Triple boot no longer works.. only XP does

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frustrated999

Distinguished Member
Had a working triple boot system, XP, Vista and Windows7. Over the weekend I was working in XP and did two things. I installed an anti-keylogging security app as well as moving some free space from further down the drive and added it to the XP volume. Now neither Windows7 Ultimate RTM boot (The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible) nor Vista (The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt) boot.

I am using HideNSeek along with EasyBCD to handle the bootup. I already uninstalled the ant-keylogger software from XP but that did not help. Did the process of adding additional space cause the problem?
 

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That's how you broke the boot then.
Note that DM "shrink" and "extend" only allow the end of the partition to be moved, never the start.
The BCD describes exactly where the OS is, HDD and offset. Move it and the boot is broken.
Follow CG's link to repair the BCD, but remove HnS first, then reinstall it afterwards, otherwise you'll leave it half installed and broken too.
 
Thanks. Fixed the problem. Did not see your post re uninstalling HnS first. Had to fix it after fixing the bootup. HnS was installed in Vista so could HnS be uninstalled via XP since neither Win7 nor Vista were bootable.
 
If you've repaired the BCD and are running a standard MS bootmgr now, make sure that you do a clean-up and remove any files with a .hns filetype before running the HnS UI again.
 
Attached is a screenshot of the current drive layout. The Win7 partition is running a bit low on space and I would like to enlarge it by doing one of two things. Add some of the free space before the Win7 partition on to it OR moving some of the free space further down the drive up to the end of Win7 partiton. I assume the latter would cause me the least amount of booting problems with XP and Win7.
 

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Best to use the unallocated space before W7's partition. Moving the partitions around too much could be disaterous.
 
kairozamorro said:
Best to use the unallocated space before W7's partition. Moving the partitions around too much could be disaterous.
Click to expand...

Won't that cause boot problems with Win7 per Terry's comment earlier in this thread "The BCD describes exactly where the OS is, HDD and offset. Move it and the boot is broken."
 
I have several partition managers I just do not want to wind up with an unbootable Win7 partition.

Terry60 indicated the following previously:
"The BCD describes exactly where the OS is, HDD and offset. Move it and the boot is broken.'

I took that to mean that if I move the beginning of the Win7 partition (primary partition after XP and unallocated space) then the offset would be changed resulting in an non booting Win7.
 
There are vista/7 compatible 3rd party partition managers which will automatically fix the BCD if you move the OS, and older ones which will leave the OS unbootable until you fix it yourself.
Check the documentation on the one you intend using.
 
To the best of my knowledge, simply resizing a partition will *not* break the Windows Vista bootloader. Swapping partitions around will, though, and creating a new partition before an existing one may or may not depending on the details of how it was done.
 
frustrated999 said:
Attached is a screenshot of the current drive layout. The Win7 partition is running a bit low on space and I would like to enlarge it by doing one of two things. Add some of the free space before the Win7 partition on to it OR moving some of the free space further down the drive up to the end of Win7 partiton. I assume the latter would cause me the least amount of booting problems with XP and Win7.
Click to expand...
First of all, you should never try to resize a partition to use up space before it on the disk. In fact, any decent partitioning software should not even allow you to do so. You should always expand a partition into free space after the partition you're resizing. In your case, you will need to either slide/move W7's partition into the free space behind it or move the two logical partitions in between W7's partition and the free space forward, and then the extended partition which contains the two logicals forward, so that the free space is now right before W7's partition. Then you can expand.
Either way, sliding/moving a partition is necessary to safely get what you want done done.
I have done this all the time with a 3rd partition/boot manager whose name I wont mention per CG's request as its propriety software, and not freeware, and it works great.
 
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Coolname007 said:
Either way, sliding/moving a partition is necessary to safely get what you want done done.
I have done this all the time with a 3rd partition/boot manager whose name I wont mention per CG's request as its propriety software, and not freeware, and it works great.
Click to expand...

I understand. So I could move the Win7 towards the XP at the beginning of the drive far enough so that part of the 40 GB free space, currently before Win7 partition will wind up after Win7. Then I can expand the end of the Win7 partition into the free space to the right of it and this will not cause any problems with Win7 not being able to boot? So the offset to the Win7 parttition that Terry had mentioned, would not be less in this case causing Win7 boot problems?
 
Changing the start position of the partition breaks the boot because the BCD UID contains that information.
Compatible 3rd party apps will fix the BCD as part of the move, otherwise you need to fix it yourself, as described in the link CG gave.
MS Disk Management (who you'd think of all people should be able to handle the BCD), just get around the problem by not allowing you to move the start, just the end.
Just because you can't do it with MS DM, doesn't mean you can't do it.
 
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