I just can't modify my win 7/winXP dual boot system to be just Win 7.

L

limey222

Member
Ok I'm new here, this is my first post and i'm no expert, I build my own systems to run in my recording studios and can handle most problems but this one has me beat. I set up a dual boot win 7 64bit/ Win XP pro system some time ago. Each OS is on it's own HD. I started with XP on one HD and then added Win 7 64 on a second HD. I know that XP basically controls the boot sequence for Win 7. When i first boot up the system it gives me the option of choosing either Win 7 or "earlier operatiing system", which when selected opens up XP.
Now that I'm happy with the performance of Win 7 in my studio I want to delete XP and use the drive for other applications. I've read many instructions, one of which brought me to this site. I have the beta version of easyBDC 2.0 for Win 7 loaded.
I've tried three different approaches including using easyBDC but none have worked for me. One of the methods involved typing lines of code. The first line was successful, the second wasn't recognized even though I followed the exact instructions so that attempt stalled. i had to use the Win 7 recovery disk to get things working again and then only after repeated attempts and going into bios and changing boot order for the HD's which had somehow switched changed.
Currently everything is working again as a dual boot system so I'm not totally "dead in the water".
Can someone. slowly and patiently guide me through this proceedure?
 
Check Disk Management for the "system" flag.
If it's not XP, you can go ahead and format it.
If it is XP, use EasyBCD 2.0 latest build / Diagnostics/ change boot drive
Point it at your W7 drive.
Reboot (remember to change BIOS boot sequence if they're on different HDDs)
delete the XP entry from the BCD
format XP

Sorry to say that this didn't work for me. Upon reboot just got the flashing cursor. Had to go back into bios and re-select the drive that has XP installed as boot drive, then I could boot up into Win 7 again.

There is only one entry in BCD as I had already deleted the XP entry.

.Default: Windows 7
Timeout: 5 seconds.
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

What on earth am I doing wrong?
If I unplug the drive with XP on it I get the flashing cursor too.

I'm about ready to give up after two days of trying and just stay with a dual booth system (BTW, XP doesn't show up as a boot option upon start up now as you would expect given the above info).
 
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Sorry, forgot that that thread was before the UI redesign.
Should have said "BCD Install/Repair" "Change boot drive" (not Diagnostics)
Were you using the latest build ?
Did you point it to the W7 drive letter as seen by XP.
 
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Terry60 said:
Sorry, forgot that that thread was before the UI redesign.
Should have said "BCD Install/Repair" "Change boot drive" (not Diagnostics)
Were you using the latest build ?
Did you point it to the W7 drive letter as seen by XP.
Click to expand...


Are you saying that I need to be in Win XP to do this instead of Win 7?
When I'm in Win 7 I can see all hard drives including the XP hard drive under "my computer" but when I'm in Win XP I can't see the Win 7 hard drive??
 
Sorry again, I must have been really tired when I posted that, or confused between you and one of the other threads.
The point is that the BCD doesn't contain letters, just UIDs.
The letters you see are translations of the UIDs by EasyBCD for your convenience, and reflect the lettering as seen from the system EasyBCD is running on. I mistakenly thought you were running on XP.
Post DM and settings info (details in the sticky) and we'll start from square one.
Presumably, if you can't see W7 from XP, you previously applied this hack ?
 
Terry60 said:
Sorry again, I must have been really tired when I posted that, or confused between you and one of the other threads.
The point is that the BCD doesn't contain letters, just UIDs.
The letters you see are translations of the UIDs by EasyBCD for your convenience, and reflect the lettering as seen from the system EasyBCD is running on. I mistakenly thought you were running on XP.
Post DM and settings info (details in the sticky) and we'll start from square one.
Presumably, if you can't see W7 from XP, you previously applied this hack ?
Click to expand...

Actually I never applied the "hack". I can't set a restore point in Win 7. I feel dumb asking this but I did say I'm no expert, what is DM? and where can I copy "settings" from?...yes, I'm that clueless on some things
 
Terry, here's the DM

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device boot
path \bootmgr
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {8e58e36b-41cb-11df-aae3-fda3e7d5aec0}
resumeobject {1f8184a2-14de-11df-9734-f08c6d8c50b0}
displayorder {8e58e36b-41cb-11df-aae3-fda3e7d5aec0}
{753253bc-41f1-11df-9b1f-002618823c04}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 10
displaybootmenu Yes
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {8e58e36b-41cb-11df-aae3-fda3e7d5aec0}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Professional
locale en-US
recoverysequence {8e58e36c-41cb-11df-aae3-fda3e7d5aec0}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {3fa880ef-41c3-11df-afee-806e6f6e6963}
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {753253bc-41f1-11df-9b1f-002618823c04}
device boot
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP



Addendum:


Terry60 said:
Sorry again, I must have been really tired when I posted that, or confused between you and one of the other threads.
The point is that the BCD doesn't contain letters, just UIDs.
The letters you see are translations of the UIDs by EasyBCD for your convenience, and reflect the lettering as seen from the system EasyBCD is running on. I mistakenly thought you were running on XP.
Post DM and settings info (details in the sticky) and we'll start from square one.
Presumably, if you can't see W7 from XP, you previously applied this hack ?
Click to expand...


Sorry, forgot to include the settings:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default: Windows 7 Professional
Timeout: 10 seconds.
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Professional
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {753253bc-41f1-11df-9b1f-002618823c04}
Device: boot
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

 
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DM is Disk Management, like this
(Control Panel / Admin Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management)
(or Right click "Computer" , select "manage" / Disk Management)
 
Terry60 said:
DM is Disk Management, like this
(Control Panel / Admin Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management)
(or Right click "Computer" , select "manage" / Disk Management)
Click to expand...

