Cant recover dual boot win7 win8

Wolfkc

Member
i had a dual boot win7/win8 system. I had some trouble with win7 and did a image restore on it and to boot into it did a recovery which set the boot to go straight to the win7. Now in Win7, I can see my Win8 partition and it seems fine.=. But even after running EasyBCD, adding the 2 partitions and different combinations of Write MBR, Install BCD, Reset BCD, etc. I get File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file blackscreen with the only option to go back to the boot menu. Win7 Boots fine.
I found an old backup BCD and the notable differences include the identifier has a different numbers. But perhaps more important the numbers were the same between win7 and win8. I dont know why the win8 menu option didn't take me to win7. Anyway i recreated it all several times and still have the issue. I'm attaching my EasyBCD, the one on the left is current and the one on the right is the old backup. I've tried removing the driver letter, no change.
I'm looking for the easiest way to get my win8 back. I only occasionally used it so it's not worth a huge effort.
Thanks!
 

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You can't boot a newer Windows Vista/7/8/10 from an older (invalid dig sig).
Your previous dual boot was booting W7 from the W8 bootloader.
When you restored W7 you back-leveled the bootmgr.
You can copy the newer (bigger) bootmgr from 8 to 7 (rename the W7 version)
That should fix the boot problem.
 
You can't boot a newer Windows Vista/7/8/10 from an older (invalid dig sig).
Your previous dual boot was booting W7 from the W8 bootloader.
When you restored W7 you back-leveled the bootmgr.
You can copy the newer (bigger) bootmgr from 8 to 7 (rename the W7 version)
That should fix the boot problem.
Thank you, that makes sense. :grinning: What would be the best way to do this? I'm thinking run the EasyRE for Win8 and assuming that lets me boot into Win8, run EasyBCD from there and add Win7? Please let me know what the best way would be. TY :smile:
 
Much simpler than that, just rename W7 bootmgr and drag W8 bootmgr across into W7 root (C:bootmgr) (or into whichever partition is "active" if your bootmgr is not in with the rest of the OS)
If you can't see them, you'll need to set folder options like this
 
I can see the bootmgr file in "System Reserved" which due to seme other craziness i had to assign a drive letter to fix MS backup not working, so not it's drive "V".
I also see a bootmgr file in D: which is my Win8 drive.
But i'm worried about copying this over, bootmgr from D: to V:, because i dont want to lose my c: Win7 boot. No doubt i could run recover for win 7 after that and be no worse off than i am now. But still is there some way to check the D:bootmgr before i copy it over? Or an I worrying about nothing and the Win8 bootmgr along with Easybcd with an option pointing back to my C: will be exactly what i want?
 
Just rename the W7 version to bootmgr7 and drag the W8 version in alongside it.
That will enable you to reverse what you did, not that you should want to.
Later bootmgrs are completely backward compatible with earlier versions.
 
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