EasyBCD Beta 2.0 - Change boot drive function in Diagnostics Center

I attempted to change my boot drive from Vista partition to W7 partition by using the "Change boot drive" function located in the Diagnostics Center of EasyBCD Beta 2.0. Response was that the change was successful. When I restarted, however, no boot into W7 or Vista or the dual boot menu.

Are there some other things I can do to make the W7 partition the boot and system/active partition so I can get rid of Vista partition?

Many thanks.
 
Hello Castle, welcome to the fort of NST. :smile:
Yeah, there is something else you can do...

Boot the W7 DVD, select the "Repair My Computer" option. In the list of options that appears, select the Command Prompt, and run the following commands:

diskpart
select disk x
list volume
select volume x
active

where "x" in both commands is replaced with the correct numerical values shown for the W7 HDD (most likely 0) and partition, with the "list" commands.
Next, go to the Startup Repair in the same list of options, and run it 2-3 times. That should recover your W7 boot.

Cheers.
 
Master Mage, I made the W7 partition active but that did not solve the problem. System still hangs after change boot drive from easyBCD and numerous "repair my computer" from W7 DVD. To get my dual boot back I select Vista system and "repair my computer" several times. Are there more drastic measures I can take (short of clean W7 install) to get all boot related files onto W7 partition and get rid of Vista partition?
 
Same. Just have 1 HDD.

Volume 1 is drive E Recovery
Volume 2 is drive V Vista o/s
Volume 3 is drive C W7 o/s

These correspond to partitions 2,3,4. Partition 1 seems to be the 100MB partition that W7 created at installation.
 
Yeah, that 100 MB partition is the original "system" partition, meaning it contains the boot files (at least, until Easy changed things, though I would think the original boot files are still on that partition...). You can try setting that partition to "active" again, and see if either system boots. If so, then run EasybCD 2.0 from there again, and use the "Change the boot drive" option again.

If the "change the boot drive" fails again, you can at least try the manual commands from Command Prompt on W7 DVD, listed here:

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

(Unfortunately, it looks like the wiki server is down for the moment)

Addendum:

Maybe the reason why EasybCD failed with changing the boot drive the first time, is because the "system" partition didn't have a drive letter...
 
Last edited:
Perhaps, but I cannot assign a volume letter to partition 1 which is the original system partition (100MB). It does not seem to be a volume, just a partition, according to diskpart. All other partitions have volume letters. I guess I still don't understand the boot sequence or vocabulary. COMPMGMT.MSC disk management indicates the status of my W7 partition as "Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary) and my Vista partition as "System, Active, Primary". Why would the W7 partition be "Boot" if the system and active partition is Vista?

I am unable to try http://neosmart.net/wiki/displa/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD as the wiki is unavailable.

moz-screenshot.jpg
moz-screenshot-1.jpg
moz-screenshot-2.jpg
 
Ok, guess your Vista partition is system then...
System = Partition where all the boot files of all MS OSes will (or should) be located.
Boot = Currently booted OS.

The wiki server is down for the time being, unfortunately. It should be back up by at least (my) tomorrow. or perhaps in a few hours.

Thought you said you couldn't boot at all? How did you get to Disk Management from inside W7?
 
The repair function of the W7 DVD displays 2 systems and asks the user to select one for repair. When I select Vista o/s (several times), I am able to recover boot functioning and am presented with dual boot option. When I select W7 o/s from W7 DVD repair (several times), my system hangs immediately at startup, apparently unable to find Vista or W7.

What I'm trying to do is get all the boot files to the W7 partition (and delete Vista).

Thanks for your continuing support.
 
Have un-hidden 100mb partition and assigned it a volume letter

I've un-hidden the 100mb partition that W7 installation created. See volume list image below. Now that I can access this partition (volume R) through windows explorer, I see that it contains bootmgr and a boot folder containing BCD, BCD.LOG and BOOTSTAT.DAT.

This volume is not marked as the system or boot volume.

