2 drives while doing the install) do I just
delete the XPF entry and add the new Win7 entry?

Thanks.
 

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You don't even need to do that.
Just installing a second copy of W7 with the first still connected and at the head of the boot chain, will automatically dual boot the new entry into the existing BCD.
 
I have now completed the installation of the new Win7 on the old XP Fresh disk.

I would now like to multi-boot from that disk just like I did from the old Win7 disk.
I would like to keep both the old Win7 and XP boot choices for now but remove the EasyBCD entries on the old Win7 and XP drives.

I will set the new Win7 drive as the default boot drive in the BIOS and install EasyBCD on it.

Where do I go from there?

Thanks.
 
When you are running the new W7, what partition is marked "system" in Disk Management ?
 
Disk F: (the Old Win7) is marked as System.
Disk E: is the XP.
Disk C: is the new Win7.

Screen capture attached.
 

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  • Disk Management New Win7.jpg
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It's done what I said in post #23 if you refer back to the flag explanations in post #16.
The new W7 has just added itself to the old W7's BCD. You are still booting from the original BCD.
If you override the BIOS to boot from New Volume, the boot will fail.
Do you have a good reason to want to boot from the new drive ?
If so,
Changing the Boot Partition
 
Here's what I did.

Disconnected the XP and old W7 drives.
Installed new W7 on the XPF drive (after formatting it).
Reconnected XP and old W7 drives. (kept the same SATA cable connections)
Couldn't boot XP.
Booted into old W7 from BIOS.
Ran EasyBCD and deleted XP and XPf.
Re-added XP and new W7 manually (selected drive letters myself based on what Explorer was showing me).
Rebooted old W7 from BIOS.
All 3 new selections showed and worked.
BUT...default booting device was showing as the XP drive.
Changed the default boot drive to old W7.
Boot selections wouldn't work.
Out of panic changed default boot device to new W7.
All the new boot selections showed up as if I was booting from the old W7, which is where I am now. It's as if it is booting from the new W7 (default in BIOS) but getting the BCD selections from the old W7.
So everything boots like I want it to but it doesn't make any sense from the BIOS boot point of view.
I am attaching the new Easy BCD settings.

The reason I want to boot from the new drive is that at some point I will re-purpose the old W7 as an image backup drive for the new W7. And once I transfer/re-install my files/programs from XP, the new W7 will become my Main OS.
 

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  • New W7 EasyBCD on Old W7 Drive.jpg
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If you disconnected all the other drives when you installed NewW7 then it must have its own BCD, but you won't boot from it unless you place it higher in the BIOS HDD boot sequence than the other drives.
You might encounter some confusion when using EasyBCD in the presence of multiple BCDs. The one you make changes to might not be the one the system is booting from.
Check in Tools > Options that you are not loading a BCD from a specific drive instead of allowing EasyBCD to locate the "live" BCD for itself.
You can verify whether it's using the live BCD by using File > Load System BCD, which will either switch or tell you that it's already using it.
 
I understand your first statement which is why I placed it at the top of the boot sequence manually after I installed the new W7 and found that the default boot device (the one at the top of the boot sequence) had changed all by itself. Before I started the new W7 installation the old W7 drive was at the top. Which is my main source of confusion...how could it have changed all by itself?

I attached the Tools|Options screen.

I don't want to do the verification step just yet until you look at the above.

Is the system booting using the BCD on my old W7, even tho the new W7 is first in the BIOS boot list, because that is the drive marked System?

Also...does it matter which drive is physically connected to which SATA port on the motherboard?
The current connections, which have never changed, are...

SATA1 - Old W7
SATA3 - DVD
SATA5 - XP
SATA6 - New Win7 (or old XPF)

No particular reason for this. I just connected them at random.

Cheers.
 

