BootMGR help.

S

Shepard

Member
I have three HDDs,

C: 500GBs
D: 80GBs
E: 250GBs.

I previously had Vista running in the drive with 250Gbs. At that point it was labeled my C drive. So I went through numerous formattings to get my largest HDD to be the C drive. Now that I have the letters in order, I would like to remove the old 250GB HDD and give it to a friend, but When I try to format Windows 7 tells me I cannot.

I have both HDDs with Win 7, the D drive is just for storage.

Now I know that If I try to just remove the Disk, my Win 7 will not Boot, since I guess the BCD is stored in my 250GB HDD. Is there Anyway out of this predicament? I know this is so because IN my previous formattings, when I removed the 250GB HDD, or formatted it a harsh way, it I got a BootMGR error. How can EasyBCD help me on this one? I want my 500GB HDD to be the main one, where the BCD is located in, or something like that.
 
Hello Shepard,

As you can see, formatting won't work and niether well removing it becuase that drive is what the computer boots from and contains all of Windows 7's boot files.

To fix this, disconnect the 250gb drive, set Windows 7's drive as the first hard drive in the boot sequence to boot if it isnt already, than boot from Windows 7's DVD and preform startup repair 2-3 times until Windows 7 can boot on its own. When it can do that, reconnect the other drive, but don't boot into Windows. Instead, boot from Windows 7's DVD again. You'll probably see two installations to repair, but click next anyway and go on to the command prompt. Find out which disk is the one you want to give to your friend with list disk and replace it for x in the commands to follow:

Code: 
diskpart
list disk
select disk x
clean
exit

If you're ultra-paranoid about someone getting your data back from the drive, use a disk wiping tool on it instead.
 
Thanks, although I was hoping Easy BCD might have helped, it seems I'' have to wait a while until I get a DVD because, until this point, I have been installing things through mounting... (>-<) Can I do this repair using a Vista DVD, which I have?
 
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You should be able to do the same thing with the Vista DVD (they both use bootmgr and boot/BCD), though there's a possibility that Vista might not recognize W7 as a valid system to repair. W7 can be used to fix Vista because it's the later system and backward compatible. Though I haven't tried the other way round, the 2 systems are so similar (W7 is like Vista2 really), that I suspect it will work.
Why haven't you got a W7 DVD anyway ? The beta was distributed as an ISO to burn to DVD.
If you haven't got one how did you install ?
The download is still available I think (I seem to remember they cancelled the plan to stop making it available), so you should still be able to get a copy.

btw. Remember it is a Beta build and says quite clearly at the bottom right of your desktop "for testing purposes only". You shouldn't be relying on it as your main OS. It definitely has problems supporting all the "certified for Vista" software, and will be switched off on Aug 01, leaving you without an OS.
You ought to have Vista available for both reasons.
 
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Probably installed by mounting the .iso, but don't know if you can do that. I've tried doing that with server 2k8 since I had the iso of it and it just locks up when entering setup.
 
If you mount it with a Virtual CD ROM application, you'd have to do it from a running OS.
I'm going from memory here, so I stand to be corrected, but didn't they say in the W7 install notes "Only do this from a booted install disk" ?
 
You don't have to, I just mounted the DVD, selected install, select whatever partion or drive, at that point the DVD copies the necessary files there. Your computer then restarts and extracts the files off the copies, works great every time. I got a CD anyway. And as for the Aug expiration, I have build 7057, which is expanded all the way until May 2010.
 
What drive letter did W7 give itself if you installed it from Vista (which was presumably C: ) ?
 
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