I've been trying to move all boot files to the C: volume which contains W7. This does not seem to work as the system hangs even after multiple repair attempts with the W7 DVD. Should I move all boot files to the previously hidden but now visible R: volume or is this going to really mess things up?
 

Attachments

  • Capture.JPG
    Capture.JPG
    26.3 KB · Views: 4
Yeah, changing the 100 MB partition to "system" instead of W7 sounds like a good idea. Don't move any boot files anywhere.
Only change the "active" flag from Vista to R. Then reboot, and see how it goes.
If you can boot at all, your BCD on that partition is good, and all you got to do is add an entry to boot your other system with EasyBCD. Otherwise, you'll need to run Startup Repair again to get at least 1 of your systems booting (don't know which one it'll pick...). After that, then use EasyBCD to add the entry for the missing system (later removing both the Vista partition, and the entry for it in the BCD, so your system will just boot into W7).
 
Changed the 100 MB partition to "active" and system did not boot. Got "Disk error - hit any key to continue". Hitting any key simply produced the same error. Restarted with W7 DVD and attempted W7 repair 3 times. Still no boot, same error on startup. Restarted again with W7 DVD and repaired Vista 3 times. Back to dual boot again. I'm running out of ideas.

Wiki still not working so can't try http://neosmart.net/wiki/displa/EBCD...r+from+the+DVD
 
Seems like your 100 MB partition must be missing boot code in the boot sector to search for bootmgr...hence the disk error.
From elevated Command Prompt, do:

bootsect /nt60 X:

where "X" is replaced with the correct drive letter of the 100 MB partition, as seen from the booted system (probably still R, but not necessarily...). That will write Vista/7-style boot code to the partition, to search for bootmgr.
Then set that partition to "active" again, and try again. :smile:
 
Tried bootsect /nt60 R: Command reported that it was successful. Changed 100 MB partition (R:smile: to active, but system still hung at restart, with same message as before: "Disk error. Hit any key to continue."

Loaded W7 DVD and attempted repair of W7 but same problem on reboot.

Loaded W7 DVD and repaired Vista, set Vista partition to active, and now back to dual boot.

Should I try "Change boot drive" from Diagnostics Center of EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, selecting the 100MB partition? Your previous email instructed not to change any boot info on the 100MB partition. Something else?

Image of compmgmt.msc appears below.
 

Attachments

  • Capture.JPG
    Capture.JPG
    101.1 KB · Views: 8
Why is your 102 MB partition formatted as Fat?? W7 should have created it as NTFS...
That's why writing the bootsector on it didn't work.
 
Last edited:
Tried your suggestion. No disk error, but system still hangs at startup. After bcd repair, should I have c: "active" or r: "active" - r: is the 100mb partition?

Addendum:

Sorry. Didn't see your last response. Don't know why W7 is FAT. Any way to reconstruct/convert it to NTFS without destroying W7 installation?
 
Last edited:
Mount it to a drive letter using disk management. Use the convert command line utility to convert it to NTFS filesystem:

convert x: /FS:NTFS
 
I attempted to change my boot drive from Vista partition to W7 partition by using the "Change boot drive" function located in the Diagnostics Center of EasyBCD Beta 2.0. Response was that the change was successful. When I restarted, however, no boot into W7 or Vista or the dual boot menu.

Are there some other things I can do to make the W7 partition the boot and system/active partition so I can get rid of Vista partition?

Many thanks.

The 7 partition needs to be marked active - rt click and mark active in Disk Management.

If you wish to do something different, i.e. use the 100mb partition as "system" partition:

1. Make it a primary ntfs partition. ( Is there any reason why you can't delete it and create a new 100mb ntfs partition with a drive letter?)

2. Mark it Active.

3. Ensure the boot critical files and appropriate bootsector code is on there.

You can do the latter by running startup repir from 7 dvd 3 times.

OR , ( I believe), by using the Easybcd " Create bootable external media" function and pointing it at the drive letter of the 100mb partition.


I assume that function uses the bcdboot command , with the specified target and the existing "system" partition as source. As well as the bootsect command with mbr parameter.
 
Back
Top