Multiple Boot issue OSX ML , win 7 and win 8

mageekm

Member
I am successfully booting all three operating systems on my Dell Laptop 17R n7010. How i got it all running is convoluted and i have lost the ability to edit my MBR with EasyBCD. I need help fine tuning where I am at.

Currently, my hard drive is carved into six partitions using MBR type drive. my initial boot is Chameleon 2.2 which gives me the option to boot either OSX or my System Reserved partition. The OSX option boots cleanly into ML 10.8.2 and System Reserved partition boots to my original EasyBCD setup giving me the option to select either Win7 or Win8, each setup in their own partition. This works perfectly, but I can no longer edit my boot settings with EasyBCD or BCDedit as they want control of the hard drive MBR record (i assume). In win7, EasyBCD can't see the prior work store on the System Partition and is asking to create new. Same with BCDedit.

my question is: is there a way to tell EasyBCD to find what it needs from the System Reserved partition instead of wiping out the Chameleon 2.2 work?
 
When EasyBCD starts, if it is unable to find a BCD on the active partition of the first drive in the boot sequence, it will ask you where the BCD is located.
Just point it in the right place. It won't change your boot setup.
Any changes you make to the Windows boot menu won't affect your MBR.
As long as you don't use the BCD Deployment > Install Vista/7 boot loader > write MBR, the changes you make are just inside the BCD.
 
Terry,

Sorry for being slow on the draw on this one, but isn't my BCD stored on a System Reserved partition? Right now I am on Drive C: on my Win7 system. It is partition hd(0,2).
my hd(0,0) is my extended partition, and hd(0,1) is my System Reserved (100mb) partition. hd(0,3) is my OSX partitiion. my win8 partition and two others are subsets of the extended partition.

i believe EasyBCD is asking for a file location that is not available to me in Win7? correct? Can i make the System Reserved partition visible?
 
Yes, since it's just a Windows application, it uses an explorer dialogue to navigate to the BCD, so you will need explorer to be able to see the drive. Just give it a letter until you've made whatever changes you want, then you can remove the letter if you so desire.
There's no harm in leaving it visible unless you're running short on letters. There's absolutely no reason (bar one) why it needs to be in a partition of its own anyway. My W7 and W8 both have their boot files on the C disk. (The one case is if you want an encrypted OS, in which case you need to keep the bootmgr outside the encrypted zone)
 
Terry,

Excellent, I used Disk Admin to assign a drive letter and was then able to point to the drive and retrieve the BCD. Thank you!

I have another issue that involves memory upgrades and setting some BCD flags. This might be a new use for EasyBCD that could help a lot of people. I will start a new thread.
 
I am new to the forum, am in MCITP and i will like to learn more and as well contribute more to the forum as there are more nice IT person's here. I thank you Admin for giving me the chance to join.
What actually brought me here was that i was researching on how i will dual boot my windows 7 with windows XP which was giving me problems, but some one directed me to the forum to download EasyBCD.
But i promise i will not go off site because i will continue to be a family to the forum at all time.
Thanks to everybody here and as well thanks to the site that i had the referral to this wonderful forum ( Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP )
 
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