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No harm in switching back and forth between BCDs in EasyBCD as often as you like. It won't affect the boot in any way, just let you know which one you're looking at.
EasyBCD is not an active part of the system, just an app. The only effect it can ever have is if you use it to change the contents of the live BCD, in which case the changes will be reflected in the boot menu the next time you boot the system. Any change you make to a different BCD can have no effect at all unless you change the HDD boot sequence.
The BIOS boot sequence is unrelated to the SATA channel allocations unless you set it to mirror them (as I do, because otherwise it's hard to remember which HDD is which if they're all the same make and look identical). The boot sequence you set will have changed by itself because you disconnected the other HDDs.
If you disconnect the boot drive while you install a new system, it cannot stay at the top of the list if it's no longer present, so the new HDD becomes the de facto boot drive even when the other disks are reconnected, until you alter the priority sequence manually.
 
Now I understand why the default boot drive was changed all by istelf when the other 2 were disconnected.

What I don't understand is where is the BCD coming from that I changed while booting from old W7 if the BIOS says that I'm booting from the new W7?
I guess I could run EasyBCD from the new W7 and see what it says.
Let me see what that tells me.
 
Ok. I installed and ran EasyBCD on the new W7. (see first capture).

The names are identical to those on the old W7. but I wasn't sure where they were coming from so I edited the name of the new W7 (see the 2nd capture).
It is getting the BCD from the new W7...what I don't understand is how did it get there?

Is the system actually booting from the new W7 even though that disk is not listed as "System"?

I'm still missing a piece here.

I guess I'm thick.
 

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  • New W7 EasyBCD Settings.jpg
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  • New W7 EasyBCD Settings Edited.jpg
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That "EasyBCD boot device" line is a little ambiguous in overview mode. I think it's just referring to where it's put the NST folder and any associated EasyBCD boot files. It's not the same as "system" in Disk Management.
What do the entries in the 2 BCDs look like in "detailed" mode ?
Are those two screenshots of the same BCD at different times ?, from different places ? or different BCDs from the same place ?
 
Like I said in my previous post, those 2 BCD screen captures are from the new W7.
I was trying to confirm where the booting process was getting them from so I edited it and added the "64-bit" in the name. I wanted to make sure it wasn't getting it from the old W7 because the names were identical.
I will send a capture of the BCD's in Detailed Mode.
 
Now this is very strange.
I just rebooted to get you the screen capture in detailed mode of the new W7 and the boot selection menu did NOT appear. The PC was in XP(as it usually is during the day and overnight).
I did not change anything from yesterday.
It booted straight into the new W7.
So I ran EasyBCD and I got something totally different from yesterday's screen captures.
 

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  • BCD Settings New W7 April 22 2014.jpg
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  • BCD Settings New W7 Detailed April 22 2014.jpg
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It's official now.
The only way I can boot up with yesterday's BCD list was to change the boot priority from the new W7, which is what is was all day yesterday, to the old W7.
The way things are today on the new W7 is exactly the way I expected to find it yesterday when I first ran EasyBCD on the new W7...only one boot entry.
For some reason, like I said in my previous post, I did nothing to change all of this overnight.
So yesterday did not make any sense and today everything makes sense, based on which if the 2 W7 disks I ran EasyBCD on.

This is really, really screwy.

So what I am expecting now is I manually change the boot priority to the new W7, run EasyBCD on the new W7 and add the XP and old W7 to it's files, reboot and get back to what it was doing yesterday.

Sound incredible? I agree. But this thing seems to have a mind of its own.
 
No that all sounds quite logical.
If you boot from the old W7 HDD its BCD contains 3 entries and it becomes "system" no matter which OS you chose to run (which becomes "boot")
If you boot from the new W7 HDD, its BCD only has the one entry created as you installed the new W7, and that becomes both "system" and "boot".
You can simply leave the BIOS alone now and add W7 and XP entries to the new W7 BCD and you're where you want to be.
 
I agree it sounds logical now but...

I just booted into the new W7 and not only is it NOT the System disk but the BCD is back to where it was yesterday which is different from this morning!

It doesn't contain just the one entry I sent you this morning.

This thing DOES have a mind of its own.
 

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  • Disk Management New W7 April 22 2014.jpg
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  • BCD Settings New W7 April 22 2014-2.jpg
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