Sorry, I assumed it was short for Debugging Mode in easyBCD.

I can't seem to be able to select any of the DM window to copy so I'll just list it as it reads in Win 7:

Disk 0
Sata 1 (G)
149.04 GB NTFS
Healthy (Logical drive)

Disk 1
Win 7 64 DRIVE (C)
232.97 GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Logical Drive)

Disk 2
SATA 2 (H)
232.88 (H)
Healthy (Logical Drive)

Disk 3
SATA 3 (F)
298.09 GB NTFS
Healthy (Primary Partition)

Disk 4
WIN XP 32 DRIVE (D)
149.05 GB NTFS
Healthy (System, Active, Primarty Partition)

CD-ROM 0

Hope this helps to trouble-shoot my problem
 
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I'm sorry but you can't have copied that correctly.
You have a partition that's both logical and active.
Only a primary partition can be active.
If Vista really is logical, that explains why you can't get rid of XP.
Windows can only boot from a primary partition.
DOS ,Windows 95,98, and ME could only be installed in the first primary
Since XP, you can install a Windows OS in a logical drive, but you can't boot it from there.
You have to have the boot files (the "system" partition) in a primary.
Your only option, if the rest of the information is correct is to "change boot drive" to F:, (your only other primary) and put that top of the HDD boot sequence.
Then you'll be able to format XP.

btw
The sticky explains how to attach a screenshot.
 
Terry60 said:
I'm sorry but you can't have copied that correctly.
You have a partition that's both logical and active.
Only a primary partition can be active.
If Vista really is logical, that explains why you can't get rid of XP.
Windows can only boot from a primary partition.
DOS ,Windows 95,98, and ME could only be installed in the first primary
Since XP, you can install a Windows OS in a logical drive, but you can't boot it from there.
You have to have the boot files (the "system" partition) in a primary.
Your only option, if the rest of the information is correct is to "change boot drive" to F:, (your only other primary) and put that top of the HDD boot sequence.
Then you'll be able to format XP.

btw
The sticky explains how to attach a screenshot.
Click to expand...


I''ll make another attempt at capturing the requested screenshot tomorrow morning. In the meantime please be reassured that I copied the information excatly as it was displayed..word for word, symbol for symbol, My system exists as I have stated, rightly or wrongly, sorry but what more can I say.
 
Terry60 said:
I'm sorry but you can't have copied that correctly.
You have a partition that's both logical and active.
Only a primary partition can be active.
If Vista really is logical, that explains why you can't get rid of XP.
Windows can only boot from a primary partition.
DOS ,Windows 95,98, and ME could only be installed in the first primary
Since XP, you can install a Windows OS in a logical drive, but you can't boot it from there.
You have to have the boot files (the "system" partition) in a primary.
Your only option, if the rest of the information is correct is to "change boot drive" to F:, (your only other primary) and put that top of the HDD boot sequence.
Then you'll be able to format XP.

btw
The sticky explains how to attach a screenshot.
Click to expand...


OK, here's the requested screen shot, please note that its Win 7 not Vista if that makes any difference
BTW,instead of using F drive as the boot drive is there anyway I can clone the existing Win 7 drive onto a new drive that has been set up as an active drive? Can you clone from a logical formatted drive to an active formatted drive successfully. I have Migrate Easy software and a THermaltake BlackX drive copy setup. I don't believe that the Win 7 drive is partitioned so I could use cloning software.
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And which disk is set first in the boot sequence in your BIOS? Disk 4?

Either DM is messing up or it really is logical. Partition Wizard may be able to convert it to a primary and than you need to set the partition active and use EasyBCD's change boot drive feature to relocate the boot files to your Windows 7 partition before it'll be independant.
 
Vista /W7. It makes no difference, same rules apply to all Windows from XP onwards.
Why on earth did you make those HDDs logical ?
The concept of the logical drive was invented when HDDs got large enough, that the limit of 4 partitions became restrictive. The limit of 4 (primary) partitions was changed to 3 primary and 1 extended (the MBR partition table only has 4 spaces), and the extended partition was used as a partition table extension, which could contain multiple extra (logical) partitions.
There's no point in having logicals unless you need 5 or more partitions per HDD.
You'll have to boot from F or D unless you reinstall W7 to a primary, or you have a partition manager with the capability of converting a logical to a primary.
Apologies about your copying capability, but that "active" flag is impossible, so I guess that's another DM display bug, or your partition table is corrupt.


NOTE TO CG
I thought latest builds threw up a message if a "change boot drive" was pointed to a logical drive .
Is that something that got broken in the UI redesign ?
Is that where the spurious "active" came from ?
 

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kairozamorro said:
And which disk is set first in the boot sequence in your BIOS? Disk 4?

Either DM is messing up or it really is logical. Partition Wizard may be able to convert it to a primary and than you need to set the partition active and use EasyBCD's change boot drive feature to relocate the boot files to your Windows 7 partition before it'll be independant.
Click to expand...

OK I used Partition Wizard to convert the Win7 hard drive from Logical to Primary. It seem to generate a small 8 MB Unallocated Partician sector as well (see below).
What do i do next?

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Set that partition as "active" now, move the boot files to it with EasyBCD and disconnect XP's drive to see if you can boot W7 by itself.
 
kairozamorro said:
Set that partition as "active" now, move the boot files to it with EasyBCD and disconnect XP's drive to see if you can boot W7 by itself.
Click to expand...


OK guys I'm up and running...thank you so much for tutoring me.
I've pulled my XP drive and Win 7 boots up perfectly. I'll wait until tomorrow Am and make sure that all is still well then I'll reformat the XP drive and make some use of it
Thanks again!
 
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