Change Vista's 'System' partition / move BCD boot manager?

It would appear your BIOS is restricting access to your other hard drive for some reason, and I really don't understand why...
But that much is obvious.
Perhaps you can try upgrading and flashing your BIOS? Other than that I don't know what to tell you. If you saved the changes shown in the last screenshot, then obviously you have done everything right this time for sure, but its still not booting for some reason, and that "Disk Read Error" would seem to indicate your hard drive is not being accessed at all by your BIOS, and that is probably where the problem lies. Until you solve that problem, I don't see how you will ever get that other drive to boot from your computer...:frowning:
Here's a thought: If you have another computer, try connecting the NewSys drive to that computer instead, and try all the exact same steps, and find out if it boots or not. If it does, then you know for sure it is your BIOS on that particular computer that is the problem. :wink:
 
Is it possible that because the NewSys partition is the second one on the physical hard drive that it won't boot? I just tried a tool called BootitNG that said that that partition wouldn't boot because of something to do with the LBA and I was wondering if a boot partition needs to be first on the disk?

(Grasping at straws, hoping one will float me)

B
 

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BeeVee said:
Is it possible that because the NewSys partition is the second one on the physical hard drive that it won't boot? I just tried a tool called BootitNG that said that that partition wouldn't boot because of something to do with the LBA and I was wondering if a boot partition needs to be first on the disk?

(Grasping at straws, hoping one will float me)

B
Click to expand...
Great! :smile:
I use BootIT NG too, and must say its pretty awesome. But back on topic...
No, I don't think that the reason its not booting is because its the second partition. I know for a fact BING can boot from any partition on any hard drive, provided the appropriate boot files exist, so it would seem there's a problem with your partition...possibly your boot sector.

Could you give the exact message BING gives you when you try to boot that partition? Also, are you sure you pointed the boot entry at that partition in Boot Edit?
 
Thanks Coolname007! I wasn't sure about it since I hadn't heard of it before and some of their stuff seems kinda hokey (like matrix wallpapers at 1024x768). I shall have a better look next time, but it definitely said the partition couldn't boot NTFS because umm... argh my memory... the LBA was out of range at [large number]? I shall take a pic of the screen. Other than that it looked like the boot info was still attached to OldSys, although I could change it all to NewSys I didn't because of this warning. I shall get back to you.

B
 
Just add a new entry pointing at NewSys in Boot Edit (don't modify the other entry). For example, while at the BING desktop, click on Boot Edit, and then click Add, and then in the window that opens up, click on the downwards arrow by the "Boot:" field, and point it at the NewSys partition in the drop-down menu that appears. Next, adjust the entries in the MBR Details on the right side of the window. Move the boot partition entry up or down as appropriate until it is at the correct slot in the MBR partition table, and then click on the Fill button to add partitions to the partition table (up to 4, including the boot partition). Do you still have OldSys's drive first in the boot sequence in the BIOS? If so, then you will need to point the entry for NewSys at drive 1, and then you will be able to select the boot partition for NewSys's drive from the drop-down menu. So at that point, just point it at the NewSys partition. You will also need to install the EMBR to the NewSys drive, to make full use of the functionality that BING offers, if you're planning on getting rid of OldSys.
 
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Here are sum pritty pikchurs

B
PS. Clicking on the BCD Edit button for NewSys, then either of the two entries revealed the same stuff - you can see the changes were made, but it makes no difference in that OldSys is still seen as system.
 

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Ok, in one of the screenshots, I can see you were fooling around with BING's built-in BCD editor. Don't do that! Its quite easy to screw something up if you don't know fully what you're doing. Did you modify the BCD in any way? If so, then that may be a part of your booting problem...
Your BCD should be fine, if it was placed on NewSys's partition by Startup Repair. Don't fool around with it at this point (and if you have to, use EasyBCD).

Read the post right before yours, and follow the advice there, and you should soon be able to standalone boot NewSys with BING.
 
What about the bit where it says that because the LBA finishes at xxx that it won't boot Win NT? Should that be a cause for concern or is it related to the fact that originally a boot partition could not be more than 2GB in the NT3.5 days?

B
 
Ok, on second thought, I see your BCD on NewSys may not be ok...
Why does it show two entries there with the same name? There should only be one, unless you've been modifying/creating/deleting or otherwise fooling around with the BCD on NewSys...
Boot into NewSys from OldSys's boot menu, then disconnect Old Sys, and open up EasyBCD. Remove the surplus entry in the NewSys's BCD, rename the other one to something like "Windows Vista". Then under View Settings, verify that the entry is pointing at the correct drive letter your NewSys partition is seen as from that system. If it is not, then adjust it under Change Settings to point it at the correct partition.

Then go ahead, and post the Detailed (debug) mode of EasyBCD's View Settings page.

Addendum:

BeeVee said:
What about the bit where it says that because the LBA finishes at xxx that it won't boot Win NT? Should that be a cause for concern or is it related to the fact that originally a boot partition could not be more than 2GB in the NT3.5 days?

B
Click to expand...
Don't worry about that message.
Once you install the EMBR on the NewSys hard drive with BING (from the Partition Work window), then there should be no further trouble with booting...at least, once you've made sure the BCD is configured correctly. Besides, this is Vista we're talking about here, not Win NT...
 
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Disconnect? How? I didn't think I could do that live? On BING it also shows two entries for boot on OldSys too, and all four are called Vista (recovered), which is not what I called the partitions for the boot menu it was something like "Vista 32-bit Home Premium (NewSys)" (and one for Old Sys).

B

Addendum:

If I go into MSConfig in Vista the Boot tab says that the boot drive is "Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (NewSys) on (C:\Windows); Current OS; Default OS".

B

Addendum:

btw, the EasyBCD view settings list is thus:

Code: 
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=D:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default                 {aff4e058-b993-11dd-9ad7-eaedafc4f473}
displayorder            {aff4e058-b993-11dd-9ad7-eaedafc4f473}
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 3
resume                  No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {aff4e058-b993-11dd-9ad7-eaedafc4f473}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (NewSys)
locale                  en-UK
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
bootdebug               No
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {aff4e059-b993-11dd-9ad7-eaedafc4f473}
nx                      OptIn
pae                     ForceDisable
sos                     No
debug                   No

I no longer have a boot menu.
 
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BeeVee said:
Disconnect? How? I didn't think I could do that live?
Click to expand...
Once you've finished booting into NewSys, the BCD will no longer be in active use (though it will still be open). So there should be no problem disconnecting OldSys's drive when booted into NewSys. :wink:

EDIT: The one you just posted is your OldSys's BCD, not your NewSys's...hence why I suggested the extra steps. Hopefully EasyBCD will let you modify the other BCD, even though its not open.
 
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So I can physically unplug the SATA connector? This system is JBOD, no RAID here, just the two drives OldSys and NewSys.

B
 
BTW, completely OT, but I saw your sig and it made me think of this GIF from years ago.

B
PS. I'm feeling excited that we may be on the right track and I'd like to thank you for your unstinting help!
 

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I used EasyBCD's ability to open another BCD file to open the one on C:\Boot and this is what I got:

Code: 
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=C:
default                 {aee1c6b4-5032-11de-8838-cbaf1d2ab14b}
displayorder            {aee1c6b4-5032-11de-8838-cbaf1d2ab14b}
                        {aee1c6b5-5032-11de-8838-cbaf1d2ab14b}
bootsequence            {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {aee1c6b4-5032-11de-8838-cbaf1d2ab14b}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered) 
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {aee1c6b5-5032-11de-8838-cbaf1d2ab14b}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered) 
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows

B
 
Or that...:smile: That is of course easier.
Well, the two entries look pretty much identical (except for the different identifiers of course), and they look to be configured correctly. Ok, so just remove the second one from EasyBCD's Add/Remove Entries section. Then rename the other one, if you like, under Change Settings to something like "Windows Vista". That should eliminate the extra menu.
Next, reboot, get into your BIOS, put your NewSys drive first in the boot sequence, then at the BING boot menu, click on the Maintenance button to reach the BING desktop. Then click on the Boot Edit icon on the desktop, click Add on the subsequent screen, and then in the new window that appears, you should see the field called "Boot:" on the left side of the screen. So open up the drop-down menu, select the NewSys partition, click OK to accept it as your boot partition. Then in the MBR Details, click Fill, and add your other partition on that disk to the partition table (this is necessary with BING, because you can have different boot items that will affect which partitions are seen by the bootable OS, depending on which boot item you select to boot into). Then click OK on the main screen, click Resume on the desktop, and you should be able to boot into NewSys.
Post back if you have any more problems.

Jake

EDIT: And of course a lot of that is assuming you installed BING to your NewSys's hard drive...
Did you?
If not, then you will probably want to do that, instead of run it from the CD if that's what you're doing, because the boot manager aspect of BING will only run from the HDD.
 
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Okay, new thing! I opened EasyBCD, changed the BCD store to the one on C: went to add/remove entries, selected the second entry and hit delete - all this did was reverse the order of the entries in the list so I figured I needed to hit save, at which point I was presented with the alert labelled EasyBCD.png here, I hit Yes and was presented with EasyBCD2...

B
PS. Are you Jake? Can I call you that rather than Coolname007?
 

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BeeVee said:
Okay, new thing! I opened EasyBCD, changed the BCD store to the one on C: went to add/remove entries, selected the second entry and hit delete - all this did was reverse the order of the entries in the list so I figured I needed to hit save, at which point I was presented with the alert labelled EasyBCD.png here, I hit Yes and was presented with EasyBCD2...
Click to expand...
Hit Ok with C: selected. But hitting the Delete button shouldn't have swapped the order of the entries...
It didn't delete it? :wtf:
B
PS. Are you Jake? Can I call you that rather than Coolname007?
Click to expand...
Yes, and yes you can. :smile:
 
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Right, I'm off to bed, but I just wanted to share this pic with you. Thank you sooo much for all your help Jake.

B
PS. The OldSys drive is currently unplugged from the SATA cable. Do you think I can plug it in once the computer has booted?
 

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